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Tarot de Marseille

 

 

The Antiquity of Tarot Cards

 

Tarot cards are a divinatory system of occult knowledge that is encoded into a deck of cards. These divinatory tools are known for revealing the unknown by answering questions about the: past, present, and future. Tarot cards are known for enlightening and illuminating every single facet of ones life. Some of the earliest verifiable tarot cards were found in the mid 14th century, during the Early Renaissance, in Northern Italy. At the time, tarot cards were used as a fad by the aristocracy akin to the game Bridge instead of for divinatory purposes. The oldest documented tarot cards in the world, the Visconti-Sforza tarot cardswere painted for the Italian Visconti family in about 1450 AD.

 

Visconti-Sforza tarot cards

Although some historians believe that the true origin of tarot cards was in Italy others have refuted this claim by showing evidence that predates the former several centuries prior and points to: the Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth, Islamic influences from the Middle East, and the Tang Dynasty of China instead. Legend has it that almost 3000 years ago there was a prophecy that Ancient Egypt would be destroyed so The Sages of Ancient Egypt encoded Egypt’s deepest secrets and knowledge into the form of a set of universal symbols which was turned into a set of playing cards that later would become tarot cards.

In the beginning, tarot cards weren’t used as divinatory tools until they were introduced to Southern France, in the early 16th century, as a result of the First and Second Italian Wars. The people of Marseille, France began to change the archetypes or images of the tarot cards and assigned each a specific meaning to reflect Ancient Egyptian and Hermetic philosophy in order to communicate inner spiritual development. As a result, the highly popular 78 Italian-suited card deck called the Tarot de Marseille was created.

 

Old Gypsy Fortune teller

The nomadic Gypsies are credited with being the first group to realize the fortune-telling possibilities of tarot cards. The Gypsies were known for being: card players, gamblers, fortune tellers, and experts in magic. It was the Gypsies for whom Europeans turned to for fortune-telling. Many wanted questions answered pertaining to their future involving: love, health, success, and marriage.

 

Thoth tarot deck

In 1781, former Protestant pastor Antoine Court de Gebelin wrote an essay on tarot cards inside of his work entitled Le Monde Primitif. In his 8th volume, he alleged that the Ancient Egyptian libraries and temples that were destroyed in Alexandria, during the Palmyrene invasion, were a reincarnation depicted in the tarot cards. Court de Gebelin began to decipher each of the 78 tarot cards and finally concluded that the depictions came from the lost Egyptian book of magic called the Book of Thoth although many critics disputed these claims.

Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte

Jean-Baptise Jules Bernadotte

In 1804, General Jean-Baptise Jules Bernadotte of Napoleon Bonaparte’s army wanted to test the powers of a famous French tarot card reader, named Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand, so he paid her a visit. Bernadotte came disguised as a business man asking for a tarot card reading on a fictitious commercial venture. During the tarot card reading, she told him that he wasn’t a businessman but a high-ranking military officer. She also accurately predicted that Napoleon would become Emperor and that one day Bernadotte himself would be a great king. Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of France shortly after Bernadotte’s tarot card reading and Jean-Baptise Jules Bernadotte, also known as Charles XIV John, was crowned King of Sweden in 1818!

Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand

French fortune teller Marie Lenormand

In 1969 the Thoth tarot deck was published based off of English writer and occultist Aleister Crowley’s publication The Book of Thoth. The deck was and still is among one of the world’s most popular tarot card decks, outside of The Rider Waite Tarot Deck, for its rich Egyptian symbolism as well as its Kabbalistic and astrological attributes. 

The Fool tarot card

The Rider Waite Tarot deck

The Rider Waite Tarot Deck that was created by Arthur Edward Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909 became the first commercially available tarot deck in England. In 1910, Waite published a book entitled The Pictorial Key to the Tarot that explained what each card meant which gave the general public a better understanding of the tarot. To Waite, the tarot cards were a symbolic representation of spiritual rebirth. Prior to this, the information on how to decode the symbolism of the cards was actually a sworn secret that was only available to mystical societies.

For many Christians, tarot cards are said to be evil and demonic instruments of Satan. Many have been known to cite either: Leviticus 19:312 Kings 17:17, or Jeremiah 14:14 in an attempt to persuade others not to use the tarot. The irony here exists in the fact that the Bible tells us not to do alot of things that most of its followers tend to knowingly disobey every day like: fornication, adultery, eating shellfish, or wearing clothing with mixed materials. 

Tarot cards can be used positively to help us reflect on some of the choices that we make in our lives in the presence of God. We can use the tarot responsibly as long as it doesn’t replace Christ at the center of our lives. One great philosopher once said “If we ever feel led by God to use the tarot for guidance then we must do so always holding it over our heart in the presence of God.”

 

One Response

  1. In the beginning, I didn’t believe that I could go through a post as long. Your writing style impressed me. You always deliver outstanding information. Great Article. This article is excellent. Though I only read it a few times and I did not leave a comment. But, I think that the article merited a mention.

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