History of Tarot Cards

The word 'tarot' is commonly believed to have originated from the Arab word 'turuq', meaning four ways. Tarot cards consist of twenty-one trump cards, the fool and an extra card per suit along with the usual suit of playing cards. Tarot cards are used in many parts of Europe to play card games and for purposes of divination. The earliest use of tarot cards can be traced back to the 14th century. The popularity of tarot cards for fortune-telling is as old as a few centuries ago. The history of Tarot cards describes the evolution of tarot cards from the decks of the olden days to the different types of decks of the present times.

History of Tarot Cards
Tarot cards, which were an early form of today’s playing cards, entered Europe in the 14th century. Feliciano Busi described the tarot cards as being "from Saracinia" or Arabia. Then, they were used to play a game called tarocchi. Some theories suggest that tarot cards were created around 1410 to 1430 in Milan, Ferrara or Bologna in northern Italy and that some additional trump cards were later added to the suit. These new cards were known as the triumph cards. They began to be used to play a card game similar to bridge. The game of triumphs gained popularity in the northern regions of Italy and eastern France. The cards underwent certain changes in pictures and symbols depicted on them. Tarot cards soon became popular in Sicily, Austria and Germany. This type of tarot cards exists in the form of fifteen fragmented decks painted in the 15th century for the rulers of Milan.

After hundreds of years from then, people who believed in occult started regarding tarot cards as means of divination. The French and the English people were fascinated by the mystical symbolism of the tarot cards. This led to the tarot cards being used as divination tools.

Most of the civil governments of those times had banned the use of playing cards but the tarot cards were an exception. This makes evident the general acceptance of tarot cards in society.

During the earlier times, mass production of tarot cards was not possible. The tarot cards used to be hand-painted. With the invention of the printing press, tarot cards came to be produced on a larger scale. Antoine Court, formerly a Protestant pastor initiated the interpretation of tarot. In 1781, he wrote a speculative history describing the use of tarot cards for divination. Gypsies were among the first ones to use tarot cards for divination purposes.

Alliette, a French occultist publicized the concept of using tarot cards for revealing the occult. He designed the first esoteric tarot deck. His design consisted of an addition of astrological ascriptions and some Egyptian motifs to the cards. He also added a divinatory meaning to the text on the cards.

By the 18th and the 19th centuries, the mystics and occultists began using tarot cards. Their use started after a study on religious symbolism by a Swiss clergyman called Antoine Court de Gebelin was published. He proclaimed the name tarot to have originated from the Egyptian word, 'tar' that meant royal and 'ro' meaning road. He suggested that the word tarot signified a royal road to wisdom.

The Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot was published. It replaced the traditional designs with the portrayals of symbolic scenes. This deck remains popular in the English-speaking countries even today. The use of Tarot cards gave rise to the creation of the oracle card decks, which contain images of angels, goddesses and Power animals and are used for divination.

Tarot cards find applications in card games and are popularly believed to serve as means of understanding one's fortune. The pictures and symbols that are featured on the tarot cards are associated with certain happenings in one's future. There is a wide variety in the tarot deck designs. The emergence of tarot cards as a way of divination was an outcome of man's curiosity to discover the hidden future. The history of Tarot cards stands testimony to the human tendency to know things ahead of time. Their popularity further iterates the fact that we are always in search of ways to unfold mysteries.