Tarot << TAIR oh >> is a deck of pictured playing cards used for divination, the practice of trying to learn about the unknown through magical or supernatural means. Tarot was originally introduced in Europe as a card game. It has since acquired mystical and divinatory associations. Today, practitioners of tarot believe that the cards can reveal aspects of an individual’s personality and foretell certain events, such as when a person will marry. Popular fascination with tarot has led to its incorporation in many stories and films.
History.
The first tarot card decks are known from the 1400’s in Italy. Playing cards had been introduced into Italy from Muslim countries in the Middle East. Early tarot decks typically had 78 cards and were used to play a game similar to the modern card game bridge. The deck included 22 illustrated cards, known as trumps. The remaining 56 cards were divided into four suits, which varied in different regions of Europe. Each suit had cards numbered one through ten and four court cards depicting a king, queen, knight, and page.
The characters that appear on trump cards in these early decks would have been familiar to people of Europe in the Middle Ages. The characters resembled the cast of a morality play or parable and included Death, the Emperor, and the Hermit. One trump card, the High Priestess, is also known as the Papess. This character may be based on the legend of Pope Joan, a woman who supposedly served as Pope for several years during the Middle Ages.
Tarot decks became associated with the occult and used for divination and fortunetelling beginning in the 1700’s. At that time, some scholars associated tarot decks with the Kabbalah, a mystical Jewish system of numerology. Other scholars connected tarot to various ancient religions or to astrology. In this context, the American-born English mystic Arthur Edward Waite commissioned an artist named Pamela Rider to illustrate a tarot deck in the early 1900’s. This deck, known as the Rider-Waite tarot, became popular for divination. Rider added pictures to all of the numbered suit cards, adding to the sense that the tarot deck tells a story. Another deck was designed by Aleister Crowley, a British writer known for his interest in spiritualism and the occult. This deck, known as the Thoth tarot, incorporates even more mystical imagery and rearranges the order of some trump cards.
Modern tarot decks
are available in a wide variety of themes. People today use tarot for divination, for contemplation and meditation, for creative inspiration, and for entertainment. In modern tarot decks, the 56 suit cards are referred to as the Minor Arcana. The 22 trumps are called the Major Arcana. The term arcana refers to a profound secret. The four suits are often shown as the four elements of the ancient world: (1) fire, (2) water, (3) air, and (4) earth. But they may also be (1) wands or staves, (2) cups, (3) swords, and (4) pentacles (five-pointed star figures) or coins.
Tarot cards are used for divination in a variety of ways. Often, they are shuffled and dealt out in a particular order. A person skilled in reading the cards then interprets meaning from the order and symbolism of the dealt cards. Cards of the Major Arcana typically relate to the various stages and cycles of life. The Minor Arcana often represent specific people and events in an individual’s life. Tarot imagery can be adapted to a wide variety of interpretations, which probably helps account for its enduring popularity.
Tarot cards are also a common theme in popular culture. They appear in television shows, movies, and comic books, and in role-playing and video games. The poet T. S. Eliot alludes to the tarot in his famous poem The Waste Land (1922). The tarot is also used for divination in the Harry Potter series of books written by the British author J. K. Rowling. Popular authors in modern fantasy literature, including Piers Anthony, Mercedes Lackey, and Terry Pratchett, have also used mystical tarot as a theme in their books.
