Busting the Myths: A (Very) Brief History of Tarot
Believe it or not, Tarot decks have the same roots as our common, standard playing cards. Card games developed in Europe during the 14th century, and the use of playing cards for fortune-telling followed soon after. Some of the earliest examples of playing cards even include calligraphy on some cards, featuring divinatory rhymes predicting fulfilled wishes and love.
Tarot as we know it was not invented by Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, or the Romani, but rather by 15th-century Italian nobility. These cards were used to play a game called tarocchi, and there is evidence that people began to use these, too, for fortune-telling almost right away. The use of Tarot and other playing card decks for divination (fortune-telling) became widespread by the 18th century. Jean-Baptiste Alliette le Jeune (1731-1791), who is better known by his anagram Etteilla, wrote a manual on using Tarot cards for divination, riding the wave of public interest in the occult to popularize cartomancy. In 1909, Arthur Waite and Pamela Colman Smith created the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck, and most popular decks today follow their format.
Is Tarot a Closed Practice?
Tarot practitioners may from time to time encounter a well-meaning person who will state that Tarot is a closed practice that belongs to the Romani people. The Romani were subject to genocide and were forced into fortunetelling to make ends meet. They then were brutally persecuted for this forced profession.
While is it incredibly important for anyone who practices Tarot — especially one who charges money for readings — to be aware of the troubled history of Tarot and its place in Romani oppression, I respectfully disagree with the notion that Tarot “belongs” to one group and that outsiders should not participate. There is a particular form of Tarot that is a closed practice to the Romani people. The specific type of deck used in this practice is difficult for an outsider to obtain, and I would adamantly discourage any person who is not a member of the Romani culture to intrude on this. However, the practice of cartomancy as a whole predates this horrifying period of Romani persecution.
While we’re talking about cultural appropriation, I will point out another problematic piece of Tarot’s history. Perhaps you have noticed Hebrew symbols on some Tarot cards. Symbolism from the Kabbalah, which is the Jewish mystic tradition, was added to the Rider-Waite-Smith deck’s imagery after Eliphas Levi (whose real name was Alphonse Louis Constant… he was decidedly NOT Jewish, but rather began to use a Hebrew transliteration of his name when he started to publish works promoting his brand of occultism) pointed out that there are 22 cards in the Major Arcana, just as there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. He and the Order of the Golden Dawn assigned Hebrew letters and correspondences with Kabbalistic symbolism to the cards.
It is important to know that most early attempts at bringing Kabbalah to non-Jewish audiences were ultimately intended to prove the supremacy of Christianity. Kabbalah IS a closed practice to Jews, and efforts to bring it to outsiders have historically been made with Anti-Semitic intentions.
Although I am ethnically Jewish, I do not practice the faith. (Accordingly, I leave Kabbalah out of things entirely.) As a person who belongs to a culture whose holidays mostly revolve around the theme of “yay! we survived genocide again, let’s drink and party,” I feel deep sympathy for the Romani. We, too, were forced into a profession (moneylending) and were stigmatized for it. We also continue to experience discrimination based on stereotypes about our supposed relationship with money that are rooted in this history. As much as I would enjoy writing an angry letter to J. P. Morgan accusing him of cultural appropriation, though, this does not make banking a closed practice that belongs to my people.
If I come off as defensive, it is perhaps because I do not like to be accused of cultural appropriation for using a tool that has appropriated elements of my own culture in harmful ways, too. However, too many Tarot readers are insensitive to the tragic and horrific history of Romani persecution. If you are reading Tarot and get dressed up clothes with a “gypsy” aesthetic because you want to “look the part,” we Jews have a word for you: you are a schmuck!
In short, it is critically important to be mindful of the less-savory aspects of the history of Tarot or, really, of anything we do, particularly if we consider something a piece of our spirituality. While my opinion is that Tarot is not a closed practice, please educate yourself and strive to minimize harm. If you are interested in learning about practices and beliefs that have a particular place in another culture’s history and traditions, do so with care and respect
So How Do Tarot Cards Work?
Let’s be clear here — while a reader might feel a special connection to a deck of Tarot cards, most readers will agree that there is nothing innately magical about them. They’re just ink and paper, often printed and mass-distributed by a commercial publisher, and they are definitely NOT evil!
While many questions can be answered with a single card — the images are quite rich with different meanings — Tarot readers will often lay what is called a “spread” of cards, in which they place cards in fixed positions. Each position has an assigned meaning to offer context to the symbols on each card.
Tarot cards are a tool that readers use to help them make a connection with their own intuition. They can be used in many spiritual practices, but their use is not limited to any specific religious tradition. You don’t have to be Pagan or Wiccan to read Tarot cards… I have a Catholic friend who reads Tarot, and she prays to Mary whenever she prepares to shuffle her cards. Because there isn’t any single “right” way to do Tarot, a reader can incorporate — or decide not to incorporate — any spiritual beliefs they choose. If you ask six readers how Tarot works, you are likely to get six different explanations. Some feel that spirits, angels or ancestors guide their selection and interpretation of the cards, while while others will talk about Carl Jung and tell you that humankind’s collective unconscious guides them.
There isn’t really any “woo woo” in my personal approach to Tarot. Here is my pro-science explanation for skeptics:
Each card is full of symbols that are laden with meanings, whether those meanings come from a little white book or from your own head. People have different preferences about these symbols, so some decks will “speak” to a given reader while others may not. However you interpret the symbols on the cards is up to you! Most likely, the cards are telling you what you already know, even if you aren’t consciously aware of this knowledge. They give you a new way to engage with a problem or question, and can act as a “conversation partner” who will be a great sounding board as you “talk” through ideas.
Tarot can help you predict the future…. kind of. While the future isn’t ever set in stone, there are signs that point towards the outcome that is most likely given current conditions. There isn’t anything “woo woo” about meteorologists using current signs to make a predictions about the weather, right? Some conditions are easily observable: dark clouds and lightning, gentle flurries of snow, or a clear blue sky. However, we also have tools to help us gather information that isn’t as easy to observe with the naked eye. The cards are kind of like an equivalent to doppler radar and weather satellites in that they are a tool that can help bring to light things that may be known to us on some level, but that aren’t right there on the surface for us to easily notice. These symbols give us a fresh perspective and language to better understand our present circumstances, which in turn can help us inform decisions we make that affect the future.
It is useful to know the archetypes, myths and traditions surrounding the images on each card, as this is the vocabulary a reader works from when interpreting their cards. However, if you look at a card and a totally different thing from the “traditional” meaning pops into your head, go with it! A single spread of cards can offer completely different meanings to different readers in different situations on different days, and that’s okay. None of those meanings are wrong. The cards are giving you the message that you need to hear in that moment.