From Playing Cards to Mystical Symbols: The History and Evolution and Legacy of Tarot
Picture this: It’s a crisp autumn evening in 15th-century Milan. Inside a candlelit palazzo, laughter echoes off marble floors as a group of Italian nobles lean over a table, their silk sleeves brushing against hand-painted cards adorned with knights, lovers, and emperors. The game is tarocchi—a playful battle of wits where strategy trumps superstition. Fast-forward six centuries. Now, in a Brooklyn apartment draped with twinkling fairy lights, a tarot reader lays out cards for a client. The Moon. The Tower. The Star. The room hums with tension as symbols etched in ink seem to pulse with meaning. “This isn’t about fate,” the reader says softly. “It’s about choices.”
This is the paradox of Tarot: what began as a Renaissance pastime for Europe’s elite has morphed into a global language of introspection, mysticism, and even rebellion. Its 78 cards are a Rorschach test for the human experience, mirroring everything from medieval power struggles to 21st-century identity crises. But how did a card game evolve into a spiritual phenomenon? And why does it still captivate us in an age of algorithms and AI?
The story of Tarot is a tapestry woven with threads of art, secrecy, and human yearning. It’s a tale of bored aristocrats, 19th-century occultists chasing “lost” Egyptian wisdom, and feminist artists reclaiming its imagery. Along the way, it’s been banned by churches, commercialized by corporations, and debated by psychologists. Yet its core remains unchanged: Tarot thrives because it asks us to confront the unknown—not to predict the future, but to navigate the chaos of the present.
In this exploration, we’ll trace Tarot’s winding path from parlors to podcasts. We’ll start in the sun-drenched courts of Italy, where the first decks were crafted as playful status symbols. Then, we’ll descend into the shadowy salons of 18th-century Paris, where free thinkers transformed these cards into vessels of occult knowledge. From there, we’ll witness Tarot’s pop-culture explosion—from punk rock album covers to therapy offices—and grapple with its thorniest debates: Is it a tool for empowerment or exploitation? A sacred tradition or a blank canvas for capitalism?
By the end, you might still wonder: Are the cards magic, metaphor, or both? But one thing is certain—Tarot’s greatest trick isn’t divination. It’s survival.
1. Origins: The Birth of Tarot as a Game (15th–18th Century)
1.1 Early European Card Games: From Dice to Decks
Long before Tarot’s rise, medieval Europe buzzed with games of chance. Dice rattled in taverns, and simple card games trickled in from the Islamic world via trade routes. By the 14th century, decks with suits like swords, cups, coins, and polo sticks—borrowed from Mamluk Egypt—entertained nobles and merchants alike. But these early cards lacked the drama of Tarot. They were tools for gambling, not storytelling.
Then, in the mid-15th century, northern Italy’s rival city-states—Milan, Ferrara, and Bologna—became laboratories for creativity. Here, amid wars and Renaissance fervor, someone (likely a bored noble or clever court artist) had a subversive idea: What if cards could do more than tally points? Thus, Tarot was born.
Originally called tarocchi, the game was a strategic cousin of bridge, where players competed to capture tricks using a deck layered with allegorical “trump” cards. These weren’t mystical symbols but satirical jabs at power: The Pope, The Emperor, and The Fool (a jester mocking them all). Divination? Not yet. This was a game for schemers and thinkers, where aristocrats flaunted their wit—and wealth—with lavishly painted decks.
1.2 The Visconti-Sforza Deck: Art, Power, and Gold Leaf
Imagine holding a card gilded with real gold, its edges softened by centuries of fingertips. The Visconti-Sforza Tarot, crafted around 1441, is the Mona Lisa of card decks. Commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti, the paranoid Duke of Milan, these cards were less a game and more a flex. Each hand-painted masterpiece showcased his dynasty’s glory: knights in armor, angelic maidens, and the Visconti family crest—a serpent devouring a man, a not-so-subtle metaphor for their ambition.
The deck’s 78 cards—22 Major Arcana (the “trumps”) and 56 Minor Arcana (suits of cups, swords, coins, and staves)—were a medieval Instagram feed. The Fool, depicted as a ragged beggar, wandered the margins of society. The Lovers card? A political marriage contract, not romance. Yet hidden in these images were seeds of Tarot’s future: archetypes so visceral they’d later ignite the occult imagination.
Only 15 Visconti-Sforza cards survive today, scattered across museums like puzzle pieces. But their legacy is clear: Tarot began as propaganda, a way for Renaissance elites to say, “Look how cultured—and untouchable—we are.”
1.3 Spread Across Europe: From Palaces to Pub Tables
By the 1500s, Tarot had slipped its Italian leash. In France, it became tarot, a favorite of King Louis XIV’s court, where powdered nobles debated philosophy between rounds. Swiss soldiers carried condensed versions in their pockets, while Germans rebranded it Tarock and swapped Italian suits for acorns and leaves.
But as the game spread, it shed its elitism. Cheaper woodblock-printed decks let butchers and bakers play in dimly lit taverns. The French simplified the suits into hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs—icons we still use today. Meanwhile, the Major Arcana’s imagery morphed with local folklore: In Alpine regions, The Devil card sprouted goat horns; in Protestant areas, The Pope was discreetly redrawn as a generic “Hierophant.”
By the 18th century, Tarot was Europe’s chameleon—a game that reflected whoever held it. Yet its mystical potential still slept, waiting for a group of Romantic-era dreamers to wake it.
Why This Matters:
Tarot’s origins aren’t just a history lesson. They’re a reminder that meaning is made, not inherent. Those Renaissance nobles couldn’t have imagined their status symbols becoming tools of self-discovery. Yet every time someone shuffles a deck today, they’re riffing on a 600-year-old game—one that began with a duke’s vanity and a painter’s brush. The cards haven’t changed. We have.
2. The Occult Transformation (18th–19th Century)
2.1 The Birth of Esoteric Tarot: Lies, Legends, and a Parisian Hairdresser
Picture a smoky Parisian salon in 1772. Philosophers, revolutionaries, and social climbers sip absinthe while debating the “secrets of the ancients.” Enter Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Swiss pastor turned amateur Egyptologist, who drops a bombshell in his encyclopedia Le Monde Primitif: “Tarot,” he declares, “is the lost Book of Thoth—a surviving text from the pyramids, smuggled to Europe by Romani mystics.” Never mind that hieroglyphs hadn’t yet been deciphered, or that Tarot’s Italian origins were well-documented. Gébelin’s myth stuck like glue.
Why? Because 18th-century Europe was ravenous for exoticism. Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt (1798) fed a craze for all things “Oriental,” and Gébelin’s tall tale gave Tarot a backstory as mysterious as a Sphinx riddle. But the real magic came from Etteilla (born Jean-Baptiste Alliette), a former seed merchant turned celebrity hairdresser. In 1789—the same year Parisians stormed the Bastille—he published the Book of Thoth, the first guide to Tarot divination. Etteilla’s deck, crammed with astrological symbols and reversed meanings, turned Tarot into a mirror of the soul. Skeptics called him a charlatan; his followers swore the cards predicted the French Revolution.
Together, Gébelin and Etteilla did the unthinkable: They rebranded a 300-year-old card game as ancient wisdom. It was the birth of Tarot as we know it—a blend of showmanship, scholarship, and outright lies.
2.2 The Hermetic Revival: Occultists, Kabbalah, and a Dogma-Defying Priest
By the 1850s, Europe was drunk on spiritual rebellion. Séances replaced Sunday Mass, and artists like Baudelaire wrote odes to hashish. Enter Éliphas Lévi, a defrocked Catholic priest with a flair for drama. In his book Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, he wove Tarot into a grand “universal key” linking Kabbalah’s Tree of Life, astrology’s zodiac, and alchemy’s quest for gold. Lévi’s Tarot wasn’t just Egyptian—it was a cosmic cheat code, with the 22 Major Arcana as portals to divine truth.
But Lévi’s ideas needed a stage. Cue the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret society founded in 1888 by Freemasons and Shakespearean actors. In their candlelit London lodges, initiates like Arthur Edward Waite and Aleister Crowley mapped Tarot onto a labyrinth of rituals. The Golden Dawn’s system was obsessive: Each card corresponded to a Hebrew letter, planet, and astrological sign. The Knight of Wands? Fire of Fire. The High Priestess? The moon, intuition, and the letter Gimel (Hebrew for “camel”).
This wasn’t just mysticism—it was method acting for the soul. And it gave birth to the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (1909), where artist Pamela Colman Smith turned Golden Dawn dogma into vivid scenes: a skeletal Death riding a white horse, a Lovers card torn between angelic and earthly desires. For the first time, Tarot’s Minor Arcana showed full narratives, not just repeating suit symbols. The occult had gone mainstream.
2.3 Iconic 19th-Century Decks: Marseille’s Blueprint and a Mason’s Obsession
While occultists dreamed in symbols, the Marseille Tarot kept things stark. Printed in France since the 1600s, these woodblock cards—with their primary colors and flat, medieval-style figures—became the Rosetta Stone of occult decks. The Marseille’s Justice card held scales aloft like Lady Liberty; its Wheel of Fortune spun with a grinning sphinx. Yet its true power was its ambiguity. Unlike Etteilla’s prescriptive meanings, the Marseille invited interpretation.
Then came Oswald Wirth, a Swiss Freemason with a vendetta against “vulgar” Tarot. In 1889, he designed a deck that merged Marseille’s simplicity with Masonic secrecy. His High Priestess sat between black and white pillars (echoing Solomon’s Temple), and his Magician manipulated alchemical tools on a table marked with infinity symbols. Wirth’s cards weren’t for games—or even divination. They were meditations, meant to be decoded like sacred geometry.
By 1900, Tarot had fractured into a hall of mirrors. Was it a Masonic manual? A Kabbalistic map? A tool for revolution? The answer, of course, was all of the above.
Why This Matters:
The 19th century didn’t just “discover” Tarot’s mysticism—it invented it. Gébelin’s lies, Lévi’s hubris, and Waite’s rituals remind us that spirituality is often a collage of human longing. Yet without their audacity, Tarot might’ve died as a forgotten card game. Instead, they turned it into a mirror for the modern soul: fractured, seeking, and endlessly reinvented.
3. Modern Tarot (20th Century–Present)
3.1 Pop Culture and Mass Appeal: From Occult Dens to Suburban Bookshelves
In 1909, a quiet revolution hit the occult world. The Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot—illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith, a bisexual artist and theater designer—turned Tarot into a visual novel. Gone were the Marseille deck’s abstract symbols. Instead, Smith painted scenes anyone could feel: a glowing child riding a white horse (The Sun), a skeleton in armor trampling a king (Death), and a woman in a garden of pomegranates (The High Priestess). Smith, working for pennies under mystic A.E. Waite, never got fame in her lifetime. But her art democratized Tarot, transforming it from a secret society ritual into a tool for the everyman.
Enter Aleister Crowley, the “Great Beast” of occultism. In 1944, while World War II raged, he holed up in an English manor with artist Lady Frieda Harris to create the Thoth Tarot. Crowley’s deck was a psychedelic fever dream: neon geometries, Egyptian gods, and Jungian archetypes like “The Aeon” (a vagina-shaped card symbolizing rebirth). The Thoth Tarot wasn’t just cards—it was a manifesto for Crowley’s religion, Thelema, which preached, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” Critics called it blasphemy. Hippies called it gospel.
By the 1970s, Tarot had escaped dusty occult shops. It graced Led Zeppelin album covers, inspired George Lucas’ Star Wars archetypes, and even appeared in James Bond films. No longer taboo, it was now cool.
3.2 The New Age Movement: Therapy, Feminism, and the Search for Self
The 1960s didn’t just invent rock ‘n’ roll—they reinvented spirituality. As Vietnam protests raged and civil rights marches surged, a generation rejected organized religion. Tarot became a mirror for the soul, not a crystal ball. In 1971, feminist Mary K. Greer (a former Catholic nun) published Tarot for Your Self, urging readers to journal, meditate, and “interview” their decks. Suddenly, Tarot wasn’t about predicting marriage prospects—it was about untangling trauma, career choices, and sexual identity.
Then came the Motherpeace Tarot (1981). Created by feminists Karen Vogel and Vicki Noble, it replaced swords and emperors with goddesses and round cards (because “patriarchy loves corners”). The Hierophant became a circle of women drumming; The Lovers showed two nude figures of ambiguous gender. Conservatives burned the deck. Progressives carried it to protests. Tarot had become a political act—a way to redraw power structures one card pull at a time.
3.3 Digital Age & Mainstreaming: Tarot in the Time of TikTok
Today, Tarot is everywhere—and nowhere. Apps like Labyrinthos use AI to generate readings, while TikTok teens film “pick-a-card” videos for millions. You can buy a Starbucks Tarot Deck (yes, really) or attend a corporate team-building workshop where The Tower card represents “disruptive innovation.” Therapists use it to spark client breakthroughs; writers shuffle decks to cure writer’s block.
But the digital age has cracks. Critics argue that algorithm-generated readings (“The Universe says… swipe left!”) strip Tarot of its human nuance. Yet in the chaos, pockets of meaning thrive. Queer creators design decks celebrating polyamory and trans joy. Indigenous artists reclaim symbols colonizers once stole. And in a post-pandemic world, Tarot’s message—uncertainty is survivable—resonates deeper than ever.
Why This Matters:
Modern Tarot is a shapeshifter. It’s been a counterculture weapon, a corporate commodity, and a digital ghost. Yet its core remains stubbornly human: a tool to ask, “Who am I?” in a world that rarely answers. Whether you pull cards on a phone app or a hand-painted deck, Tarot’s power isn’t in its predictions—it’s in the pause. The deep breath before you turn the card over. The moment you realize the future isn’t fixed, but a story you’re writing right now.
4. Symbolism and Cultural Impact
4.1 Archetypes and Universal Themes: Tarot as a Mirror of the Psyche
Picture this: A college student sits cross-legged on their dorm room floor, staring at The Fool card. The figure gazes skyward, a small dog nipping at their heels, one step from tumbling off a cliff. “This is me,” they laugh. “Clueless, hopeful, about to faceplant into adulthood.”
This is the magic of Tarot’s symbolism—it speaks in a language older than words. Carl Jung called these symbols archetypes: universal patterns buried in humanity’s collective unconscious. The High Priestess? She’s the intuitive voice we silence. The Devil? Our shadow selves, the addictions and fears we chain to the basement of our minds. Even the suits whisper primal truths: Cups for love, Swords for conflict, Wands for ambition, Pentacles for survival.
The Major Arcana, though, is where Tarot becomes a hero’s journey in 22 acts. The Fool’s path—from innocence (0. The Fool) to self-mastery (21. The World)—mirrors every coming-of-age story ever told. The Tower isn’t just a crumbling building; it’s the moment life explodes your carefully built illusions. Death isn’t an end—it’s the breakup, layoff, or identity shift that forces rebirth. Tarot’s power lies in its ambiguity: The same card that warns one person of ego (“The Emperor”) reminds another to reclaim their power.
But here’s the twist: Tarot doesn’t give answers. It reflects them. Like a therapist’s Rorschach test, the images reveal what we’re ready to see. That’s why a 17th-century woodcut of The Lovers can resonate with a polyamorous millennial, or The Hermit’s lantern can guide both a medieval monk and a burnout CEO.
4.2 Global Adaptations: Tarot’s Borderless Reinvention—And Its Pitfalls
In Tokyo’s Akihabara district, a vending machine dispenses Manga Tarot decks. The Magician is a spiky-haired anime hero; The Star glimmers with cherry blossoms. In Nigeria, artist Aṣẹ Ọpẹ́tọ̀ọ̀ fuses Yoruba deities with Rider-Waite imagery, turning Oshun, goddess of rivers, into The Empress. Meanwhile, Brooklyn’s indie markets overflow with decks themed around astrology, mental health, even Dungeons & Dragons.
Tarot has become a global remix culture. But not all adaptations are created equal. Take the “Sacred India” deck, which slaps Hindu gods onto Major Arcana without context—a move Indian scholars call “spiritual tourism.” Or the “Native Spirit” Tarot, which borrows Lakota symbols while ignoring ongoing Indigenous struggles. These decks spark debates: When does inspiration become theft? Can Tarot, born from Europe’s colonial era, ever truly decolonize?
Some artists navigate this tightrope carefully. The Next World Tarot, created by queer Black feminist Cristy C. Road, reimagines Justice as a transgender activist and The Hierophant as a community organizer. Lindsay Mack’s Tarot for the Wild Soul recasts the cards as tools for climate grief and disability justice. Their work asks: Whose stories does Tarot center? And who gets to rewrite them?
Why This Matters:
Tarot’s symbols are a Rorschach test of cultural values. A medieval Pope becomes a modern Hierophant; a 15th-century Italian noble’s game becomes a Nigerian artist’s shrine. Yet this fluidity carries weight. Every time we reshuffle the deck we answer a question: Is Tarot a mirror of the world, or a hammer to reshape it?
Perhaps it’s both. The cards remind us that symbols hold power, but only if we breathe meaning into them. And in a fractured world, that might be Tarot’s ultimate lesson: Identity is not fixed. It’s a story we tell—and can choose to retell.
5. Controversies and Criticisms: Tarot’s Tug-of-War Between Faith and Fraud
5.1 Skepticism: “Is This Science or a Scam?”
In a Brooklyn café, a physics student named Priya watches a tarot reader tell her friend, “You’re grappling with a big decision—something career-related.” Priya rolls her eyes. “Of course it’s career-related,” she mutters. “We’re 23. What else would it be?”
Skeptics like Priya argue that tarot’s “insights” are rooted in cold reading—a technique where readers use vague, universal statements (“You’ve been feeling lost lately”) and watch for subtle cues (a client’s flinch, a sigh) to tailor their message. Add confirmation bias—the brain’s habit of remembering “hits” (“The card said I’d meet a stranger, and I did!”) while forgetting misses (“It also said I’d win the lottery…”)—and you have a recipe for illusion.
Scientists like Richard Wiseman, a psychologist and magician, compare tarot to a placebo: “It works because you believe it works, not because the cards hold power.” Studies show tarot readings often rely on the Barnum effect, where people accept generalized descriptions as personal truths (e.g., “You’re stronger than you realize”). Yet even skeptics admit tarot’s value as a mirror for self-reflection. As author Jessa Crispin quips, “The cards don’t predict your future—they reveal your present delusions.”
5.2 Religious Backlash: From Papal Edicts to Pentecostal Warnings
In 1450, the Catholic Church banned tarot in Milan, calling it “the Devil’s picture book.” By 1736, the Vatican’s “Index of Forbidden Books” condemned tarot outright, linking it to heresy and witchcraft. Fast-forward to 2023: A Texas megachurch pastor posts a viral sermon titled “Tarot Cards: Gateway to Demonic Influence,” urging followers to burn decks.
Religious opposition often stems from tarot’s ties to divination, which scriptures like Deuteronomy 18:10–12 explicitly forbid. Yet the backlash isn’t monolithic. Some Jewish mystics embrace tarot’s Kabbalistic links, while progressive Christians use it for meditation. “Jesus spoke in parables,” argues Reverend Luna Ramirez, a queer Episcopal priest. “Tarot is just another way to wrestle with mystery.”
Still, stigma lingers. Tara, a nurse from Georgia, hides her deck from her evangelical family: “They’d think I’m inviting demons. But for me, it’s therapy.”
5.3 Commercialization: The “Tarot Industrial Complex”
Walk into Urban Outfitters, and you’ll find a **25“ZodiacTarot”deck∗∗nexttoscentedcandles.Online,TikTok“tarotinfluencers”hawk25“ZodiacTarot”deck∗∗nexttoscentedcandles.Online,TikTok“tarotinfluencers”hawk200 “ancestral readings” while AI apps like MysticBot churn out algorithm-generated fortunes. “Tarot’s been gentrified,” laments Diego, a Mexican-American reader. “It’s all aesthetic, no ancestry.”
Critics decry the commodification of spirituality. Mass-produced decks often strip cultural context—like a “Chakras Tarot” made by a Utah designer with no ties to Hinduism—while corporations profit. Yet defenders argue commercialization democratizes access. “I couldn’t afford a 100deck,”∗sayscollegestudentAisha,∗“butthe100deck,”∗sayscollegestudentAisha,∗“butthe12 one saved my mental health.”
The tension boils down to intent: Is tarot a sacred practice or a self-care product? For indie artist Zara, who hand-paints decks honoring her Nigerian heritage, the answer is clear: “Tarot isn’t a trend. It’s a conversation with history.”
Why This Matters:
Tarot’s controversies are a microcosm of humanity’s oldest debates: faith vs. reason, tradition vs. capitalism, individuality vs. dogma. Yet its survival hinges on this friction. As writer Amanda Yates Garcia observes, “Tarot thrives in the gray areas—the space where a physicist and a psychic can sit at the same table, each seeing their own truth in the cards.”
Perhaps the real question isn’t “Is tarot real?” but “What does it dare us to confront?” Whether you view it as sacred, scam, or self-help, tarot forces a reckoning with the stories we tell ourselves—and who profits from them.
Conclusion: Tarot’s Timeless Dance Between Mystery and Meaning
Picture this: A woman sits at a Brooklyn kitchen table, her hands shuffling a decades-old Rider-Waite deck. The cards—worn at the edges, stained with coffee—snap against the wood. She pulls The Tower: a crumbling spire, flames licking the sky. “Ah,” she smiles wryly. “There you are again.”
This moment captures Tarot’s enduring paradox. Those 78 cards are both artifacts and chameleons. The Visconti-Sforza deck, once a nobleman’s vanity project, now rests in a climate-controlled museum. The same imagery that adorned Renaissance palaces flashes on TikTok screens, interpreted by teens in Tokyo and grandmothers in Buenos Aires. Tarot is a Renaissance heirloom repurposed as a modern oracle, a 5mass−producedcardstockanda5mass−producedcardstockanda500 gold-leafed “art edition.” It is, as historian Robert M. Place notes, “a mirror that refuses to tarnish.”
What explains its staying power? Tarot thrives because it is both empty and overflowing. Like a blank canvas, it absorbs whatever we project onto it: a mystic sees divine messages; a psychologist spots archetypes; a corporate team leader sees “disruptive innovation.” Yet its symbols—The Fool’s leap, The Lovers’ choice, The Wheel’s turn—are so primal they feel etched into our DNA. They remind us that human fears and desires haven’t changed much since 1441. We still chase love, dread loss, and wrestle with the unknown.
But here’s the secret: Tarot’s magic isn’t in prediction. It’s in the pause it forces. In a world obsessed with answers—algorithms telling us what to buy, who to date, how to live—Tarot asks us to sit with questions. Why does The Tower unsettle me today? What does The Star want me to remember? The cards don’t spell out destinies; they reveal the quiet truths we’ve buried beneath Netflix binges and to-do lists.
Yes, Tarot has been commercialized, politicized, even trivialized. Yet like a river carving through stone, it persists. From the feminist Motherpeace circles of the ’70s to the AI tarot apps of tomorrow, its core remains: a tool to confront the now.
So, is Tarot art or magic? History or hoax? Perhaps it’s simply a conversation starter—with ourselves. As the woman in Brooklyn reshuffles her deck, she already knows the truth: The future isn’t in the cards. It’s in the choices she’ll make after she puts them down.
Final thought:
Tarot’s greatest lesson isn’t mystical—it’s merciful. It whispers, “You don’t need to see the whole path. Just the next step.”
Foundational Academic Texts
- Decker, Ronald, Michael Depaulis, and Michael Dummett
A History of the Occult Tarot, 1870–1970.
London: Duckworth, 2002.- The definitive academic deep dive into Tarot’s occult transformation, debunking myths (like the “Egyptian origin”) while tracing its ties to secret societies.
- Place, Robert M.
The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination.
New York: TarcherPerigee, 2005.- A balanced exploration of Tarot’s dual identity as game and spiritual tool, with rich analysis of iconography from medieval to modern decks.
- Dummett, Michael
The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City.
London: Duckworth, 1980.- A meticulous history of Tarot’s early European gameplay, written by a philosopher who debunked occultists’ claims with archival evidence.
- Huson, Paul
Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Ancient Roots to Modern Usage.
Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 2004.- Traces Tarot’s symbolism through Hermeticism, alchemy, and Renaissance humanism, with visual comparisons of historical decks.
