The devil’s picture book, the gateway drug to the occult, a mysterious deck of 78 cards with numerous origin myths that has the potential to guide us on the past, present, future and alternate timelines. What on earth is the Tarot, actually?
There is a more or less traceable progression through history of tarot’s adoption and adaptations across Western Europe. It first emerged in the mid-1400s as a card game of affluent families in north Italy. It was not recorded as a tool for divination until 300 years later.
Etteilla (born Jean-Baptiste Alliette) was said to have pioneered the use of tarot in cartomancy. Later, French occultist Eliphas Levi (born Alphonse Louis Constant) drew correlations between tarot and Kabbalah. In the late-19th century the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn incorporated tarot as a key component of their occult studies and initiation ceremonies.
Once adopted for divination and ceremonial magic, tarot cards proved themselves so effective, and with such strong convergence with other esoteric systems that many have felt, since the 19th century, that the cards must have a more mysterious origin, such as ancient Egypt or India. Some authors have argued that Kabbalist imagery exists in the cards, hidden in plain sight. However, it is unlikely that tarot predates playing cards, invented in China during the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE).
Over time, tarot has developed and been refined into what we now know – 22 Major arcana and 56 Minor arcana, with the Minors split into four suits (typically Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles/Disks).
“The Tarot is justified not by faith, but by works”
Aleister Crowley
It’s natural to want to understand tarot’s origins, but I don’t believe its legitimacy rests on its provenance. We use tarot because it works. That it’s been adopted and adapted through multiple countries and cultures speaks to its capacity as a spiritual or reflective tool, not its credibility.