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The Fascinating Evolution of Tarot: From Card Game to Mystical Tool
Engaging in an exploration of tarot's historical trajectory reveals a transformation from a mere card game to a revered tool for introspection and guidance. The origins of tarot can be traced back to the 15th century in Italy, where it was initially enjoyed as a form of entertainment among the aristocracy, devoid of any mystical connotations. The earliest decks, known as Cartay da Triumphy, were lavishly designed and served to amuse the elite, illustrating the cultural significance of luxury and leisure during the Renaissance. It was not until the late 18th century that the perception of tarot shifted dramatically. The unfounded assertions by Antoine Court de Gebelin, which claimed that tarot was derived from ancient Egyptian wisdom, catalyzed its evolution into a divinatory tool, despite the lack of historical evidence to support such claims. As the discourse unfolds, we encounter significant figures who shaped the trajectory of tarot's development. Jean Baptiste Eliete's emergence as the first professional tarot reader marked the transition of tarot into the realm of mysticism. The incorporation of Kabbalistic elements by Eliphas Levi and the founding of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the late 19th century further intertwined tarot with esoteric traditions, complicating its interpretation and expanding its application beyond mere fortune-telling. The Rider-Waite-Smith deck, introduced in 1909, revolutionized tarot reading by offering fully illustrated scenes on each card, allowing practitioners to connect with the imagery on a deeper emotional level. This significant innovation paved the way for tarot to be perceived not simply as a game but as a profound tool for self-reflection and psychological exploration. In contemporary society, the flourishing tarot industry is projected to reach a remarkable valuation of $93 million by 2027, indicating its widespread acceptance and utilization in various contexts. The recent surge in interest during the COVID-19 pandemic highlights tarot's function as a means of seeking solace and understanding amid uncertainty. The evolution of tarot, from its humble beginnings to its current multifaceted applications, illustrates humanity's perennial quest for meaning and self-discovery, emphasizing its enduring relevance and adaptability in an ever-changing world.
Takeaways:
- The origins of Tarot trace back to the 15th century as a card game in northern Italy, far removed from its current mystical associations.
- Tarot evolved significantly over the centuries, transitioning from aristocratic entertainment to a tool for self-exploration and psychological insight.
- The Rider-Waite-Smith deck, commissioned in 1909, revolutionized Tarot by illustrating all cards with detailed scenes, enhancing interpretive depth.
- In the 18th century, Tarot began to be associated with ancient Egyptian mysticism, despite lacking any historical evidence.
- Today, Tarot is utilized in various contexts, including therapy, creative writing, and even fashion, indicating its broad cultural relevance.
- The enduring appeal of Tarot lies in its adaptability, reflecting the changing needs and perceptions of society over five centuries.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Netflix
- Islamic Mamluk Sultanate
- Filippo Maria Visconte
- Michelino da pisazo
- Donald Trump
- Arthur Edward Waite
- Pamela Coleman Smith
- Rider Waite Smith
- Aleister Crowley
- Lady Frieda Harris
- Dior
- Gucci
- Versace
- Antoine Court de Guebelon
- Jean Baptiste Eliete
- Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
- Carl Jung
- Eden Gray
Links referenced in this episode:
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Iamastrologyreadings
- PayPal
- Venmo
- Cash App
Support the mythic classroom: https://i-am-astrology-readings.captivate.fm/support
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Transcript
Hello.
Speaker A:You can find me at tarot360astrology on Instagram.
Speaker A:If you wish to know anything more, I'm going to talk about tarot in general, like what it is, its origins, and what it's evolved into.
Speaker A:If I say the word Tarot, what comes to mind?
Speaker A:Be honest.
Speaker A:Is it candles or incense?
Speaker A:Or someone staring at you like they already know why your last relationship didn't work?
Speaker A:Or is it that one friend who bought a deck of Tarot cards on a random Tuesday and they did three readings and they now introduce themselves as intuitive?
Speaker A:You're like you used to sell car insurance.
Speaker A:What happened?
Speaker A:But here's the truth that surprises almost everyone.
Speaker A:Tarot did not start mystical, it did not start ancient, and it definitely did not start with someone predicting your love life.
Speaker A:Life.
Speaker A:It's in a Netflix series.
Speaker A:It started as a card game.
Speaker A:Let's ground this in facts, because this is where you separate real knowledge from TikTok mythology.
Speaker A: Between: Speaker A:Those early decks already had structure, cups, swords, coins, and polo sticks.
Speaker A:That was polo sticks.
Speaker A:Let's keep our mind out of the gutter.
Speaker A:So before tarot was deep, and some people do like it deep, it was basically, I raise you one king of polo, Styx.
Speaker A:Again, that was Styx.
Speaker A:And somehow we evolved from that to.
Speaker A:Your aura feels blocked.
Speaker A:Humanity really is incredible.
Speaker A: Now fast forward to around: Speaker A:This is Renaissance Europe.
Speaker A:Art, power, wealth, and rich families competing, like who has the best paintings and who has the best palace, and who has the most unnecessarily beautiful playing cards.
Speaker A:Now we enter Tarot.
Speaker A: ds of triumph, appear between: Speaker A:These are luxury items.
Speaker A:They are hand painted, they have gold leaf.
Speaker A:They are commissioned by elite families.
Speaker A:So taro didn't start in a cave with monks.
Speaker A:It started in a mansion with rich people who were bored, which, honestly, was how most things get invented.
Speaker A: the Duke of Milan, around the: Speaker A:In that range, an earlier deck painted by Michelino da pisazo, had about 60 cards, including 16 trump cards featuring Roman gods and suits, beta birds.
Speaker A: them, by the way, back in the: Speaker A:So, yes, tarot started with mythology, birds and aristocrats, which sounds less like mysticism and more like a very expensive Board game night.
Speaker A: By around: Speaker A:Today, about 15 partial decks still exist, scattered across museums and private collections.
Speaker A:These decks already include kings, queens and knights and virtues like justice and fortitude and figures like death and the fool and the wheel of Fortune.
Speaker A:Now, let's address something real quick.
Speaker A:People see death and immediately panic.
Speaker A: But in the: Speaker A:Life expectancy was low, plagues were common.
Speaker A:Death wasn't a surprise guest.
Speaker A:It was irregular.
Speaker A:So pulling the death card back then wasn't like, oh, no, it was like, yeah, that tracks.
Speaker A: By the late: Speaker A:The name evolves into tarot.
Speaker A:And here's a fact most people don't know.
Speaker A: In the: Speaker A:So imagine sitting there and someone goes, you are the fool.
Speaker A:And I wrote a poem explaining your life choices.
Speaker A:That's not entertainment, that's a public roast with structure.
Speaker A:Now here's the part people always get wrong.
Speaker A: From: Speaker A:No fortune telling, no predicting your future spouse.
Speaker A:No, this card means he's emotionally unavailable.
Speaker A:You didn't need tarot for that.
Speaker A:You could just observe.
Speaker A:Some people have a problem observing and being in the present, and there's also people that are too poor to pay attention.
Speaker A: So then we hit: Speaker A:This is where everything happens.
Speaker A:A French scholar named Antoine Court de Guebelon publishes a book claiming tarot is actually an ancient Egyptian system.
Speaker A:The Legendary Book of Tho.
Speaker A:Here's a real important detail.
Speaker A:He had zero evidence, None.
Speaker A:He basically looked at the cards and said, oh, this feels Egyptian.
Speaker A:And people believed them, which proves something powerful.
Speaker A:Confidence will get you further than accuracy, at least initially.
Speaker A:Then comes Jean Baptiste Eliete, also known as Italia.
Speaker A: Around: Speaker A: By: Speaker A:So within about a decade, Tarot goes from a card game for Italian nobles to a mystical system for predicting life events.
Speaker A:That's one of the fastest grow ups in history.
Speaker A:Right up there with someone going to the gym for two weeks and suddenly posting fitness advice.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A: Now we move into the: Speaker A:Enter Eliphas Levi, who connects tarot to The Kabbalah and the Hebrew Alphabet.
Speaker A:Again, these connections were not part of the original tarot, but people love them because humans love to connect dots, even when the dots were never meant to to be connected.
Speaker A: Then we hit: Speaker A:A secret society that took tarot and turned it into a full symbolic system, linking it with astrology, Kabbalah, and ceremonial magic.
Speaker A:This is where tarot becomes complicated.
Speaker A:This is where you open a book and think, am I learning tarot or studying for a final exam?
Speaker A: tone, which would be the year: Speaker A:Arthur Edward Waite commissions artist Pamela Coleman Smith to create a new deck.
Speaker A:And this changes everything.
Speaker A:For the first time, all 78 cards, including the Minor Arcana, are illustrated with full scenes.
Speaker A:Before this, a card might just be 10 swords.
Speaker A:Now it's a person face down with 10 swords in their back.
Speaker A:Basically the universal symbol for.
Speaker A:Yeah, that meeting could have been an email.
Speaker A:Now people just don't memorize meanings, they feel them.
Speaker A:This becomes the Rider Waite Smith deck.
Speaker A:And that came about because of Arthur Waite, who commissioned Pamela Smith.
Speaker A:So combining those names with Waite and Smith, that's how they came up with the Rider Waite Smith deck, still the most widely used deck in the world over 100 years later.
Speaker A:That's not popularity, that's legacy.
Speaker A: Then in the: Speaker A:It's deeply symbolic and layered and complex.
Speaker A:That's the deck you use when you want your reading to feel like a philosophy lecture mixed with a mild existential crisis.
Speaker A: Now fast forward to the: Speaker A:Tarot enters mainstream culture.
Speaker A:Arthurs like Eden Gray make tarot accessible to everyday people.
Speaker A:And here's the major shift from predicting fixed outcomes to exploring the inner world.
Speaker A:Psychology enters, especially ideas inspired by Carl Jung and archetypes.
Speaker A:So tarot becomes less about what will happen and more about what's going on with you, which is a much better question and also slightly more uncomfortable.
Speaker A:Now, let's talk modern era.
Speaker A: ndemic, which was in the year: Speaker A:Because when the world gets unpredictable, people look for meaning.
Speaker A:Also, people had time, a lot of time.
Speaker A:Some people baked bread, some people made bread.
Speaker A:Some people learned tarot, Some people learned how to play with themselves.
Speaker A:Same energy, just different outcomes.
Speaker A: million by: Speaker A:There are thousands of decks.
Speaker A:You've got traditional decks and artistic decks and inclusive decks and pop culture decks.
Speaker A:There are Tarot decks for astrology and mythology and spirituality and, yes, even cats.
Speaker A:Not the cats that I like to play with, but nonetheless, maybe that deck will be created someday.
Speaker A:Because nothing says spiritual authority like a cat judging you from the emperor card.
Speaker A:Ah, man, come on.
Speaker A:Tarot is now used in therapy and creative writing and art and personal development.
Speaker A:Even fashion brands like Dior and Gucci and Versace have used Tarot imagery, which means someone somewhere paid thousands of dollars to wear the fool.
Speaker A:Some people pay thousands of dollars to marry a fool.
Speaker A:And honestly, that might be the most accurate use of the card in history.
Speaker A:Let's clear up the biggest myth.
Speaker A:Tarot did not come from ancient Egypt.
Speaker A:Tarot was not brought into society by Romani travelers.
Speaker A:Tarot was not originally tied to to Kabbalah or astrology.
Speaker A: later, mostly after the late: Speaker A: ins in northern Italy between: Speaker A:That's the foundation.
Speaker A:Everything else is evolution.
Speaker A:And yet, despite all the changes, Tarot survived for over 500 years.
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Because it adapts.
Speaker A:The Renaissance used it for entertainment.
Speaker A:The occultists turned it into mysticism.
Speaker A:Modern culture uses it for self awareness.
Speaker A:And through all of that, it became a mirror.
Speaker A:Because at its core, tarot is simple.
Speaker A:It's a system of images.
Speaker A:And humans are meaning making machines.
Speaker A:We see symbols and we tell stories and we project and we interpret and we reflect.
Speaker A:That's not magic.
Speaker A:That's psychology with better artwork.
Speaker A: oing the same thing since the: Speaker A:Getting people to pause and look at their patterns and maybe, just maybe, make better decisions.
Speaker A:And let me leave you with this.
Speaker A:If you pull a card you don't like, it's not a curse.
Speaker A:Chill out, man.
Speaker A:It's feedback.
Speaker A:If you ignore it and do the same thing anyway, that's not fate.
Speaker A:That's you with confidence.
Speaker A: And no deck since: Speaker A:That's tarot.
Speaker A:From Renaissance game tables to occult mystery to modern self awareness, with a few dramatic plot twists and some creative storytelling, and a lot of humans trying to figure themselves out along the way.
Speaker A:And if you're paying attention, but let me remind you, some people are too poor to pay attention.
Speaker A:The real magic was never in the cards.
Speaker A:It was always in how you read the story.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening.
Speaker A:I do hope you enjoyed this sort of history lesson on Tarot.
Speaker A:And maybe you grabbed a pen and paper and took some notes, but I'm not placing any faith in that.
Speaker A:You might even have a Tarot deck, maybe.
Speaker A:Look around.
Speaker A:That's probably gathering dust on a shelf somewhere.
Speaker A:People like to get decks and books and use them as paperweights or doorstops, but hopefully you have a deeper understanding of things.
Speaker A:And after I went through the evolution and the transitions that tarot has went through over the past 500 years.
Speaker A:All right, all you cats out there that are following me and interested in me, and I don't blame you.
Speaker A:As always, remember to stand in your own truth.
