Disclaimer: Think of this as the Reader's Digest Version of the History of Tarot. I am not the scholar many of the list members are and if you've questions please post them so they can jump in and help (ok, not so subliminal of a hint there <G>). However what I've done here is give you the basic bones; for some that is enough, for others it may
simply wet your thirst!
We are going to go over the history of the tarot in this lesson and then this week start with the Major Arcana Cards, beginning with the Fool. Why is the history important you might ask? I know many of you are more
interested in the cards. But tied in the history of the tarot, and all that people see of it today is much myth, rumors, and some downright funny fiction.
Most of what I'm going to lecture from come from Cynthia Giles' book: The Tarot, History, Mystery and Lore and some other resources.
First of all, let's look at some of the myths: these were
originally cave drawings that were transferred to rock tablets and then onto paper; the gypsies invented them, carrying them all around the world; they were the
mystical cards of the Egyptian pharaohs that led them to the next world; they are signs that have been left here by alien cultures- much like the agrarian crop circles; a group of intellects met in Morocco and decided that since so much of the libraries were being destroyed to preserve the knowledge in form of pictures.... the list goes on and I would imagine you have heard some I haven't. Bob O'Neill points out in his book, Tarot Symbolism, that there are some basic elements that are similar in most of these stories and invents a real doozy of a story to aptly illustrate his point. The deal is that no one knows...there is no proof for any of these, so what do you say when someone asks you where the tarot came from?
What do we know? The facts here are important, not just for the sake of history mind you, but more importantly so that you can grasp how the cards you are using came to be, and understand their capabilities, limitations and their values..
The first mention of cards, used for games mind you, was in the 14th century, as noted from lectures about a year later admonishing against the use of it. It first appears in Italy under the name TAROCCO. The first known deck was
made for the Vicsconzi-Sforza family of Milan. Being a
Florentine, I was somewhat disappointed that no Medici made deck has been found--although I hold out hope for someone to yet discover a hidden room in one of the palazzi that holds a deck by one of my favorite artists, Sandro
Botticelli. The artist of the Visconzi-Sforza deck is now believed to be Bembo, and Gertrude Moakley, in the book she wrote about this deck and the history of the tarot
believes that the cards represent the parade, the triomfi, that marked many a celebration.
To understand this, keep in mind that there was no radio,
television, cable and such at that time. Book were the luxury of the upper class only. Whenever someone important would visit, or there was a celebration (nuptials
for example) the nobles would put on a huge celebration, a
pageant of great magnitude with entertainment, food, mock battles. Leonardo da Vinci even was roped in for the
planning of some of these in Milan during his sojourn there. The costumes, the pageantry, the parade floats were very elaborate and important. Moakley believes that the
various characters of the major arcana represent the various characters seen in these celebration parades...memorialized for the benefit of the nobles.
Take a look at the major arcana and see if you can envision this...it may be more difficult with the Rider Waite deck than the Visconti Sforza deck but you can use your
imagination!
It is believed by many historians that game cards, of the minor pips only, existed for the less-than-nobles, but haven't survived due to the lack of preservation and paper
quality. Few decks of that era do indeed survive...one wonders if it is simply that the finer decks, with the gold illuminata, were few and paper preservation lacking...or what. There are references about card playing long after the first deck; indeed one Medici pope is known to have enjoyed the cards after a long day of ruling the world. But the facts are that we have few decks remaining from this early period, although we do find much similarity in the
art work. You should also know that some historians, including a recent treatise by Decker, Dummett et al believe that the tarot was simply a card game until the occultists got ahold of them, and they seem to think it should probably have stayed that way--it being a game, not a tool for divining.
So we have a period of about three hundred years until the next blip in tarot history is found for our look at the tarot's origins. At that time Court de Gebelen (late 1700's) saw the tarot cards and took them into a phase of
meaning something more than a simple card game of chance.
Let me digress here for a moment so you can understand what was going on. De Geblen was part of a secret society of occultists. It is believed that secret societies has existed throughout history, from hundreds of years BC.
These societies, of which FreeMasonry is one, have evolved,
changed, and grown in various and sundry directions over time--often fitting into the political schematica of the current rulers or thought, often advocating democracy for the people while at the same time holding reign over vast
amount of property and wealth. These societies passed down
through time occult secrets- magic, paths to God, and so on. By the time De Geblen came around, he had been immersed in the current thought which gave much credit and power to the Egyptians. The story goes that when he saw the game of
tarocchi being played, he saw in the cards- not a simple card game- but cards with a vast amount of symbolism much of which he attributed to ancient Egyptian lore.
The deck he saw was of the Marseilles type--cards that had
evolved and changed from the tarocchi of the Visconti-Sforza deck, and while no one knows how these changes occurred there is of course the thought that the makers
were also members of a secret society and put occult symbols and artwork into the cards- although who knows if this is so, or why. De Geblen didn't realize that these cards were a permutation of the original deck, and wrote
about this deck in his 9 volume treatise "Le Monde
Primitif" which was the start of written works about the secret meanings of the tarot cards. That he
attributed much to the Egyptians is quite reasonable for that period...Egypt held intense fascination for Europeans who believed that it was the cradle of the earth's knowledge.
Soon this idea of the cards having meaning, and being used for telling those meanings (divination starts!) spread. One name you will see is that of Etteilla (the reverse of the fellow's real name Alliette, whom I believe was originally a barber but became a popular diviner and occultists. He
published in 1783 a book with his own meanings of the cards and while he was definitely in the "business" of divination, nonetheless his popularity contributed to the growth of the tarot as a divination tool.
It might be interested to remember that the Rosetta Stone was deciphered right before the turn of the century..and with it came the realization that nothing in the Egyptian artifacts linked to these tarot cards. But the lure and romance of this hypothesis remained, indeed still remains. To digress, one hypothesis is about the Gypsies' and their influence over the tarot. Gypsies were long known for making their way with whatever skills they found, carrying them across the world; they are probably the first semblance of an "Internet" type communication...taking bits and
pieces of culture and leaving them in new lands, over and over. During this time period much romance was attached to the Gypsies, and in the late 1800's a book on tarot was published: The Tarot of the Bohemians. It was believed at
that time that the gypsies came from Egypt, although this has later been disproved. Also note that the gypsies mostly used the more common playing cards for divination rather than the tarot deck.
So now we come the time when the tarot starts to really take off in terms of its use as an occult tool. In the 19th century we find Eliphas Levi Zahed (you'll see this usually as Eliphas Levi, real name was Alphonse Louis Constant). He is said to have trained for the priesthood, but instead turned to magic, mysticism and the occult. Levi was convinced that the tarot had origins of far earlier dimension than the 14th century. He saw the similarity of the tarot with many occult traditions, including the
correlation of the tarot with the Hebrew system of mysticism, the Kabalah. Now De Geblin, to his credit, had noted that there were 22 trumps and there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. But it was Levi who took the
correlation farther, and tied the tarot into the Tree of Life and the Kabalah. He saw the tarot as a key to life itself, as an essential tool for man to use to develop himself as a human being, as a way to grow so that he
might find heaven.
This was pretty exciting stuff here... The Kabalah/Qabalah is so indepth, so full of knowledge that to be able to take the ten sephiroth that are part of the Tree of Life and show twenty-two paths between the sephiroth that correlate to the tarot major arcanas was indeed grand. To have a way to move through the tree of life and become more spiritual and enlightened was the goal...and here the tarot was shown to be a tool, a roadmap almost!
Now it is important to note that the rest of the deck has also been linked to the Tree of Life, with the ten sepiroth correlating to the minor cards...if you have an interest in this check out Jess Karlin's discussion on this in his web page. Since we're on the majors in this class I'll move
on... There were works that followed Levi, including Papus, that continued the exploration, and I would point out to you that the Marseilles deck is still used in Europe extensively. If you've an interest in the tarot, looking at these different decks, comparing them, is a study of
its own.
Now lets move on to the decks which have influenced us here in the twentieth century the most...the decks from the late 1800's followers of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn was started in England by three men who, legend has it, found an old secret manuscript in
cipher...they figured out that it belonged to a secret german society and got permission to start their own group in England. When the woman who gave them permission died, the rest of the group cut the English off--saying that they
had not approved and basically "you guys are on your own..you have enough to figure it out!". The three men were Wescott, Woodford, and Woodman. To their everlasting credit <G> this group admitted women (if you've
an interest, Mary Greer has a good book about the Women of the Golden Dawn).
What is interesting for us is that this group, The Golden Dawn, became a very intense and influential group, and continues today to provide much thought and ritual for the occultist. Much of this is credited to S. Liddel Mathers
(later changed his name to MacGregor), who already had written a treatise on the tarot. He became a "driving force" in the Golden Dawn and while somewhat, well intense, he contributed much of the ritual material and
philosophy that is the basis of that which is used for the tarot today. Mathers is the one who really brought all the various and sundry systems together with the tarot--the kabalah, astrology, numerology, magick--finally pulling together the thoughts that had been scattered in various
tomes and rituals, putting things in a unique context.
There were two individuals who were part of the Golden Dawn
(which by the way went through the same divisions, etcetera as most organizations), Aleister Crowley and Arthur Edward Waite. Let's talk a little about Crowley. Crowley was a protégée of Mathers/MacGregor originally, and was involved in MacGregor's problems with the Golden Dawn in England. His deck, the Book of Thoth, is-like Waite's- intensely involved with the use of symbolism. But, my own opinion is that it has far more depth and complexity than the Rider Waite deck. Much of Crowley's following has been tainted somewhat by 'glorification' (some might say exaggeration) of the lifestyle he led, not unlike modern rock and rollers
(sex. drugs) which has been somewhat overemphasized in pop
culture. Sort of the Tarot's designated rebel perhaps?
The deck we are using was created by Waite along with the artist, an American, Pamela Coleman Smith. It used a storytelling type of theme...so that each card in itself, including the minor arcana (and this was an innovation since most decks use only symbols in the minor cards)
has a story to tell, a group of symbols that come together to teach the meaning of the card and make the viewer THINK. Waite is not usually considered near the scholar Crowley was, however these cards have been the cornerstone of many of the subsequent decks that we now use for divination, so one must agree that he accomplished quite a feat with them nonetheless. We have in this deck colorful characters, stories we can recognize from other sources (bible, myths, fairy tales).
After this what comes next? Well the onslaught of the two world wars cut short the upwards spiral of energy that was given to the occult studies...and while the groups survived, war had its effect in many ways. The next time we
see the tarot blossoming was, yes, in the New World. Not
surprisingly, in Los Angeles in the 1920's we find Paul Foster Case, who had been initiated into the Golden Dawn in New York in 1910. When his relationship with that group
deteriorated he founded his own group: B.O.T.A. (Builders of the Adytum). The BOTA deck is in black and white, so that you can color them in yourself--- this follows the Golden Dawn tradition sort of, which was that each member had to make their own deck as part of their training! This group has a correspondence course for the tarot still. While I"m not overly fond of his historical fictions for the origins of the tarot, I do want to give you this quote:
"Study the picture and find words to express its meaning in a formula of autosuggestion. Your own words are best, and have the most power."
What has followed has been a conglomerate of Waite/Crowley
copies- albeit with some wonderful artwork. Oft criticized for lack of originality, I have to wonder how anyone could do more with the decks that Waite and Crowley did- it would certainly involve many other systems. However if one looks at all the knowledge these fellows had...they spoke greek, latin, hebrew, had studied the classics (probably in the
original),-- their education was far more intense than any
american student even can imagine, it is not surprising that they are copied. There are some decks that are
totally different, I believe the term is post modern,
"po-mo", which includes the motherpeace deck and the pomo deck. If you'd like to know more check out Jess Karlin's web site on the history, although if I remember
correctly he's not too enamored of that genre. I simply have not spent enough time with them to give you an
opinion.
OK, that's it. Hopefully this has given you enough to know what is fact and the rest is rumor, myth and just stories. The one thing I want to make sure is that it is clear how the use of the tarot as a divination tool..and how the symbolism we find in it came to be. In doing this it should
help you in learning the tarot cards.
