tarot n : any of a set of (usually 72) cards that include 22 cards representing virtues and vices and death and fortune etc.; used by fortunetellers [syn: tarot card]

English

Etymology

From tarot, from tarocco. Compare tarock.

Pronunciation

• /ˈtærəʊ/

  Rhymes with: -ærəʊ

Noun

1. In the context of "singular or plural": A card game played in various different variations.
2. Any of the set of 78 playing-cards (divided into five suits, including one of permanent trumps).

Quotations

• 1987, Hans Hahn, “Logic, Mathematics, and Knowledge,” in Unified Science, Brian McGuiness ed.

  [...] it is not that I cannot convince him, but that I must refuse to go on talking with him, just as I shall refuse to go on playing tarot with a partner who insists on taking my fool with the moon.

• 1996, Jan Potocki, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0140445803&id=lRbXDsA9u4AC&pg=PA333&lpg=PA333&sig=s0cNY_83AgaK_TWOEA1qpv95tuQ

  They took me to her and then we all came back to the portal, where we started playing tarot.

  As we were engrossed in this game, which requires quite a lot of attention, a well-dressed man appeared and seemed to examine us all closely, first one then another.

• 2001, Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0199246297&id=hGm9Dj5OmF8C&pg=PA265&lpg=PA265&sig=rjtFvOxVBgk1cro3fLQ5bLn9Eqw

  In explaining what it is to play tarot we could not leave out of account the rules that define the game; [...]

Translations

Croatian

Etymology

From tarot, from tarocchi.

Noun

hr-noun m

1. tarot qualifier card game

French

Noun

fr-noun m

1. tarot

Homonyms

• taraud
• taro

The tarot is a set of cards featuring twenty one trump cards, the fool, and an extra face card per suit, in addition to the usual suit (face and pip) cards found in ordinary playing cards. Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play Tarot card games. In English-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards are utilized primarily for divinatory purposes with the trump cards plus the Fool card comprising the twenty two major arcana cards and the pip and four face cards the fifty six minor arcana.

History

Playing cards first entered Europe in the late 14th century with the Mamelukes of Egypt, with suits of Scimitars, Polo Sticks, Cups and Coins. These designs rapidly evolved into the basic 'Latin' suits of Swords, Staves, Cups and Coins (also known as disks, and pentacles), which are still used in traditional Italian and Spanish decks. All evidence indicates that the first tarot decks were created between 1410 and 1430 in either Milan, Ferrara, or Bologna, in northern Italy, when additional trump cards with allegorical illustrations were added to the more common four suit decks that already existed. These new decks were originally called carte da trionfi, triumph cards. The first literary evidence of the existence of carte da trionfi is a written statement in the court records in Ferrara, in 1442. The oldest surviving Tarot cards are from fifteen fragmented decks painted in the mid 15th century for the Visconti-Sforza family, the rulers of Milan.

When the tarot was first used for divination is not known, but no documented examples exist prior to the 18th century. However, divination using similar cards is in evidence as early as 1540; a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forli shows a simple method of divination using the coin suit of a regular playing card deck. Manuscripts from 1735 (The Square of Sevens) and 1750 (Pratesi Cartomancer) document rudimentary divinatory meanings for the cards of the tarot, as well as a system for laying out the cards. In 1765, Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination.

Early Decks

Playing cards first appeared in Christian Europe some time before 1367, the date of the first documented evidence of their existence, a ban on their use, in Bern, Switzerland. Before this, cards had been used for several decades in Islamic Al Andalus (see playing card history for discussion of its origins). Early European sources describe a deck with typically fifty two cards, like a modern deck with no jokers. The seventy eight card tarot resulted from adding the twenty two trump cards to an early fifty six card variant (fourteen cards per suit).

Wide use of playing cards in Europe can, with some certainty, be given from 1377 onwards. Tarot cards appear to have been developed some forty years later, and they are mentioned in the surviving text of Martiano da Tortona. Da Tortona's text is thought to have been written between 1418 and 1425, since in 1418 the painter Michelino da Besozzo returned to Milan, and Martiano da Tortona died in 1425.

Da Tortona describes a deck similar to the cards used for Tarot card games in many specific ways though what he describes is more a precursor to tarot than what we might think of as real tarot cards. For instance, his deck has only sixteen trump cards, with motifs that are not comparable to common tarot cards (they are Greek gods) and the suits are four kinds of birds, not the common Italian suits. What makes da Tortona's deck similar to modern tarot game cards is that these sixteen cards are obviously regarded as trump cards in a card game; about twenty five years later, a near contemporary of Da Tortona, Jacopo Antonio Marcello, called them a ludus triumphorum, or 'game winner'. The letter in which Marcello uses this term has been documented and translated on the Internet.

The next documents that seem to confirm the existence of objects similar to tarot cards are two playing card decks from Milan (Brera-Brambrilla and Cary-Yale-Tarocchi) — extant, but fragmentary — and three documents, all from the court of Ferrara, Italy. It is not possible to put a precise date on the cards, but it is estimated that they were made circa 1440. The three documents date from 1 January 1441 to July 1442, with the term trionfi first documented in February 1442. The document from January 1441, which used the term trionfi, is regarded as unreliable; however, the fact that the same painter, Sagramoro, was commissioned by the same patron, Leonello d'Este, as in the February 1442 document, indicates that it is at least plausibly an example of the same type. After 1442 there are some seven years without any examples of similar material. The game seemed to gain in importance in the year 1450, a Jubilee year in Italy, which saw many festivities and the movement of many pilgrims.

It seems apparent that the special motifs on the trump cards, which were added to regular playing cards with a 'four suits of fourteen cards' structure, were ideologically determined. They are thought to show a specific system of transporting messages of different content; known early examples show philosophical, social, poetical, astronomical, and heraldic ideas, for instance, as well as a group of old Roman/Greek/Babylonian heroes, as in the case of the Sola-Busca-Tarocchi (1491) and the Boiardo Tarocchi poem (produced at an unknown date between 1461 and 1494). For example, the earliest-known deck, extant only in its description in Martiano's short book, was produced to show the system of Greek gods, a theme that was very fashionable in Italy at the time. Its production may well have accompanied a triumphal celebration of the commissioner Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milano, meaning that the purpose of the deck was to express and consolidate the political power in Milan (as was common for other artworks of the time). The four suits showed birds, motifs that appeared regularly in Visconti heraldry, and the specific order of the gods gives reason to assume that the deck was intended to imply that the Visconti identified themselves as descendants from Jupiter and Venus (which were seen not as gods but deified mortal heroes).

This first known deck seems to have had the standard ten numbered cards, but having kings as the only court card, and only sixteen trump cards. The later standard (four suits of fourteen plus twenty two) took time to settle; trionfi decks with seventy cards only are still spoken of in 1457. No corroborating evidence for the final standard seventy eight card format exists prior to the Boiardo Tarocchi poem and the Sola Busca Tarocchi.

Individual researchers' opinions are that the trionfi decks of the early time primarily had five suits of fourteen cards http://trionfi.com/0/f/ only; the trumps and the fool were simply considered as a fifth suit with predefined trump function.

The oldest surviving tarot cards are three early to mid 15th century sets, all made for members of the Visconti family. The first deck is the so called Cary-Yale Tarot (or Visconti-Modrone Tarot), which was created between 1442 and 1447 by an anonymous painter for Filippo Maria Visconti. The cards (only sixty six) are today in the Yale University Library of New Haven. But the most famous of these early tarot decks was painted in the mid 15th century, to celebrate the rule of Milan by Francesco Sforza and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti, daughter of the duke Filippo Maria. Probably, these cards were painted by Bonifacio Bembo, but some cards were realized by miniaturists of another school. Of the original cards, thirty five are in the Pierpont Morgan Library, twenty six are at the Accademia Carrara, thirteen are at the Casa Colleoni and two, 'The Devil' and 'The Tower', are lost, or possibly never made. This "Visconti-Sforza" deck, which has been widely reproduced, combines the suits of swords, batons, coins and cups and the court cards king, queen, knight and page with trump cards that reflect conventional iconography of the time to a significant degree.

For a long time tarot cards remained a privilege for the upper classes, and, although some sermons inveighing against the evil inherent in cards can be traced to the 14th century, most civil governments did not routinely condemn tarot cards during tarot's early history. In fact, in some jurisdictions, tarot cards were specifically exempted from laws otherwise prohibiting the playing of cards.

Later tarot decks

As the earliest tarot cards were hand painted, the number of the decks produced is thought to have been rather small, and it was only after the invention of the printing press that mass production of cards became possible. Decks survive from this era from various cities in France (the best known being a deck from the southern city of Marseilles). At around the same time, the name tarocchi appeared.

In 1781 Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote a speculative history and a detailed system for using tarot for divination. Since the publication of this history, various explanations have been given for the origins of tarot. However, there are no extant cards older than the hand-painted ones which were used by Italian nobles, though some esoteric schools place tarot's origin in ancient Egypt or India. The reason the origin of the tarot cards was supposed to be Egypt probably started with the mistaken belief that gypsies, among the first to use the cards for divinatory purposes, were descendants of ancient Egypt (hence the name "Gypsy").

The first wide publicity of divination by tarot came from a French occultist named Alliette, under the pseudonym "Etteilla" (his name reversed), who worked as a seer and card diviner shortly before the French Revolution. Etteilla designed the first esoteric Tarot deck, adding astrological attributions and "Egyptian" motifs to various cards, altering many of them from the Marseilles designs, and adding divinatory meanings in text on the cards. Later, Mademoiselle Marie-Anne Le Normand popularized divination in general during the reign of Napoleon I, through the influence she wielded over Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon's first wife. However, she did not typically use Tarot.

Tarot cards eventually came to be associated with mysticism and magic. Tarot was not widely adopted by mystics, occultists and secret societies until the 18th and 19th centuries. The tradition began in 1781, when Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Swiss clergyman and Freemason, published Le Monde Primitif, a speculative study which included religious symbolism and its survivals in the modern world. De Gébelin first asserted that symbolism of the Tarot de Marseille represented the mysteries of Isis and Thoth. Gébelin further claimed that the name "tarot" came from the Egyptian words tar, meaning "royal", and ro, meaning "road", and that the Tarot therefore represented a "royal road" to wisdom. Gébelin wrote before Champollion had deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, and later Egyptologists found nothing in the Egyptian language to support de Gébelin's fanciful etymologies. Despite this the identification of the Tarot cards with the Egyptian "Book of Thoth" was already firmly established in occult practice.

The idea of the cards as a mystical key was further developed by Eliphas Lévi and passed to the English-speaking world by The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Lévi, not Etteilla, is considered by some to be the true founder of most contemporary schools of Tarot; his 1854 Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (English title: Transcendental Magic) introduced an interpretation of the cards which related them to Hermetic Qabalah. While Lévi accepted Court de Gébelin's claims about an Egyptian origin of the deck symbols, he rejected Etteilla's innovations and his altered deck, and devised instead a system which related the Tarot, especially the Tarot de Marseille, to the Kabbalah and the four elements of alchemy.

Tarot divination became increasingly popular from 1910, with the publication of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot (designed and executed by two members of the Golden Dawn), which replaced the traditionally simple pip cards with images of symbolic scenes. This deck also further obscured the Christian allegories of early decks by changing some attributions (for instance changing "The Pope" to "The Hierophant" and "The Popess" to "The High Priestess"). The Rider-Waite-Smith deck still remains extremely popular in the English-speaking world.

Since then a huge number of different decks have been created, some traditional, some vastly different. The use of Tarot for divination, or as a store of symbolism, has inspired the creation of Oracle card decks. These are card decks for inspiration or divination containing images of angels, faeries, goddesses, Power Animals, etc. Although obviously influenced by Tarot, they do not follow the traditional structure of Tarot; they lack any suits of numbered cards, and the set of cards differs from the traditional major arcana.

Card Usage

Games

Tarot, Tarock or Tarocchi as a card game

One usage of tarot cards is for playing games, with the first basic rules appearing in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona before 1425. The game is nowadays known in many variations, first basic rules appear in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona (before 1425; translated text), the next are known from the year 1637. In Italy the game has become less popular, one version named Tarocco Bolognese: Ottocento has still survived and there are still others played in Piedmont, but the number of games outside of Italy is much higher, there connected to the words Tarot and Tarock.

It is played with a tarot deck of playing cards. The so-called "esoteric" decks used for divination are usually ill-suited for playing, for example the corner symbols are missing; thus there are regular playing decks in the countries where tarocchi is popular.

The 78-card deck contains:

• four suits: depending on the region, either the Anglo-French hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs or the original Latin suits of swords, batons, cups, and coins; numbered one through ten, plus four court cards - a jack, a knight, a queen, and a king;
• the twenty-one tarots, known in divination as the Major Arcana, which function in the game as a permanent suit of trumps;
• the Fool, also known as the Excuse, an un-numbered card that in some variations excuses the player from following suit or playing a trump, and in others acts as the strongest trump.

Typical rules of play

Play is typically counter-clockwise; the player to the right of the dealer plays to the first trick. If possible players must follow suit. If following suit is not possible a trump card must be played. The winner of each trick leads the next.

After the hand has been played, a score is taken based on the point values of the cards in the tricks each player has managed to capture. (counting cards)

For the purpose of the rules, the numbering of the trumps are the only thing that matters. The symbolic tarot images customary in divinatory tarot have no effect in the game itself: though, rather ironically, the tarot deck was originally designed to play this game (see playing card history), the design traditions subsequently evolved independently and the tarots often bear only numbers and whimsical scenes arbitrarily chosen by the engraver. However there are still traditional sequences of images in which the common lineage is visible: for example, a moon is visible at the bottom left corner of the XXI in the picture at the top of the page. This stems from confusion of German Mond with Italian mondo and French monde, meaning "world" - the usual symbol associated with the 21 on Italian suited tarots and in divinatory tarot.

In tarot decks made for playing the game (as opposed to those made for divination or other esoteric uses), the four Latin suits are replaced in many regions with the French suits of hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. Some variations of the game are played with a 54-card deck (5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 of hearts and diamonds and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 of spades and clubs are discarded).

Variations of the game are still played in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, and especially in the countries on the area of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, for which even the name Tarockanien has been coined: the Austrian variation of the game is thus still widely popular among all classes and generations in Slovenia, Croatia and in the Czech Republic, while in Hungary different rules are applied.

Divination

Tarot reading revolves around the belief that the cards can be used to gain insight into the current and possible future situations of the subject (or querent). Some believe they are guided by a spiritual force, such as Gaia, while others believe the cards help them tap into a collective unconscious or their own creative, brainstorming subconscious.

Common card interpretations

Each card has a variety of symbolic meanings that have evolved over the years. Custom or themed tarot decks exist which have even more specific symbolism, although these are more prevalent in the English-speaking world. The minor arcana cards have astrological attributions that can be used as general indicators of timing in the year, based on the Octavian calendar, and the court cards may signify different people in a tarot reading, with each suit's "nature" providing hints about that person's physical and emotional characteristics.

Tarot has a complex and rich symbolism with a long history. In the past, many occult- or divination-oriented authors claimed that the symbolism's origins are lost in time and/or postulated or claimed as fact non-historical theories. Some authors such as Rachel Pollack have written that tarot origin myths have their own significance and value and that the reader can find a study of such myths enriching while at the same time being aware that they aren't factually true. Interpretations have evolved together with the cards over the centuries: later decks have "clarified" the pictures in accordance with meanings assigned to the cards by their creators. In turn, the meanings come to be modified by the new pictures. Images and interpretations have been continually reshaped, in part, to help the Tarot live up to its mythic role as a powerful occult instrument and to respond to modern needs.

See, for example, the Rider-Waite-Smith Strength card. We can know more about the symbolic intentions of the designer here, since he conveniently wrote many books on the subject on occultism and symbolism and a handbook specifically for this deck titled The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). As with its ancestor in the Tarot de Marseilles, the Strength trump shows a woman holding the jaws of a lion, but the Rider-Waite-Smith picture is far more elaborate. The woman's hat of the Marseilles card has been interpreted as a lemniscate: the sideways-figure-eight representing infinity, or, according to Waite, the Spirit of Life. Other symbols are included: a chain of roses symbolizing desire or passion, against a white robe symbolizing purity. The mountains in the background demonstrate another kind of strength.

Another example of the preservation of designs from one deck to another can be seen via the incorporation of the ribbon design found on the Deux de Deniéres in a Swiss-style deck originally published by Müller & Cie. of Schaffhouse into the of The Book of Thoth Tarot's Two of Disks.

There are numerous published books that discuss the usage of the tarot for divination. In many systems, the four suits are associated with the four elements: Swords with air, Wands with fire, Cups with water and Pentacles with earth. The numerology of the cards is also considered significant. The tarot is considered to correspond to various systems such as astrology, Pythagorean numerology, the Kabalah (where each of the major arcana represent a path on the tree of life), the I Ching, Christianity http://www.tarotexplained.com, Aura-Soma and others.

Spreads

To perform a Tarot reading, the Tarot deck is typically shuffled by either the subject or a third-party reader, and is laid out in one of a variety of patterns, often called "spreads". They are then interpreted by the reader or a third-party performing the reading for the subject. These might include the subject's thoughts and desires (known or unknown) or past, present, and future events. Generally, each position in the spread is assigned a number, and the cards are turned over in that sequence, with each card being contemplated/interpreted before moving to the next. Each position is also associated with an interpretation, which indicates what aspect of the question the card in that position is referring to.

Sometimes, rather than being dealt randomly, the initial card in a spread is intentionally chosen to represent the querent or the question being asked. This card is called the significator.

Some common spreads include:

• Celtic Cross: This is probably the most common spread. Eleven cards are used, with six arranged in a cross and four placed vertically beside the cross. Another card is placed horizontally across the central cards of the cross. The first central card of the cross is frequently the significator and the second represents the conditions surrounding the question; the crossing card often represents an obstacle they must face, an aspect of the question they have not yet considered, etc.
• Horse-shoe: Another very common question asking spread. Seven cards are arranged in a semi-circle or 'V' shape. The cards, from left to right, represent the past, present, influences, obstacles, expectations (or hopes/fears), best course of action and likely outcomes. Some variations of this spread swap the expectations and inspiration cards around.
• 3-card spread: Three cards are used, with the first representing the past, the second the present, the third the future.
• Astrological spread: Twelve cards are spread in a circle, to represent the twelve signs of the zodiac. A thirteenth card is placed in the middle; often the significator.
• 1-card spread: It should be noted that a single card can constitute a spread.
• Tetractys: Ten cards arranged in a four-rowed pyramid. Each row represents earth, air, fire or water and each card within the row has a very specific meaning. The single card in the top row is the significator.

There are numerous other spreads - essentially, the reader may use any card arrangement in which they find by experience to be useful.

Reversed cards

Some methods of interpreting the tarot consider cards to have different meanings depending on whether they appear upright or reversed. A reversed card is often interpreted to mean the opposite of its upright meaning. For instance, the Sun card upright may be associated with satisfaction, gratitude, health, happiness, strength, inspiration, and liberation; while in reverse, it may be interpreted to mean a lack of confidence and mild unhappiness. However, not all methods of card reading prescribe an opposite meaning to reversed cards. Some card readers will interpret a reversed card as either a more intense variation of the upright card, an undeveloped trait or an issue that requires greater attention.

Other uses of Tarot

Psychological

Carl Jung was the first psychologist to attach importance to tarot symbolism. He may have regarded the tarot cards as representing archetypes: fundamental types of person or situation embedded in the subconscious of all human beings. The Emperor, for instance, represents the ultimate patriarch or father figure.

The theory of archetypes gives rise to several psychological uses. Since the cards represent these different archetypes within each individual, ideas of the subject's self-perception can be gained by asking them to select a card that they 'identify with'. Equally, the subject can try and clarify the situation by imagining it in terms of the archetypal ideas associated with each card. For instance, someone rushing in heedlessly like the Knight of Swords, or blindly keeping the world at bay like the Rider-Waite-Smith Two of Swords.

More recently Dr Timothy Leary has suggested that the Tarot Trump cards are a pictorial representation of human development from a baby to a fully grown adult, The Fool symbolising the new born infant, The Magician symbolising the stage at which an infant starts to play with artifacts, etc. In addition to this, the Tarot Trumps to be a blue print for of the human race in the future.

Occult uses

Some schools of occult thought or symbolic study, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, consider the tarot to function as a textbook and mnemonic device for their teachings. This may be one cause of the word arcana being used to describe the two sections of the tarot deck: arcana is the plural form of the Latin word arcanum, meaning "closed" or "secret."

Deck-specific symbolism

Rider-Waite deck

Each card in the Rider-Waite deck is intricately detailed with symbols related to the card. Color is also used symbolically.

Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth deck

Each card in the Thoth deck is intricately detailed with Astrological, Zodiacal, Elemental and Qabalistic symbols related to each card. Colors are used symbolically, especially the cards related to the five elements of Spirit, Fire, Water, Air and Earth.

Mythic Tarot

The Mythic Tarot deck links Tarot symbolism with the classical Greek Myths.

Modern oracle cards

Recently, the use of Tarot for divination, or as a store of symbolism, has inspired the creation of modern oracle card decks. These are card decks for inspiration or divination containing images of angels, faeries, goddesses, Power Animals, etc. Although obviously influenced by divinatory Tarot, they do not follow the traditional structure of Tarot; they often lack any suits of numbered cards, and the set of cards differs from the traditional major arcana.

Modern deck designs

A variety of styles of tarot decks and designs exist and a number of typical regional patterns have emerged. Historically, one of the most important designs is the one usually known as the Tarot de Marseilles. This standard pattern was the one studied by Court de Gébelin, and cards based on this style illustrate his Le Monde primitif. The Tarot de Marseilles was also popularized in the 20th century by Paul Marteau. Some current editions of cards based on the Marseilles design go back to a deck of a particular Marseilles design that was printed by Nicolas Conver in 1760. Other regional styles include the "Swiss" Tarot; this one substitutes Juno and Jupiter for the Papess, or High Priestess and the Pope, or Hierophant. In Florence an expanded deck called Minchiate was used; this deck of ninety six cards includes astrological symbols including the four elements, as well as traditional Tarot motifs.

Some decks exist primarily as artwork; and such art decks sometimes contain only the twenty two trump cards.

The seventy eight card tarot deck used by esotericists has two distinct parts:

• The Major Arcana (greater secrets), or trump cards, consists of twenty two cards without suits; The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgement, and The World.

• The Minor Arcana (lesser secrets) consists of fifty six cards, divided into four suits of fourteen cards each; ten numbered cards and four court cards. The court cards are the king, queen, Knight and page, in each of the four tarot suits. The traditional Italian tarot suits are swords, batons, coins and cups; in modern tarot decks, however, the batons suit is often called wands, rods or staves, while the coins suit is often called pentacles or disks.

The terms major arcana and minor arcana are not used in relation to Tarot card games.

Tarot is often used in conjunction with the study of the Hermetic Qabala. In these decks all the cards are illustrated in accordance with Qabalistic principles, most being under the influence of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and bearing illustrated scenes on all the suit cards. The images on the 'Rider-Waite' deck were drawn by artist Pamela Colman-Smith, to the instructions of Christian mystic and occultist Arthur Edward Waite, and were originally published by the Rider Company in 1910. This deck is considered a simple, user friendly one but nevertheless its imagery, especially in the Major Arcana, is complex and replete with esoteric symbolism. The subjects of the Major Arcana are based on those of the earliest decks, but have been significantly modified to reflect Waite and Smith's view of Tarot. An important difference from Marseilles style decks is that Smith drew scenes with esoteric meanings on the suit cards. However the Rider-Waite wasn't the first deck to include completely illustrated suit cards. The first to do so was the 15th century Sola-Busca deck.

Older decks such as the Visconti-Sforza and Marseilles are less detailed than more modern decks. A Marseilles type deck is usually distinguished by having repetitive motifs on the pip cards as opposed to the full scenes found on "Rider-Waite" style decks. These more simply illustrated "Marseilles" style decks are also used esoterically, for divination, and for game play, though the French card game of tarot is now generally played using a relatively modern 19th century design of German origin. Such playing Tarot decks generally have twenty one trump cards with genre scenes from 19th century life, a Fool, and have court and pip cards that closely resemble today's French playing cards.)

The Marseilles style Tarot decks generally feature numbered minor arcana cards that look very much like the pip cards of modern playing card decks. The Marseilles' numbered minor arcana cards do not have scenes depicted on them; rather, they sport a geometric arrangement of the number of suit symbols (e.g., swords, rods/wands, cups, coins/pentacles) corresponding to the number of the card (accompanied by botanical and other non-scenic flourishes), while the court cards are often illustrated with flat, two-dimensional drawings.

A widely used modernist esoteric Tarot deck is Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot (pronounced or /θɒθ/). Crowley, at the height of a lifetime's work dedicated to occultism, engaged the artist Lady Frieda Harris to paint the cards for the deck according to his specifications. His system of Tarot correspondences, published in The Book of Thoth & Liber 777, are an evolution and expansion upon that which he learnt in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

In contrast to the Thoth deck's colourfulness, the illustrations on Paul Foster Case's B.O.T.A. Tarot deck are black line drawings on white cards; this is an unlaminated deck intended to be coloured by its owner. Other esoteric decks include the Golden Dawn Tarot, which claims to be based on a deck by SL MacGregor Mathers.

The variety of decks presently available is almost endless, and grows yearly. For instance, cat-lovers may have the Tarot of the Cat People, a deck replete with cats in every picture. The Tarot of the Witches and the Aquarian Tarot retain the conventional cards with varying designs. The Tree of Life Tarot's cards are stark symbolic catalogs, the Cosmic Tarot, and The Alchemical Tarot that combines traditional alchemical symbols with tarot images.

These modern decks change the cards to varying degrees. For example, the Motherpeace Tarot is notable for its circular cards and feminist angle: the male characters have been replaced by females. The Tarot of Baseball has suits of bats, mitts, balls and bases; "coaches" and "MVPs" instead of Queens and Kings; and major arcana cards like "The Catcher", "The Rule Book" and "Batting a Thousand". In the Silicon Valley Tarot, major arcana cards include The Hacker, Flame War, The Layoff and The Garage; the suits are Networks, Cubicles, Disks and Hosts; the court cards CIO, Salesman, Marketeer and New Hire. Another tarot in recent years has been the Robin Wood Tarot. This deck retains the Rider-Waite theme while adding some very soft and colorful Pagan symbolism. As with other decks, the cards are available with a companion book written by Ms. Wood which details all of the symbolism and colors utilized in the Major and Minor Arcana.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suit_of_cups Suit of cups - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unconventionality is taken to an extreme by Morgan's Tarot, produced in 1970 by Morgan Robbins and illustrated by Darshan Chorpash Zenith. Morgan's Tarot has no suits, no card ranking and no explicit order of the cards. It has eighty eight cards rather than the more conventional seventy eight, and its simple line drawings show a strong influence from the psychedelic era. Nevertheless, Robbins claims spiritual inspiration for the cards and cites the influence of Tibetan Buddhism in particular.

See also

• Suit of Wands
• Suit of Cups
• Suit of Swords
• Suit of Coins

References

External links

• Tarot FAQ
• Tarot Research Origin in 15th century
• Tarotpedia
• Tarot Hermit
• Lost History-Tarot Cards
• Origins and Context of the Tarot
• Medieval Origin of the Tarot
• International Playing Card Society; pattern sheets of tarot and other cards.