The tarot (also known as tarocchi, tarock or similar names) is typically a set of seventy-eight cards, composed of twenty-one trump cards, one Fool, and four suits of fourteen cards each—ten pip and four face cards (one more face card per suit than in Anglo-American playing cards).
Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play Tarot card games such as Italian Tarocchini and French Tarot.[1] In English-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards are utilized primarily for divinatory purposes[1][2], with the trump cards plus the Fool card making up the twenty-two major arcana cards and the pip and four face cards the fifty-six minor arcana. The divinatory meanings of the cards are derived mostly from the Kabbalah of Jewish mysticism and from Medieval Alchemy.
The first wide publicity of divination by tarot came from a French occultist named Alliette, under the pseudonym "Etteilla" (his name reversed), who worked as a seer and card diviner shortly before the French Revolution. Etteilla designed the first esoteric Tarot deck, adding astrological attributions and "Egyptian" motifs to various cards, altering many of them from the Marseilles designs, and adding divinatory meanings in text on the cards. Later, Mademoiselle Marie-Anne Le Normand popularized divination in general during the reign of Napoleon I, through the influence she wielded over Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon's first wife.[clarification needed] However, she did not typically use Tarot.
Tarot cards eventually came to be associated with mysticism and magic.[6] Tarot was not widely adopted by mystics, occultists and secret societies until the 18th and 19th centuries. The tradition began in 1781, when Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Swiss clergyman and Freemason, published Le Monde Primitif, a speculative study which included religious symbolism and its survivals in the modern world. De Gébelin first asserted that symbolism of the Tarot de Marseille represented the mysteries of Isis and Thoth. Gébelin further claimed that the name "tarot" came from the Egyptian words tar, meaning "royal", and ro, meaning "road", and that the Tarot therefore represented a "royal road" to wisdom. De Gébelin also asserted that the Gypsies, who were among the first to use cards for divination, were descendants of the Ancient Egyptians (hence their common name; though by this time it was more popularly used as a stereotype for any nomadic tribe) and had introduced the cards to Europe. De Gébelin wrote this treatise before Jean-François Champollion had deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, or indeed before the Rosetta Stone had been discovered, and later Egyptologists found nothing in the Egyptian language to support de Gébelin's fanciful etymologies. Despite this, the identification of the Tarot cards with the Egyptian "Book of Thoth" was already firmly established in occult practice and continues in modern urban legend to the present day.
The idea of the cards as a mystical key was further developed by Eliphas Lévi and passed to the English-speaking world by The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Lévi, not Etteilla, is considered by some to be the true founder of most contemporary schools of Tarot; his 1854 Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (English title: Transcendental Magic) introduced an interpretation of the cards which related them to Hermetic Qabalah. While Lévi accepted Court de Gébelin's claims about an Egyptian origin of the deck symbols, he rejected Etteilla's innovations and his altered deck, and devised instead a system which related the Tarot, especially the Tarot de Marseille, to the Hermetic Qabalah and the four elements of alchemy.
Tarot divination became increasingly popular in the New World from 1910, with the publication of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot (designed and executed by two members of the Golden Dawn), which replaced the traditionally simple pip cards with images of symbolic scenes. This deck also further obscured the Christian allegories of the Tarot de Marseilles and of Eliphas Levi's decks by changing some attributions (for instance changing "The Pope" to "The Hierophant" and "The Popess" to "The High Priestess"). The Rider-Waite-Smith deck still remains extremely popular in the English-speaking world.
Since then a huge number of different decks have been created, some traditional, some vastly different. The use of Tarot for divination, or as a store of symbolism, has inspired the creation of Oracle card decks. These are card decks for inspiration or divination containing images of angels, fairies, goddesses, Power Animals, etc. Although obviously influenced by Tarot, they do not follow the traditional structure of Tarot; they lack any suits of numbered cards, and the set of cards differs from the traditional major arcana.
Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play Tarot card games such as Italian Tarocchini and French Tarot.[1] In English-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards are utilized primarily for divinatory purposes[1][2], with the trump cards plus the Fool card making up the twenty-two major arcana cards and the pip and four face cards the fifty-six minor arcana. The divinatory meanings of the cards are derived mostly from the Kabbalah of Jewish mysticism and from Medieval Alchemy.
The first wide publicity of divination by tarot came from a French occultist named Alliette, under the pseudonym "Etteilla" (his name reversed), who worked as a seer and card diviner shortly before the French Revolution. Etteilla designed the first esoteric Tarot deck, adding astrological attributions and "Egyptian" motifs to various cards, altering many of them from the Marseilles designs, and adding divinatory meanings in text on the cards. Later, Mademoiselle Marie-Anne Le Normand popularized divination in general during the reign of Napoleon I, through the influence she wielded over Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon's first wife.[clarification needed] However, she did not typically use Tarot.
Tarot cards eventually came to be associated with mysticism and magic.[6] Tarot was not widely adopted by mystics, occultists and secret societies until the 18th and 19th centuries. The tradition began in 1781, when Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Swiss clergyman and Freemason, published Le Monde Primitif, a speculative study which included religious symbolism and its survivals in the modern world. De Gébelin first asserted that symbolism of the Tarot de Marseille represented the mysteries of Isis and Thoth. Gébelin further claimed that the name "tarot" came from the Egyptian words tar, meaning "royal", and ro, meaning "road", and that the Tarot therefore represented a "royal road" to wisdom. De Gébelin also asserted that the Gypsies, who were among the first to use cards for divination, were descendants of the Ancient Egyptians (hence their common name; though by this time it was more popularly used as a stereotype for any nomadic tribe) and had introduced the cards to Europe. De Gébelin wrote this treatise before Jean-François Champollion had deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, or indeed before the Rosetta Stone had been discovered, and later Egyptologists found nothing in the Egyptian language to support de Gébelin's fanciful etymologies. Despite this, the identification of the Tarot cards with the Egyptian "Book of Thoth" was already firmly established in occult practice and continues in modern urban legend to the present day.
The idea of the cards as a mystical key was further developed by Eliphas Lévi and passed to the English-speaking world by The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Lévi, not Etteilla, is considered by some to be the true founder of most contemporary schools of Tarot; his 1854 Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (English title: Transcendental Magic) introduced an interpretation of the cards which related them to Hermetic Qabalah. While Lévi accepted Court de Gébelin's claims about an Egyptian origin of the deck symbols, he rejected Etteilla's innovations and his altered deck, and devised instead a system which related the Tarot, especially the Tarot de Marseille, to the Hermetic Qabalah and the four elements of alchemy.
Tarot divination became increasingly popular in the New World from 1910, with the publication of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot (designed and executed by two members of the Golden Dawn), which replaced the traditionally simple pip cards with images of symbolic scenes. This deck also further obscured the Christian allegories of the Tarot de Marseilles and of Eliphas Levi's decks by changing some attributions (for instance changing "The Pope" to "The Hierophant" and "The Popess" to "The High Priestess"). The Rider-Waite-Smith deck still remains extremely popular in the English-speaking world.
Since then a huge number of different decks have been created, some traditional, some vastly different. The use of Tarot for divination, or as a store of symbolism, has inspired the creation of Oracle card decks. These are card decks for inspiration or divination containing images of angels, fairies, goddesses, Power Animals, etc. Although obviously influenced by Tarot, they do not follow the traditional structure of Tarot; they lack any suits of numbered cards, and the set of cards differs from the traditional major arcana.
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