Tarot's origins are perhaps as misunderstood as the mystical and psychic symbols on the cards themselves.
The earliest deck of tarot cards was a hand-painted set created around 1440 for the Duke of Milan. They were
used for a game similar to bridge and to create amusing poetry. The promotional images and text on some of
the early divination decks claim ancient origins or gypsy ancestry, but most serious sources say the roots of
these symbolic cards can be traced originally to traditional playing type cards.
Psychic Divination using playing cards is in evidence as early as 1540 in a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forli which allows a simple method of divination, though the cards are used only to select a random oracle and have no meaning in themselves. Manuscripts from 1735 (The Square of Sevens) and 1750 (Pratesi Cartomancer) do
document simple divinatory meanings, as well as a system for laying out the cards. Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary that in 1765 that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination.
Yet, it wasn't until the late 1700s that tarot cards became strongly connected to fortune telling, psychic powers, or the occult. The writings of Antoine Court de Gebelin in 1781 were also hugely influential on the image of the tarot deck. An amateur scholar, Gebelin suggested that the pictures on the tarot deck were related to occult Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Tarot divination gained in popularity during the 19th century, spurred on by a growing interest in psychics spiritualism. The Waite-Smith tarot deck, created in 1909, is now often considered the "standard" deck, although the symbols are more a product of the late Victorian age rather than the Italian Renaissance period that they seem to reflect (and much less ancient Egypt). Wherever they claim to come from, these days you can find a tarot deck in any style or theme conceivable.
I'll leave the mystical interpretation of its origins up to you!
Psychic Divination using playing cards is in evidence as early as 1540 in a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forli which allows a simple method of divination, though the cards are used only to select a random oracle and have no meaning in themselves. Manuscripts from 1735 (The Square of Sevens) and 1750 (Pratesi Cartomancer) do
document simple divinatory meanings, as well as a system for laying out the cards. Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary that in 1765 that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination.
Yet, it wasn't until the late 1700s that tarot cards became strongly connected to fortune telling, psychic powers, or the occult. The writings of Antoine Court de Gebelin in 1781 were also hugely influential on the image of the tarot deck. An amateur scholar, Gebelin suggested that the pictures on the tarot deck were related to occult Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Tarot divination gained in popularity during the 19th century, spurred on by a growing interest in psychics spiritualism. The Waite-Smith tarot deck, created in 1909, is now often considered the "standard" deck, although the symbols are more a product of the late Victorian age rather than the Italian Renaissance period that they seem to reflect (and much less ancient Egypt). Wherever they claim to come from, these days you can find a tarot deck in any style or theme conceivable.
I'll leave the mystical interpretation of its origins up to you!
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