Tarot History

Tarot originated as a card game in 15th-century northern Italy — likely Milan or Ferrara — before acquiring esoteric associations in 18th-century France. The Marseille pattern standardized the Minor Arcana pip structure that persists today, while the occult revival of the 19th century, led by figures in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, transformed tarot into the interpretive system most readers recognise.

The 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck — commissioned by A. E. Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith — introduced fully illustrated pip cards and anchored the symbolic vocabulary now shared by the majority of English-language decks. This section traces those threads: the key creators, landmark decks, and institutional movements that shaped modern tarot practice.

History articles

  • History of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot

    1909

    The story of the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck — commissioned by A. E. Waite, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith, and published by Rider & Co. — and why it became the template for modern tarot.

  • History of the Marseille Tarot

    17th century

    How the Marseille tarot pattern emerged in northern Italy, standardized through French card-makers in the 17th century, and became the dominant European deck until the RWS era.

  • History of the Thoth Tarot

    1938–1969

    The Thoth Tarot was designed by Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris between 1938 and 1943. This article traces the commission, Harris's projective geometry, and the deck's delayed publication.

  • A. E. Waite: Biography and Contribution to Tarot

    1857–1942

    Arthur Edward Waite was a prolific occult scholar, Golden Dawn member, and the driving force behind the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith tarot. This article examines his life, his break with Mathers, and his lasting influence.

  • Aleister Crowley and the Thoth Tarot

    1938–1944

    How Aleister Crowley's Thelemic philosophy, his reworking of Golden Dawn correspondences, and his collaboration with Lady Frieda Harris produced one of the most complex esoteric tarot decks ever created.

  • Origin of Tarot: From Card Game to Divination

    1440s

    The earliest tarot cards appeared in northern Italy around 1440. This article examines those first decks, their game-playing purpose, and the gradual accretion of esoteric meaning that transformed them.

  • Tarocchi: The Italian Origins of Tarot

    15th century

    Before tarot was an esoteric tool, it was tarocchi — a popular trick-taking card game in northern Italy. This article examines the game, its rules, and the cultural milieu that produced the first trump cards.

  • Etteilla and the French Occult Tarot

    1789

    Jean-Baptiste Alliette, known as Etteilla, was the first person to design a deck specifically for divination (1789) and the first professional card-reader. His system shaped French cartomancy for a century.

  • Eliphas Lévi and Tarot Symbolism

    1854

    Eliphas Lévi was the first to link tarot systematically to the Kabbalah and Hebrew alphabet (1854). His synthesis became the foundation for the Golden Dawn's tarot work and, through them, the RWS deck.

  • Papus and The Tarot of the Bohemians

    1889

    Gérard Encausse (Papus) published Le Tarot des Bohémiens in 1889, the most popular French occult tarot manual of the 19th century. This article surveys Papus's system and its relationship to Etteilla and Lévi.

  • Arthur Edward Waite and Tarot Mysticism

    1887–1929

    Waite's approach to tarot was explicitly mystical rather than divinatory: he saw the cards as a vehicle for Christian Hermeticism, not fortune-telling. This article examines his theology and how it shaped the RWS deck.

  • Book T and the Golden Dawn Tarot Correspondences

    1888

    Book T (Liber T) is the secret Golden Dawn document that first systematically assigned Hebrew letters, astrological signs, and planets to all 78 tarot cards. This article examines its contents and legacy.

  • Marseille Pattern Evolution: 1500–1900

    1500–1900

    The Marseille tarot pattern was not static. This article traces how woodblock designs, colour conventions, and card names evolved across four centuries of French and Swiss card-making.

  • Tarot in the 19th-Century Occult Revival

    1850–1910

    The 19th-century occult revival — Theosophy, Spiritualism, Rosicrucianism, the Golden Dawn — transformed tarot from a popular card game into the centrepiece of Western esoteric practice.

  • Tarot and the Counterculture: 1960s–1970s

    1960s–1970s

    The counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s discovered tarot alongside astrology, the I Ching, and other divinatory systems. This article examines how that wave of interest reshaped tarot's audience and publishing.

  • The Rise of Independent Tarot Decks: 2010s–2020s

    2010s–2020s

    Crowdfunding and print-on-demand enabled a wave of independent tarot decks from the 2010s onward. This article tracks the explosion of indie decks, their diversity, and how they changed the tarot market.

  • Tarot and Jungian Psychology

    Carl Jung never wrote directly about tarot, but his theories of archetypes, the collective unconscious, and synchronicity became the dominant psychological framework through which 20th-century readers approached the cards.