What Is Tarot?

Origins as a Card Game

Tarot first appears in fifteenth‑century northern Italy as a trick‑taking game using a standard set of four suits plus an additional series of permanent trumps, often called trionfi or triumphs. Surviving records, commissions, and early decks indicate use in courtly and urban environments, with tarot functioning alongside other contemporary games and carrying no necessary esoteric or divinatory significance in its earliest attestations (Dummett, 1980; Farley, 2009).[web:439][web:459]

Over subsequent centuries, tarot games spread into France, Switzerland, and central Europe, developing regional patterns such as the Tarot de Marseille and various national rule sets. Modern card‑game history stresses that tarot as play persisted and evolved independently of occult reinterpretations, and in some regions distinct game traditions using tarot packs continue into the present (Dummett, 1980; Dummett & McLeod, 2004).[web:442][web:453]

Deck Structure and Iconography

A typical tarot deck combines four suits—often swords, cups, coins, and batons or their local equivalents—with a separate trump sequence and, in most later forms, a special card commonly called the Fool. Early trump images in Italian and later Marseille‑type decks depict allegorical, social, and cosmological motifs such as Emperor, Pope, Lovers, Wheel of Fortune, Death, and Judgment that reflect broader medieval and Renaissance visual culture (Dummett, 1980; Farley, 2009).[web:443][web:459]

Nineteenth‑ and twentieth‑century occult readings treat this sequence as a deliberate esoteric series, but historians argue that the original iconography is better explained by contemporary artistic conventions, moral allegory, and courtly symbolism. The relative stability of the sequence, alongside regional variation, supplied later occultists with a rich but historically layered set of images to systematize and reinterpret (Dummett, 1980; Decker, Depaulis, & Dummett, 1996).[web:444][web:461]

From Game to Occult Tarot

The emergence of tarot as an occult and divinatory tool occurs notably later, from the late eighteenth century onward, when authors began to propose ancient Egyptian, Hermetic, or Kabbalistic origins for the cards. Court de Gébelin, Etteilla, and later French esotericists advanced speculative histories and codified methods of tarot divination, despite the absence of historical evidence for such antiquity or original occult intent (Decker, Depaulis, & Dummett, 1996; Farley, 2009).[web:446][web:459]

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, occult orders and esoteric authors integrated tarot into broader systems of correspondences, linking individual trumps and suits to astrological signs, Hebrew letters, paths on the Tree of Life, and magical practices. This process produced new decks and guidebooks that present tarot as a portable book of esoteric doctrine as well as a practical divination tool, decisively shaping the modern image of tarot in Western esotericism (Decker & Dummett, 2002; Farley, 2009).[web:458][web:463][web:459]

Modern Divinatory, Esoteric, and Psychological Uses

In contemporary practice, tarot is widely used for divination and personal consultation, with readers drawing cards to explore questions, patterns, and possible trajectories rather than to receive fixed predictions. Esoteric and Pagan communities frequently treat the cards as a structured symbolic language through which to engage mythic patterns, archetypal figures, and situational dynamics (Farley, 2009; Greer, 2004).[web:459][web:179]

Twentieth‑century authors also developed psychological approaches to tarot, framing the trumps and suits as archetypal images or as maps of personal development, shadow material, and narrative identity. In such contexts readings are presented as tools for reflection, insight, and dialogue—sometimes within explicitly therapeutic settings—while still relying on deck structures originally designed for games and later adapted for esoteric use (Farley, 2009; Place, 2005).[web:452][web:459]

Common Misconceptions

• “Tarot was invented as an ancient occult book from Egypt or Atlantis.” Historical evidence situates tarot’s origin in fifteenth‑century Europe as a card game; proposed ancient or Egyptian origins arise from later speculative narratives rather than documented sources (Dummett, 1980; Decker, Depaulis, & Dummett, 1996).[web:442][web:461]
• “Tarot has always been primarily a divination tool.” For several centuries tarot packs were used primarily for trick‑taking games; their divinatory and occult uses represent subsequent layers of interpretation and practice built on top of existing games (Dummett, 1980; Decker & Dummett, 2002).[web:439][web:463]
• “There is one original, definitive esoteric meaning for each card.” Different occult, esoteric, and psychological systems assign distinct correspondences and interpretive schemes to the same images, reflecting varied projects and periods; the deck’s structure supports multiple historically contingent meaning‑systems rather than a single fixed code (Decker & Dummett, 2002; Farley, 2009).[web:458][web:459]

Summary

Tarot began as a family of European trick‑taking games built around suits and permanent trumps and later accrued layers of occult, divinatory, and psychological interpretation. Recognizing this layered history clarifies how a single deck design can function simultaneously as a conventional game, an esoteric curriculum of correspondences, and a flexible symbolic framework for contemporary divination and reflective practice (Dummett, 1980; Decker, Depaulis, & Dummett, 1996; Decker & Dummett, 2002; Farley, 2009).[web:439][web:461][web:459]

References

Decker, R., Depaulis, T., & Dummett, M. (1996). A wicked pack of cards: The origins of the occult tarot. St. Martin’s Press.[web:461]

Decker, R., & Dummett, M. (2002). A history of the occult tarot, 1870–1970. Duckworth.[web:463]

Dummett, M. (1980). The game of tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City. Duckworth.[web:439][web:442]

Dummett, M., & McLeod, J. (2004). A history of games played with the tarot pack. Mellen.[web:453][web:456]

Farley, H. (2009). A cultural history of tarot: From entertainment to esotericism. I.B. Tauris.[web:459][web:464]

Greer, M. K. (2004). Tarot for your self: A workbook for the inward journey (2nd ed.). New Page.[web:179]

Place, R. M. (2005). The tarot: History, symbolism, and divination. Tarcher/Penguin.[web:458]