AN ABRIDGED HISTORY OF TAROT
- Morgan "Jake" Lankford
- Dec 12, 2024
- 3 min read
The history and development of tarot is long, centuries long, but can be reduced into several key moments and decks made throughout history.
The standard tarot deck is made of 78 cards split into two sections. 56 of those cards make up the minor arcana and consist of four suits (coins, cups, wands and swords) made up of fourteen cards each– ace through ten and four court cards (page, knight, queen and king).
In traditional tarot reading, the coins are associated with physical aspects. The cups correspond to relationships and emotions. Swords represent the mental and intellectual areas. Wands are passions, whether it is sexual or creative. These cards represent what needs to be focused on, the specific areas of our lives we need to fine tune or make changes in.
The remaining 22 cards make up the major arcana, depicting various archetypes, concepts and celestial bodies. The major arcana, in the same traditions, represents the grand journey of life we are all on and, when next to a minor arcana card, can be seen as what needs to be done in order to achieve a much-desired change.
The 22 majors are as follows:
Unnumbered: The Fool.
The Magician.
The High Priestess.
The Empress.
The Emperor.
The Hierophant.
The Lovers/Lover.
The Chariot.
Justice (sometimes swapped with Strength).
The Hermit.
The Wheel of Fortune.
Strength (sometimes swapped with Justice)
The Hanged Man.
The Nameless Arcanum/Death.
Temperance.
The Devil.
The Tower/House of God.
The Star.
The Moon.
The Sun.
Judgement/The Final Judgement.
The World.
HISTORY WITH LANKFORD.
14th-15th century, Italy–
The first tarot decks were made when the four-suited decks popular at the time received a fifth suit, the trionfi, or triumphs. These would serve as the first form of the major arcana. The most famous deck of this period, the Visconti-Sforza deck, would be produced during the 15th century. The most complete version of this deck is the Pierpont Morgan deck, at 74 cards.
The Sola Busca deck is created around the 15th century. This deck is significant due to it being the earliest, complete, tarot deck, the heavy deviations it makes to the triumphs (namely replacing almost all of the archetypal figures with historical ones) and a fully-illustrated minor arcana. The minors of most decks, up until the publication of the Rider-Waite Deck in 1909, were more akin to playing cards. The Sola Busca deck forgoes this in favor of surreal, visceral scenes on its minors.
17th-18th century, France.
The Tarot de Marseille deck, one of the most popular and well-known tarot decks, is created in Milan at some point during this time and spreads into France, where it gains great significance amongst fledgling occultists who believed the tarot had deeper meanings in its images.
The occultist Etteilla publishes several decks during this period. Etteilla is widely credited for inventing several tarot reading techniques, such as spreads and card reversals. However, Etteilla would be the first of many occultists to begin the propagation of myths that plagues tarot to this day.
20th century, various.
The 20th century saw a massive renaissance in tarot. 1909 saw the publication of, what would become, the most famous, recognizable and widely used tarot deck in the history of the art form– the Rider-Waite deck. It is with this deck that a fully-illustrated minor arcana became the norm going forward, as well as the swapped positions of the cards Strength and Justice. The Rider-Waite deck is also significant in the sense that it reflects not the Egyptian myth that was intrinsic to occult tarot, but instead, deck designer A.E. Waite’s Christian mysticism.
Of course, the Egypt myth wasn’t squashed, it still had several adherents during this period. The most infamous was Aleister Crowley, whose Thoth Tarot is a dense mess of Egyptian symbolism, Kabbalah imagery and Crowley’s own Thelema belief system. Personally, I find the Thoth Tarot to be such a limited deck for readings outside of the occult perspective, but its place in tarot history cannot be ignored.
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