The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Contemporary Esoteric Practice

Part I: Historical Origins of the Tarot

Early Playing Cards and Cultural Roots (14th–15th Century)

The origins of the Tarot are inseparable from the history of playing cards in Europe. The earliest known playing cards likely entered the continent from the Islamic world, particularly the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, in the late 14th century. Surviving fragments of Mamluk card decks (now housed in the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul) show suits remarkably similar to modern Tarot: cups, swords, coins, and polo sticks (later adapted into wands or staves).

Mamluk Playing Cards, 15th century, Topkapı Palace Museum, Istanbul

By 1377, playing cards were widespread in Europe, as noted in the anonymous Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis attributed to a Dominican monk in Switzerland. The adaptation of these cards by Italian and French courts gave rise to new symbolic and artistic forms, eventually crystallizing into the Tarot.

Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis, 1377

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The Italian Triumphs (15th Century)

The first recognizably “Tarot-like” decks emerged in 15th-century Northern Italy, particularly in Milan, Ferrara, and Florence. These were called Trionfi (“triumphs”) and were luxury objects commissioned by noble families. The most famous of these is the Visconti–Sforza Tarot (c. 1440–1460), painted by artists such as Bonifacio Bembo.

The Trionfi decks contained a standard set of playing card suits alongside a series of allegorical trump cards, which depicted figures like Love, Death, The World, and The Pope. These allegories reflected Renaissance interests in morality, theology, astrology, and Neoplatonic philosophy. The imagery was not initially occult but rather a symbolic representation of social and cosmic order.

Visconti–Sforza Tarot, The Lovers card, c. 1450

Visconti–Sforza Tarot, Death card, c. 1450

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Tarot as a Game (16th–17th Century)

Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, Tarot remained primarily a card game, especially popular in France, Italy, and Switzerland. Known as tarocchi in Italian and tarot in French, it spread widely across Europe.

This fresco is commonly known as The Tarocchi Players. It is from the Casa Borromeo, in Milan, and was probably painted in the 1440s.

Rules for the game were codified in numerous sources, such as Francesco Piscina’s treatise (1565), which also attempted to explain the allegorical meaning of the trumps. Nevertheless, Tarot was not yet considered a mystical or divinatory tool. It functioned much like modern card games: a pastime enjoyed by both nobility and commoners.

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The Tarot de Marseille (17th–18th Century)

By the 17th century, the Tarot de Marseille had become the standard form of the deck across France and Switzerland. Produced with woodblock printing and stencil coloring, it was widely accessible and fixed many of the designs still recognized today: the Magician (Le Bateleur), High Priestess (La Papesse), Death (La Mort), and others.

Unlike later illustrated decks, the Minor Arcana in the Marseille tradition showed only suit symbols (cups, swords, coins, wands) without narrative scenes. This simple but iconic imagery made the Tarot de Marseille the foundation upon which later occultists like Court de Gébelin and Etteilla built their symbolic interpretations.

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The Tarot de Marseille (17th–18th Century)

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The Occult Revival: From Courtly Game to Esoteric Text (18th Century)

The esoteric reinterpretation of Tarot began in the 18th century, when Enlightenment thinkers and occultists projected hidden wisdom onto the cards.

• Antoine Court de Gébelin (1725–1784): In his influential work Le Monde Primitif (1781), he argued that Tarot preserved the lost wisdom of ancient Egypt, seeing the 22 Major Arcana as hieroglyphs encoding esoteric truths. Although historically inaccurate, this theory profoundly shaped later interpretations.

Portrait of male Antoine Court de Gébelin, 1784

Title page of 'Le Monde Primitif', 1781

Jean-Baptiste Alliette (“Etteilla,” 1738–1791): A Parisian occultist who popularized Tarot as a tool for divination. He published one of the first instructional manuals (Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes, 1785) and designed a special deck—the Etteilla Tarot—explicitly intended for fortune-telling.

Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Alliette, known as Etteilla (1738–1791)

Etteilla Tarot deck, 18th Century

This period marks the Tarot’s shift from parlor entertainment to a spiritual and magical system.

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19th-Century Esotericism and the Tarot

The 19th century was a golden age for occultism in Europe, and Tarot became central to the emerging synthesis of Hermeticism, Kabbalah, astrology, and alchemy.

• Éliphas Lévi (1810–1875): In his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1854–1856), Lévi connected the 22 Major Arcana with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the paths of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. He also identified The Magician (Le Bateleur) with the archetype of the initiate or occult adept. Lévi’s ideas profoundly influenced all later esoteric schools.

Portrait of Éliphas Lévi (1810–1875)

Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1854–1856)

22 Major Arcana with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet

• Papus (Gérard Encausse, 1865–1916): In Le Tarot des Bohémiens (1889), Papus systematized Tarot as a tool for initiation, associating each card with astrological, numerological, and Kabbalistic correspondences.

Portrait of Papus (Gérard Encausse, 1865–1916)

Le Tarot des Bohémiens (1889)

• The French Occult School: Figures like Oswald Wirth (1860–1943) refined Tarot iconography, producing symbolic decks closely tied to occult study.

Portrait of Oswald Wirth (1860–1943)

Oswald Wirth Tarot deck, 19th Century

By the late 19th century, Tarot was firmly embedded within the rituals of secret societies such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in England. Members like Arthur Edward Waite and Aleister Crowley each produced influential decks:

• The Rider–Waite–Smith Tarot (1909), illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith, became the most widely used deck worldwide, standardizing much of modern Tarot imagery.

Rider–Waite Tarot Deck, 1909

• The Thoth Tarot, painted by Lady Frieda Harris under Crowley’s direction (1944), integrated deep layers of Hermetic Qabalah, astrology, and Thelema.

Portrait of Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)

Portrait of Lady Frieda Harris (1877–1962)

Thoth Tarot deck, 1944

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Summary of Historical Development

1. 14th century – Islamic playing cards enter Europe.

2. 15th century – Italian Trionfi decks emerge (Visconti–Sforza).

3. 16th–17th centuries – Tarot functions mainly as a card game (tarocchi).

4. 18th century – Court de Gébelin and Etteilla reframe Tarot as an esoteric text.

5. 19th century – French occult revival: Lévi, Papus, Wirth establish Tarot-Kabbalah connections.

6. Late 19th–20th century – Golden Dawn, Waite–Smith, and Crowley transform Tarot into the modern esoteric system we know today.

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