Tarot and cartomancy travel on two braided threads. One is a Renaissance card game with extra trumps and a wandering Fool. The other is a set of divinatory practices that grew much later, turning pictures and suits into a portable language for reflection. This guide walks both paths, then shows you practical ways to read with care.
Where playing cards came from, and how tarot began
Most historians trace European playing cards to Islamic sources. Surviving Mamluk cards from Egypt show four suits that look familiar today: cups, coins, swords, and polo sticks, with court ranks named in Arabic. These decks reached Europe by the late 1300s, where local makers adapted the suits and courts.
In northern Italy during the 1430s, card makers added a new suit of allegorical triumphs, plus the Fool. Italians called these packs carte da trionfi, later tarocchi. That fifth suit worked like permanent trumps in trick taking games. Encyclopedias and museum notes give the same basic picture: tarot began as a game for elites, not as a book of secret wisdom.
The oldest lavish decks that survive are the Visconti Sforza cards from fifteenth century Milan. Cut gold backgrounds, rulers in court dress, and emblematic trumps show tarot as Renaissance art and entertainment.
From game to esoteric symbol set
For three centuries tarot was mainly a game. It is still played across Europe in regional styles such as French Tarot and Tarock. The cards and rules for play differ from modern divination decks, yet the structure is recognizably the same: four suits of fourteen and a separate trump family with a Fool.
The link to occult ideas appears in late eighteenth century Paris. Antoine Court de Gébelin argued in 1781 that the trumps preserved ancient Egyptian wisdom. His claim was unauthenticated, but it changed the cards’ cultural meaning. A few years later Etteilla designed the first tarot for divination, complete with keywords and astrological touches. These moves, more than any medieval secret, created the esoteric tarot tradition that followed. Standard histories, from museums to scholarly books, agree on this timeline.
Twentieth century occult orders systematized the symbolism. Two decks dominate English language reading styles: Rider Waite Smith in 1909, drawn by Pamela Colman Smith under A. E. Waite, and Thoth painted by Frieda Harris to the designs of Aleister Crowley. Both embed Golden Dawn correspondences among elements, astrology, and Kabbalah.
What a tarot deck contains
- Major Arcana: 22 trumps such as the Magician, Justice, the Tower, the Sun, and the World.
- Minor Arcana: four suits with ten number cards and four courts each. In Italian patterns the suits are Cups, Coins, Swords, Batons. In modern playing cards they shift to hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs.
- The Fool: plays by special rules in games and often acts as zero or unnumbered in divination.
This structure, visible in early sources and in today’s game rules, is the backbone of tarot.
The major historical families of tarot art
- Tarot de Marseille. A woodcut pattern standard in seventeenth and eighteenth century France and Switzerland. Its pip cards are minimally illustrated, so readers lean on number plus suit symbolism. Modern restorations trace back to printers like Noblet, Dodal, Madenie, and Chosson.
- Rider Waite Smith. Fully illustrated pips make narrative reading intuitive, which helps beginners and shapes much of contemporary English language practice. First issued in 1909.
- Thoth. A saturated, esoteric repainting with titles like Aeon and Adjustment, published posthumously from mid century paintings.
Cartomancy beyond tarot
Long before specialized oracle decks filled shelves, people told fortunes with regular playing cards. In France a 32 card piquet pack is traditional. The spread of printed fortunes, coffeehouse culture, and professional readers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries turned card reading into a widespread urban craft.
A related system is Lenormand, a 36 card picture deck whose modern form descends from the German Game of Hope around 1799. The name honors the famous Parisian reader Marie Anne Lenormand, although the cards as we know them appeared after her lifetime. Lenormand reading emphasizes short, literal combinations rather than archetypal psychology.
How to start reading tarot, step by step
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Pick a tradition
Choose a Marseille style if you like number theory and clean lines, a Rider Waite Smith if you want story rich pictures, or Thoth if you enjoy dense occult symbolism. Any will work, so pick the art you want to spend time with. -
Learn the skeleton
Memorize suit qualities and numbers one through ten. For example, Cups often track feelings and relationships, Swords thought and conflict, Wands initiative and growth, Coins resources and body. Numbers can scale a theme: aces begin, tens culminate. -
Keep questions practical
Focus on choices, timing, and perspective. Instead of “Will this succeed,” try “What helps, what hinders, where to focus this week.” -
Use a small spread
- Three cards: context, action, likely outcome.
- Five cards: past, present, near future, advice, wildcard.
Journal a sentence per card, then a sentence that links them.
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Check the story against reality
Translate symbols into plain speech. If the Eight of Coins appears in an outcome position, say what craft or repetition is actually required. -
Close well
End with one concrete step you will take. If a difficult card appears, ask what would improve the picture and note a specific behavior.
A one page primer for Lenormand
- Read in pairs or lines. A two card blend like Ship + Letter can mean news from overseas.
- A Line of Five is an excellent daily spread. Card 3 is the heart, the sides modify it.
- The Grand Tableau lays out all 36 cards and tracks people, time, and topics across the grid using a fixed, traditional syntax.
Because meanings are concise and relational, a Lenormand session often reads like a weather report for your week.
Good etiquette and clear ethics
- Treat readings as conversation starters, not verdicts.
- Avoid health, legal, and financial diagnosis. Seek qualified professionals for those domains.
- Get consent before reading about third parties.
- Keep notes. Patterns over time teach more than any single pull.
Collecting and selecting decks
Start with one working deck, then add a historical or regional pattern if the history interests you. Museum reproductions of Visconti Sforza or a clean Marseille facsimile connect you to the game’s roots. For modern practice, a standard RWS or a faithful Thoth reproduction gives you a shared language with most guides and classes.
What history really supports
- Tarot began as a game in fifteenth century Italy, not as a mystical book.
- Its divinatory use took off in late eighteenth century France with Court de Gébelin and Etteilla, who also produced the first purpose built divination deck.
- The cards’ structure, with four suits plus trumps and the Fool, is stable across centuries and is still used at the card table in Europe today.
- Claims of ancient Egyptian authorship are unfounded, although they inspired a rich esoteric art. Scholarly syntheses by Dummett, Depaulis, and Decker document this shift.
Quick glossary
- Arcana: the trumps and the suit cards in esoteric usage.
- Pips: the numbered suit cards.
- Querent: the person asking the question.
- Significator: a card intentionally chosen to represent the querent or topic.
- Oudlers: the Fool and key high trumps in French Tarot that affect scoring.
A simple starter plan
- Read three cards every morning for a week.
- On day seven, review your journal and track what matched life, what did not, and what wording gave the clearest results.
- If you enjoy the practice, add one historical book or deck that deepens your appreciation for where the cards came from.
