What Is The Tarot Deck Origin?

The tarot decks, originally known as Trionfi during the fifteenth century, were later renamed Tarocho in Brescia around 1502. In the 16th century, a new game called Trionfa emerged with a standard deck but sharing a similar name. Alastair Crowley, a prolific writer, member of several secret societies, and founder of his own religion, had an enduring fascination with the tarot. He collaborated with artist Lady from 1938 to 1942.

The Rider-Waite Tarot deck, created in 1909, is one of the most widely used decks in existence. It features 78 cards and an instructional booklet. The oldest surviving tarot cards are the 15 or so decks of the Visconti-Sforza Tarot painted in the mid-15th century for the rulers of the Duchy of Milan. In 15th century Italy, the set of cards included in tarot packs, including trumps, seemed to be consistent, even if naming and ordering varied.

Tarot decks were invented in Italy in the 1430s by adding a fifth suit of 21 specially illustrated cards called trionfi to the existing four-suited pack. The Rider-Waite deck, once considered revolutionary, has become the most popular and well-known tarot deck in the world, setting the standard for hundreds of other decks. The Rider Waite Smith Tarot is a widely popular deck for tarot card reading, first published by the Rider Company in 1909.

What is the most used tarot deck?

The Rider Waite Smith Tarot is a popular deck for tarot card reading, first published by the Rider Company in 1909. It was based on the instructions of academic and mystic A. E. Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith, both members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The deck has been published in numerous editions and inspired a wide array of variants and imitations. Over 100 million copies circulate across 20 countries.

The images in the deck are simple but feature abundant symbolism. Some imagery remains similar to earlier decks, but overall, the Waite-Smith card designs are substantially different from their predecessors. Christian imagery was removed from some cards and added to others, such as the “Papess” becoming the “High Priestess” and the “Lovers” card resembling naked Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The Minor Arcana is illustrated with allegorical scenes by Smith, unlike earlier decks.

Symbols and imagery in the deck were influenced by 19th-century magician and occultist Eliphas Levi and the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. To accommodate astrological correspondences taught by the Golden Dawn, Waite introduced several innovations to the deck, such as changing the order of the Strength and Justice cards to correspond with Leo and Libra, and based the Lovers card on Italian tarot decks.

What is the traditional tarot deck?

The modern tarot deck, based on the Venetian or Piedmontese tarot, consists of 78 cards divided into two groups: the major arcana (22 trumps) and the minor arcana (56 cards). The major arcana features pictures representing various forces, characters, virtues, and vices, numbered I through XXI. The cards are arranged in a series of order, from juggler to papess, empress to emperor, pope to lovers, chariot to justice, hermit to wheel of fortune, strength to death, temperance to devil, lightning-struck tower to star, moon to sun, last judgment to world, and the fool.

The minor arcana consists of four suits of 14 cards each, similar to modern playing cards. Each suit has 4 court cards (king, queen, knight, and jack) and 10 numbered cards, with the value progression in ascending order from ace to 10, then jack, knight, queen, and king.

What is the oldest tarot deck in existence?

The Sola Busca is the oldest complete seventy-eight card tarot deck in existence, named after the Milanese nobles who owned it for five generations. It was the first to be produced using copperplate engraving and is the earliest known tarot deck that illustrates the Major and Minor Trumps in the way that has become the standard. In 1909, Arthur Edward Waite commissioned artist Pamela Colman-Smith to illustrate his The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, drawing inspiration from the Sola Busca deck.

The Tarot’s genius lies in its multivocality, its ability to convey manifold meanings independent of the interrogator. Shorn from historical, mythological, and pictorial associations available to users in fifteenth-century Venice or Ferrara, the Sola Busca deck is limited in its use for divinatory purposes today. However, its enigmatic imagery invites decoding, and the deck still beckons twenty-first-century cartomancers into a game of high imagination. Online Tarot forums host freewheeling speculation about the Sola Busca’s sources and meanings, while scholarly interpretations continue to be tentative and provisional.

The Fatis of the Tarot, particularly this magnificent work of Renaissance art, remains “in the stars”, pulling us fatefully toward its endless riddles. The Sola Busca deck is a mystery that continues to captivate and inspire modern cartomancers and scholars alike.

Is tarot ok for Christians?

The notion that tarot cards can exert control over one’s life is a pervasive one, yet there is a paucity of empirical evidence to substantiate this claim.

Which is the strongest tarot card?

The Fool is a card in tarot games, not part of the Major Arcana. In most games, the Fool is independent of both plain suit cards and trump cards, and does not belong to either category. Tarot decks originally made for game playing do not assign a number to the Fool indicating its rank in the suit of trumps. The Fool is one of the most valuable cards in almost all tarot games.

In tarot games originating from Italy and France, the Fool has a unique role, sometimes called “the Excuse”. In these games, the player excuses the player from following suit or playing a trump. At the end of the trick, the player takes back the Fool and adds it to their trick pile, giving the trick’s winner the least valuable card from that same pile. If there are no cards to give in exchange, the Fool is worth one point less and an extra point is given to the trick-taker.

In a minor variant option of French tarot, a player dealt trump 1 but with no other trumps or the Fool can make trump 1 behave the same as the Fool. In official tournament rules, a player in this situation must declare their hand and force a redeal.

What was the original tarot deck?

Tarot cards originated in Europe during the mid-15th century, with the earliest known decks being created in Italy for a game called tarocchi. These decks, like the Visconti-Sforza deck, were hand-painted and commissioned by wealthy families as symbols of their status. The Major Arcana, consisting of 22 cards, represents life lessons, spiritual themes, and archetypal energies, with each card having its own unique symbolism.

The Minor Arcana, consisting of four suits (Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles) corresponds to the elements of fire, water, air, and earth, focusing on everyday matters, personal experiences, and challenges and opportunities encountered in life.

What is the science behind tarot cards?

Tarot cards have been found to have psychological influences, but they can still have beneficial effects on a person’s mental health when used in a therapeutic context. A 2009 study found that regular users of Tarot cards used them as a tool for self-reflection, providing insight into their current life situations and providing comfort during difficult times. They also used Tarot cards as a tool for positive reinforcement, drawing cards intentionally and randomly to provide insights about their own lives.

Some co-researchers kept a card with them until their goals were resolved, claiming that Tarot does not reveal new information but can provide a new perspective on an issue that can influence a plan for a possible course of action.

This study highlights the potential of Tarot as an effective therapeutic tool, despite the foundational psychological effects behind its mainstream use. Further research on the beneficial impacts of Tarot in a therapeutic setting would involve examining a larger number of participants from a wider variety of backgrounds. Regardless of the reason behind a person’s use of Tarot cards, they have maintained a strong presence in society and have the potential to do more than just predict the future.

Where did tarot originate?

Tarot cards originated in Europe during the mid-15th century, with the earliest known decks being created in Italy for a game called tarocchi. These decks, like the Visconti-Sforza deck, were hand-painted and commissioned by wealthy families as symbols of their status. The Major Arcana, consisting of 22 cards, represents life lessons, spiritual themes, and archetypal energies, with each card having its own unique symbolism.

The Minor Arcana, consisting of four suits (Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles) corresponds to the elements of fire, water, air, and earth, focusing on everyday matters, personal experiences, and challenges and opportunities encountered in life.

What is the true origin of tarot cards?

Tarot cards originated in Europe during the mid-15th century, with the earliest known decks being created in Italy for a game called tarocchi. These decks, like the Visconti-Sforza deck, were hand-painted and commissioned by wealthy families as symbols of their status. The Major Arcana, consisting of 22 cards, represents life lessons, spiritual themes, and archetypal energies, with each card having its own unique symbolism.

The Minor Arcana, consisting of four suits (Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles) corresponds to the elements of fire, water, air, and earth, focusing on everyday matters, personal experiences, and challenges and opportunities encountered in life.

What is the main tarot deck?

The Major Arcana are the 22 named cards in a cartomantic tarot pack, typically numbered from 0 to 21. These cards are used for divination by occultists, while the Minor Arcana consists of 56 unnamed cards. Before the 17th century, tarot cards were used for playing games, with the Fool and 21 trumps having simple allegorical or esoteric meanings. The occult significance began to emerge in the 18th century when Swiss clergyman and Freemason Antoine Court de Gébelin published two essays on Tarot in his encyclopedia, Le Monde Primitif.

Court de Gébelin assigned Egyptian, kabbalistic, and divine significance to the tarot trumps in his first essay, “Du Jeu des Tarots” (The Game of Tarots). The term “Major Arcana” is rarely used by players and is typically associated with divination by occultists.

Is tarot card reading true?

Early French occultists claimed that tarot cards had esoteric links to ancient Egypt, the Kabbalah, Indic Tantra, or the I Ching. However, scholarly research reveals that tarot cards were invented in Italy in the early 15th century for playing games, and there is no evidence of significant use of them for divination until the late 18th century. The belief in the divinatory meaning of the cards is closely associated with a belief in their occult properties, which was propagated by prominent Protestant Christian clerics and Freemasons.

From its uptake as an instrument of divination in 18th-century France, the tarot went on to be used in hermeneutic, magical, mystical, semiotic, and psychological practices. It was used by Romani people when telling fortunes and as a Jungian psychological apparatus for tapping into “absolute knowledge in the unconscious”, a tool for archetypal analysis, and even a tool for facilitating the Jungian process of individuation.