The beginnings of Tarot are shrouded in mystery. Most sources say that Tarot originated in Egypt and contains the lost knowledge from the Book of Thoth. These suppositions are not true.
Tarot began as a playing card game called Tarocchi. This game was quite like the modern card game of Bridge. There was an additional suit of cards in the Tarocchi deck, which was the suit of trumps. We know this suit today as the Major Arcana.
Many historians and symbolists have delved deep into the mysterious origins of Tarot, and have conclusively proved that such was indeed the case. The origin of the name of Tarot could also be linked to the river Taro in Italy. The area near the river bank was primarily involved in printing playing card decks.
The Visconti-Sfroza deck is the oldest known pack of Tarot cards. These cards were specially commissioned and the illustrations were drawn by hand.
The Marseilles deck is also another important Tarot deck. It was one of the first decks to be printed and circulated worldwide.
How Tarot came to be embroiled in divination is quite a story by itself. Briefly, these cards were seen by one Count de Geblin, who used to write articles on various occult topics. When he saw these cards at the home of a friend, he had some kind of a revelation and he connected them to the Book of Thoth. Those days, Egyptian hieroglyphics were quite the rage; and having not yet been translated, were quite an unknown factor as well. He linked these two together and thus began the interest of several occultists in a deck of cards.
The late 1800s saw the emergence of several ‘Secret Societies’ where one enrolled to study various occult arts. Some of the most well known of such societies were the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians. One such secret society where Tarot was part of the study course was called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. As was the case with most such societies, internal politics and differences of opinion, caused them to disappear over time.
Towards the early part of the 1900s two most prominent figures from the Golden Dawn society were responsible in shaping Tarot as we see it today. One of them was called Arthur Edward Waite and the other was called Aleister Crowley.
A.E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith (a famous painter, illustrator and psychic) were responsible for the creation of, what is known today as the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck. Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris (a painter and illustrator) created, what is called the Thoth Tarot deck.
Most modern decks, however, follow a pattern set by the RWS deck.
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