Tarot Symbolism
The correspondence systems built by the Golden Dawn, explained.
Decode the symbols →The History of Tarot
Tarot began as a 15th-century Italian card game, not a fortune-telling tool. Here is the documented record, myths included.
Tarot's actual history is stranger, and more recent, than most decks let on. It did not begin as a divinatory system handed down from ancient Egypt — it began as a game played by Italian nobility, and only acquired its occult reputation roughly three hundred years later. Understanding the real timeline makes the symbolism in every card easier to place, because each layer of meaning was added by a specific person, in a specific decade, for a specific reason.
Timeline
| Period | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1440s | Hand-painted Visconti-Sforza deck created for the Duke of Milan; one of the earliest near-complete tarot decks to survive |
| 1450s–1500s | "Tarocchi" spreads as a trick-taking game across Italy, France and Switzerland; no divinatory use is recorded |
| 1781 | Antoine Court de Gébelin publishes Le Monde Primitif, claiming an ancient Egyptian origin for tarot, without supporting evidence |
| 1783–1791 | Jean-Baptiste Alliette ("Etteilla") publishes the first deck designed specifically for fortune-telling, and the first systematic divinatory meanings |
| 1854–1861 | Éliphas Lévi explicitly links tarot to Kabbalah, cementing its place in French occultism |
| 1888–1900 | The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn builds a complete correspondence system: astrology, Kabbalah and alchemy mapped onto all 78 cards |
| 1909 | The Rider-Waite-Smith deck is published, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith to A.E. Waite's specifications — the first mass-market deck with fully illustrated pip cards |
| 1938–1943 | Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris paint the Thoth Tarot; it is not published until 1969, after both had died |
| 1970s–2000s | New Age revival brings tarot into mainstream bookshops and therapy-adjacent practice |
| 2010–present | Crowdfunded independent decks diversify imagery, subject matter and representation |
Game First, Oracle Later
It is easy to forget that tarot cards were, for roughly three centuries, simply playing cards for a trick-taking game similar to bridge. That game — known as Tarocchi in Italy, Tarot in France and Königrufen in Austria — is still played today by dedicated communities across parts of Europe, almost entirely unrelated to fortune-telling. Divinatory use only became widespread after Etteilla's decks in the 1780s, meaning tarot-as-oracle is younger than the United States Constitution.
The Uncredited Artist
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck — the single most reproduced tarot deck in the world — was illustrated in full by Pamela Colman Smith, a Jamaican-British artist, for a flat fee and no royalties. For decades her name did not appear on the cards themselves, and she is sometimes referred to only by her nickname, "Pixie." Recent scholarship and reissues have restored her credit, and some modern editions now use the name "Smith-Waite" or "Waite-Smith" in recognition of her authorship of all 78 illustrations.
Myth vs. Record
- Myth: Tarot originated in ancient Egypt. Record: No evidence predates 15th-century Italy; the Egyptian-origin claim was invented by Court de Gébelin in 1781.
- Myth: The Catholic Church issued a blanket ban on tarot. Record: Regional gaming restrictions existed, as with most card games of the era, but no unified doctrinal ban targeted tarot specifically until far later moral panics.
- Myth: Romani travellers introduced tarot to Europe. Record: The deck's earliest verified home is the Italian ducal courts; the "fortune-telling Gypsy" association is a later 18th- and 19th-century romanticisation.
Knowing this timeline helps explain why the symbol systems described in our symbolism guide are largely 19th-century additions layered onto a much older game, and why so many modern spreads described on our spreads page did not exist before the occult revival.
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Traditional Spreads
How occult-era readers structured questions into fixed layouts.
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