Where The Tarot Comes From

The Origins of Tarot

There is no agreed-upon origin for Tarot cards.  Trying to understand where they came from, can be as confusing as it is for the uninitiated to identify their symbols. There are four common origin theories known today.  Yet even within these theories, there are conflicting schools of thought.

Origin Theory 1: Historical

From an academic point of view, no one knows where Tarot cards originated.  Playing cards, from which Tarot cards probably evolved, existed in China in the 9th century AD, long before they appeared in Europe. Some historians believe this is where the story starts.

Other historians think the Tarot cards come from Islamic cultures, most particularly Persia.  In his book Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Ancient Roots to Modern Usage, Paul Huson discusses the similarities between traditional Islamic motifs and symbols found on Tarot cards.  For Huson, as for many historians, Tarot cards’ symbols are a mix of Islamic, pagan, and early Christian iconography, with other elements added as time went on.

Still another theory is that Tarot cards originated in India; some people have pointed out similarities between the suits and the caste systems, and the Arcana and representations of Hindu deities.

It’s possible that all of these ideas are correct: perhaps Chinese playing cards were brought by travelers to India, where they were adapted to the culture, and then through Persia, where further changes were made, before they arrived in Europe.

One thing historians do agree on is that Tarot cards were known and used in Europe by the fourteenth century AD. Numerous sources give the date 1332 as the first written mention of Tarot cards, from a decree by King Alfonse XI of Leon and Castile, banning them and other games of chance. Tarot was, in fact, a game.  It was called “trionfi” in Italy, a country where the cards were especially popular.  The name later evolved to “tarrochi”, which is probably the origin of the word “Tarot” – although this theory, like most theories associated with the cards’ origin, is debated.  The oldest Tarot cards that survive today are Italian, and date to the mid-fifteenth century.  The Marseilles Tarot, a version of these Italian Tarot cards that was printed in Marseilles and has been the basis for most decks, probably dates from around 1450-1499.

While Tarot cards were originally used for a game (which is still played in some places), there are two camps about the cards’ historical beginnings as a means of divination.  Some historians believe that this had been going on since Tarot’s origin.  In the pamphlet “Cartomancy: History and Legend of a Prophetic Art”, Alain Bougearel, Ross Sinclair Caldwell, Giordano Berti, and Andrea Vitali cite Spanish and Italian documents from the late 15thand early 16th centuries that give concrete examples of Tarot and other cards being used for magical or divinatory purposes.  From the documents, we can infer that this wasn’t a new concept; Tarot may have been used in divination long before that time.

Other historians believe using Tarot cards for divination started in the 18th century AD, when mystics like Court de Gébelin and Etteilla developed theories about where the cards came from, and the powers they contained.

Origin Theory 2: Court de Gébelin, Etteilla, and the Egyptian Theory

Antoine Court de Gébelin was a Swiss clergyman who believed that Tarot cards dated back to Ancient Egypt, and contained powerful, age-old knowledge that had been lost with time.  Hieroglyphics hadn’t been translated when he published his theory in a book in 1781; he was inspired by a strong instinctive knowledge he felt when he saw a group of people playing the Tarot game.

In 1785, Jean-Baptiste Alliette, a French mystic who went by the name of Etteilla, further developed Court de Gébelin’s theory, tying the cards to the Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth, which contained invaluable knowledge about our world and the universe.  The book’s pages, Etteilla wrote, had been made of gold.  Over time, they were reproduced, until their original motifs and meanings were obscured or lost.  He tried to find images on the cards that had remained the same since ancient times.  Using this method, he created his own Tarot deck, the first specifically designed for esoteric use.

Tarot became immensely popular in the 18th through mid-19th centuries.  At the height of this popularity, another mystic scholar, Eliphas Lévi, suggested that the origin of Tarot cards didn’t lie in ancient Egypt, but in the Hebrew people.

Origin Theory 3: Eliphas Levi, Israelites, and the Kabbalah connection

In the mid-19th century, Alphonse Louis Constant, writing under the penname of Eliphas Lévi Zahed, (often simply referred to as Eliphas Lévi), came to believe that in times of persecution, the Israelites and their descendants had found a way to safely preserve their religion’s most important teachings.  This included ideas from Kabbalah, a group of mystic Jewish writings that attempt to explain the relationship between God and human beings.  In trying to decipher Tarot cards’ true meanings, just as in coming to a point of true enlightenment in Kabbalistic studies, a person might see the face of God.  As concrete evidence of this connection, Lévi proposed that each of the Tarot’s 22 major Arcana cards corresponded to a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  He also thought that the four suits could be transcribed “YHVH”, or “Yahweh”, the Israelites’ name of God.

Another well-known Tarot origin theory also finds a Judeo-Christian message hidden within the symbols of the cards.

Origin Theory 4: The Knights Templar

The Knights Templar, an order founded in 1119 to protect Crusaders on the roads to the Holy Land, came to have a major influence in many areas of European life.  Many people believe that the Templars knew secrets about Christ and his family, as well as the locations of great treasures of riches and knowledge from antiquity.

It’s said that the Templars used the symbols on Tarot cards as a way to share these secrets with each other, and with other trusted Christians.  People who believe in this theory think that if we could decipher the symbols on the cards, we could find answers to centuries-old questions about God, Christ, and the Holy Family.

The 20th Century

Luckily, it’s easier to identify Tarot cards’ more recent history.  In 1909, commissioned by the Order of the Golden Dawn, mystic A.E. Rider created a new Tarot deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith.  Originally published in London by the Rider Company, the Rider-Waite deck is the one most used in Anglo-Saxon countries today.  A few decades later, in 1951-1952, Carl Jung included divination tools like the I Ching and the Tarot into his theory of synchronicity (the connection of the human mind to the laws of the universe).

Today, there are even more versions of Tarot decks than there are theories about Tarot’s origins. All of these origin theories can be convincingly explained – or brushed away as if meaningless.  Perhaps this is fitting: just as a person must do when reading the cards, maybe to understand Tarot’s beginnings, we must use a combination of knowledge, experience and intuition, to find the theory that fits.