Tarot Card History

The oldest surviving tarot cards can be traced back to Northern Italy in 1440. These cards were hand-painted and originally used for a game known as ‘The Game of Triumphs’ that was popular with the nobles. The game spread through northern Italy and eastern France and later to Sicily, Austria, Germany, and the low-countries.

Psychics and Tarot

Centuries later, the cards reemerged as a tool for divination. Devotees of the occult arts in France and England recognized the mystical and magical meaning in the symbolism of the cards. Psychics began to use the Tarot as a channel from which they drew their readings.

While the designs of the cards have changed over the years their meanings remain the same. The cards have since been revised and redesigned by artists and card makers to reflect the cultures of the various locales in which they were used.

Tarot and Kabbalah

During the nineteenth century, the famous occultist known as Eliphas Lévi developed a correlation between the Tarot and the Hebrew system of mysticism: Kabbalah. It has since been associated with many magical systems and religions known to mankind. Lévi was responsible for linking the 22 cards of the Major Arcana to the Hebrew alphabet.

Today’s Tarot

English Christian occult philosopher Arthur Edward Waite’s rectified deck of cards designed by Pamela Coleman Waite are the most popular cards currently in distribution. Their "rectified" deck of 78 cards has become the most widely used instrument of divination for psychics of this century.