Ok so in today’s society tarot decks have become synonymous with mysticism, fortune telling, and the new age spiritual movements, but where did they come from and what were they originally used for?
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| A Modern Rider Waite Deck |
First and foremost, originally Tarot decks were not used for telling fortunes but were in fact a normal deck of cards for playing games. The four suits we know and love on playing cards today – hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades were originally the four suits most associated with Tarot – batons, coins, swords and cups. These were used by Italian aristocracy to play games not unlike bridge. This type of game seems to have originated in the 1300s and then in the 1400s there is evidence of decks which had extra “trump” cards which were illustrated non-suit cards. These, therefore, could be seen to be the very first tarot decks, although it is likely that they were simply an extension of the card games played with the original cards. By the fifteen hundreds, these types of cards were being used to play storytelling style games where the cards were turned and a story, poem or rhyme had to be constructed around its meaning. It is quite possible that this began to give rise to “Playful Divination” – making up playful fortunes for each other based on the cards which fell.
Tarot were not the first form of fortune telling with cards. In fact this does seem to go back to the 1600s with decks such as the below being used. (Image courtesy of the British Museum and used under their copyright statement – not to be used for commercial purposes). Fortune telling with cards is called Cartomancy. This includes tarot as well as any other type of card-reading. (some people still use traditional playing cards to read fortunes these days as well as other variations on the theme.)
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| Divination cards from the 1600s |
Despite this, whilst most people presume tarot reading to be an ancient art, in fact historically the very first mentions of tarot specifically for fortune telling were not until 1750! By 1789, tarot decks for cartomancy were being created. Antoine Court de Gebelin – a French freemason – published a complex analysis of the Tarot in 1781 where he claimed that their meanings were from the Book of Thorth, (A group of texts said to be written by Thorth, the Egyptian god of writing.) This is an unsubstantiated claim, however it is the basis for Alistair Crowley’s Thorth Tarot which was developed in the early twentieth century. Ten years later a man named Jean-Baptiste Alliette, another Frenchman who was also an occultist, released the first Tarot deck designed specifically for divinatory purposes, rather than as a game or entertainment. This was heavily inspired by the work of Gebelin before him.
The Ryder Waite Deck – which was to become perhaps the most well-used deck in modern times was not developed until 1909, previous to that, the old French decks were used such as the Marseille deck pictured below.
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| A modern version of the Marseille Tarot Deck |
The rise of Oracles
An oracle deck differs greatly from a tarot deck. It is a deck of cards, but it has no suit cards (Minor Arcana) and does not conform to set Major Arcana cards like tarot. Most tarot will contain four suits and recognisable cards - death, the high priestess, the wheel, the tower and so forth. Whilst some modern decks deviate from this and change the name of the suits, it is these traits which denote them a tarot deck rather than an oracle deck. The popularity of Oracle decks has grown exponentially in the last half a century, often embraced for its lack of rigidity and it’s free-flow story telling. Unlike Tarot, Oracle decks have no suits, and are just a series of images.
As to origins, the term Oracle comes from ancient Greek. The ancient Greeks believed that man could communicate with Gods at certain times, at specific places and through certain gifted persons or mediums or Oracles. There is no mention of cards ever being part of that equation though! In fact, Oracle cards in the form people understand them today are a very new occurrence! They do however have roots as old as the tarot sets which were being used in the early 1800s.
Some of the earliest oracle decks seem to have been variants on tarot decks. Mlle Le Normand – a fortune teller from the mid 1800s, designed her own deck but rather than use the traditional major arcana (the “trump” picture cards which do not have a suit) she instead drew up her own including cards
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| The Mountain - from the Le Normand Deck |
such as “the tree” “the snake” and “the cloud”. She also did not use the Minor Arcana suit cards in her deck. The cards such as her deck and several other similar ones from this era can be viewed in the British Museum Gallery. It is unknown whether La Normand was the first to design a deck like this, but certainly hers was an early one. It was actually not published and made popular after her death. There are other remaining cards from this era which were very similar so it would appear she wasn't alone in this practice.
For a long time this was considered to be the very first Oracle deck, however cartomancy expert Robert M Place has discussed an older deck - this deck is one named the Hooper Cards or the burning serpent deck. This deck was published in 1775 and shares many similar cards to the recognised Tarot deck we know these days – the hermit, courtship, Death, Courage and so on. It is likely an influence in early tarot decks or influenced by them. It also has a number of unique cards such as “the house on the hill” and “the cloud”, and no minor arcana (suit cards).