fortune-telling. The first tarot decks were created in Italy in the 1430s by adding a fifth suit of 21 specially designed cards called trionfi (“triumphs”) and an odd card called il matto to an already existing four-suited pack (“the fool). (The modern joker, which was created in the late 19th century as an unsuited jack in the game of euchre, is not related to the fool.)
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What kind of religion are tarot cards?
Tarot cards are frequently cited as a component of New Age thought and practice along with astrology, aspects of Buddhism, paganism, and First Nations teachings in the eclectic scholarly approach to the New Age.
Who was the first tarot reader?
Things become a little mystical around Halloween, when horror movies are playing nonstop on TV and your holiday-loving neighbors’ yards are decorated with grotesque decorations. We decided to explore the background of tarot cards in honor of one of the most enchanted seasons of the year.
Tarot cards were initially just another card game, one that was a lot like the bridge that is played today, despite the fact that we now link them with the occult. Like other decks, the earliest known tarot cards appeared in Europe in the fifteenth century, with the wealthiest households in Italy purchasing the most well-liked sets. It was expensive to commission what was practically dozens of tiny paintings because there was no printing press and only hand-painted cards were available.
These early tarot cards, known as tarocchi in Italian, included suits, trump cards, and even pips, just like any other deck.
While others experimented, the mainstream use of tarot cards for divination didn’t begin until Frenchman Jean-Baptise Alliette produced the first comprehensive book on tarot card reading in the late 1700s. Under the alias Etteilla, he published his own deck along with a user’s manual for the cards. He incorporated ideas about astronomy and the four elements to give each card a purpose. He asserted that he had taken extensive inspiration from the Book of Thoth, a work purportedly penned by Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom.
He incorporated ideas about astronomy and the four elements to give each card a purpose.
Etteilla was the first to allocate the cards to a certain sequence and spread, including a front-to-back method that is still in use today. He issued a revised edition of his manual in 1791 when his writings gained popularity, making him the first known professional tarot reader.
The next significant change to tarot cards occurred in 1909. You’ve probably seen the pictures for the Rider-Waite deck, created by publisher William Rider and tarot reader A. E. Waite. The Rider-Waite deck, like Etteilla, came with a written manual explaining how to interpret the cards and what each one meant. When the cards in this deck were arranged together, the intricate scenes presented a narrative. The Rider-Waite Deck was updated and reprinted in the 1970s, along with a new instruction manual by Stephen Kaplan, which led to the most recent tarot card renaissance.
Tarot: A French word?
By the end of the 14th century, cards had spread throughout Europe, maybe starting in Catalonia or Italy. In Italy, towards the middle of the 15th century, tarot cards are first referenced. Italians eventually dubbed them tarocchi as the concept of trumps spread to other card games. Originally called trionfi, which means “triumph” and is where the English word “trump” comes from. From the early 16th century onward, the words tarocchi in Italian and tarot in French both appear, however it is unclear if one came from the other.
As a result of the First and Second Italian Wars (14941522), tarot was introduced to France in the early 16th century. This is well documented in that century’s French literature, with the first mention being from Rabelais in Gargantua in 1534. The first account first appeared in Nevers about 1637, and by 1622 it had surpassed chess in popularity in France. This is an explanation of a three-player, 78-card game using an Italian-suited pack, with the Fool serving as an Excuse and the suits ranked in their “original” order, that is, with number cards in the suits of Cups and Coins ranking from Ace (high) to Ten (low). Except for France and Sicily, all Tarot games now maintain this classification. Tarot was popular in France up until 1650, but after that, it started to lose ground until it was practically unknown outside of Provence by the 18th century.
In the late 18th and early 19th century, the game had a resurgence. Italianization led to the Tarot de Marseille’s original Italian-suited cards being abandoned in favor of French designs, most notably the Tarot Nouveau.
There is some indication that the Droggna Tarot game, which has resemblance to the old French Tarot, was brought to Austrian Tyrol by Napoleon’s troops. According to Dummett and Berloquin, it is also known that French soldiers were issued Tarot packs during the Franco-Prussian War (1870), the First World War (191418), and the Algerian War (19541962), which each contributed to the spread of le jou de Tarot throughout France. The French Tarot Federation (Fdration Franaise de Tarot) was established in 1973, and by the end of the 20th century Tarot had overtaken Belote as the second most played card game in France. The rules have been relatively constant everywhere the game is played, which is one of the reasons French Tarot has endured. The specifics of play outside of officially sanctioned events, however, may differ from circle to circle, making the established terms and rules more indicative than definite.
Tarot cards were first connected to fortune telling in 18th-century France, a tradition that expanded throughout most of the Western world. However, the decks with occultic iconography like the French Tarot Nouveau and Austro-Hungarian Industrie und Glck packs, as well as earlier Italian-suited packs and custom recent versions, are preferred for divination.
On what do tarot cards are based?
There are still many gaps in the overall history of fortune-telling cards, despite the fact that historians like Kaplan and Matthews regularly publish fresh information on divination decks. Wolf notes that persons who utilize cards for divination frequently disagree with historians who are studying their past. “According to Wolf, there is a lot of disagreement among tarot historians and card readers over the history and use of tarot cards. “According to the evidence, they were initially created for games and only subsequently developed for use in divination. Personally, I think they were made for playing games, however I think the design is a little more advanced than many tarot historians seem to think.
“The earliest known tarot cards weren’t created with mysticism in mind; rather, they were intended to be used for a game akin to contemporary bridge.
By the middle of the 18th century, mystical card uses had spread from Italy to other regions of Europe. The tarot was said to be based on a holy book authored by Egyptian priests and brought to Europe by Gypsies from Africa by writer Antoine Court de Gbelin in France. Tarot cards really existed before there were Gypsies in Europe; they originated in Asia, not Africa. Despite its errors, Court de Gbelin’s nine-volume history of the globe had a significant impact.
In 1791, teacher and publisher Jean-Baptiste Alliette published Etteilla, or the Art of Reading Cards, which is now considered to be the first book on the tarot. (Alliette invented this ethereal alias) “Etteilla only by flipping his last name.) Etteilla’s writings claim that he initially learnt divination using a 32-card deck made for the game Piquet, coupled with his unique Etteilla card. The significator card is one of this kind and is often used to represent the person having their fortune read.
Spirituality: Is it a religion?
Religion and spirituality might be difficult to distinguish from one another, but there are some rather clear differences between the two. A community or group usually shares a particular set of organized beliefs and behaviors that make up religion. It has to do with finding serenity and meaning in life and is more of an individual discipline.
Is astrology a branch of tarot cards?
These days, almost everyone you know possesses a tarot deck and regularly receives readings. Tarot is no longer simply for the esoteric. Tarot has evolved over time into an intuitive art that may assist you in planning for both the best and worst scenarios. Tarot cards are filled with symbolism, but you might not be aware of how closely it is related to astrology. For instance: In the Major Arcana, a card corresponds to each sign of the zodiac.
What use did tarot originally serve?
Tarot cards were initially used to play games. A text written by Martiano da Tortona before 1425 contains a very brief explanation of the rules for a deck that resembles the tarot. Before the earliest known detailed explanation of game rules for a French variation in 1637, there are two centuries of hazy accounts of game play or game vocabulary. There are numerous regional variations in the tarot game. Although the game of tarocchini has persisted in Bologna and is still played in Piedmont and Sicily, it is less well-liked in Italy than it is elsewhere.
Tarot experienced its greatest resurgence in the 18th century, when it rose to prominence as one of the most played card games across all of Europe with the exception of Ireland, Britain, the Iberian peninsula, and the Ottoman Balkans. France has the largest tarot game community, and French tarot has undergone another rebirth since the 1970s. Within the boundaries of the old Austro-Hungarian empire, central Europe is a popular location for playing the regional tarot games known as tarock, tarok, or tarokk.
Who created the playing card?
- Before the year 1000 AD, the Chinese developed playing cards. Around 1360, they made their way to Europe via the Mameluke state of Egypt rather than via China directly. The development of suitmarks reveals an intriguing interplay between words, shapes, and ideas. Goblets, gold coins, swords, and polo clubs made up the Mameluke costumes. Due to the fact that polo was not yet widely recognized in Europe, these were changed into batons or staves, which, along with swords, cups, and coins, are the typical suitmarks of Italian and Spanish cards. German card designers experimented with various suits that were loosely based on Italian ones in the fifteenth century before deciding on the still-used acorns, leaves, hearts, and bells (hawk-bells). The French began using stencils to create playing cards around 1480, simplifying the German shapes into the trefle (clover), pique (pike-heads), coeur (hearts), and carreau (paving tiles). These forms were employed by English card makers, but the names differed. Spanish suitmarks such as the spade (pique), which derives from the word espadas, which means swords, and clubs, which resemble the Spanish suit of staves, may have been used in the past. In addition to being the form of a paving tile, diamond may also still carry with it associations of richness from an earlier set of coins.
The meaning of tarot cards
What do tarot cards generally stand for? As shamans like to say, “medicine around what is happening in your particular orbit: love, money, work, aspirations, and general life path” is what tarot cards are there for.
What was the tarot game’s origin?
Group of the Tarocchi/Tarocchini type The names Tarochi and Taraux were first used in Ferrara in June and Avignon in December of the same year, respectively. Along with various writing styles, the names Tarocco, Tarocchi, and Tarot evolved in subsequent ages.