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The tarot is perhaps the most enduring and misunderstood instrument in the Western occult tradition. To the uninitiated, it appears as a deck of playing cards decorated with mysterious imagery—used by fortune-tellers, mystics, and seekers of hidden knowledge. But beneath the surface of its seventy-eight images lies a labyrinth of history, esoteric philosophy, and spiritual evolution that spans more than five centuries. The history of tarot is not merely the chronicle of a card game that drifted into the realm of divination; it is the story of how symbols carry meaning across time, how secret societies preserved forbidden knowledge, and how a Renaissance pastime became one of the most powerful instruments for self-discovery in the modern world.
In the following exploration, we will trace the winding path of these cards from their earliest known origins in the aristocratic courts of fifteenth-century Italy, through its radical transformation at the hands of French occultists, to the revolutionary Rider-Waite-Smith deck that redefined the practice forever. Along the way, we will encounter figures whose names echo through the annals of esoteric history—the mystics, the visionaries, and the artists who shaped the tarot into the form we recognize today.
Whether you are a seasoned practitioner, a collector of decks, or simply curious about the tarot history that lies behind those enigmatic cards, this journey through time will reveal that these cards are far more than a tool for predicting the future. It is a mirror of the human soul, a map of consciousness, and a living link to the hidden currents of Western spirituality.
The earliest surviving cards that we can confidently identify as cards originate not from ancient Egypt, as some occultists would later claim, but from the glittering courts of Renaissance Italy. In the first half of the fifteenth century, Italian aristocrats commissioned hand-painted decks of cards for a game called trionfi—meaning “triumphs”—which would eventually evolve into what we now call the tarot deck. The Visconti-Sforza Tarot, created around 1450 for the ruling families of Milan, represents the oldest known tarot deck in existence. These exquisite, hand-illuminated cards were painted by artists such as Bonifacio Bembo and featured gilded details, elaborate costumes, and allegorical figures drawn from classical mythology and medieval symbolism.
The decks of this period consisted of seventy-eight cards, a structure that has remained remarkably consistent for over five hundred years. Fifty-six of these formed the Minor Arcana—four suits of fourteen cards each, comprising numbered cards from ace to ten and four court cards (king, queen, knight, and page). The remaining twenty-two cards, known then as trionfi and later as the Major Arcana, depicted allegorical scenes such as The Fool, The Lovers, Death, and The World. These trump cards were not originally intended for divination but served as a fixed hierarchy in the card game, with each trump outranking the one below it.
As the Morgan Library and Museum notes, the deck was created as a card game for the aristocracy, enjoyed by the most cultured and powerful families of the Italian Renaissance. The imagery of these early decks drew upon a rich tapestry of medieval allegory, classical mythology, and Christian iconography. The Fool, still the most recognizable card in the deck, was not the esoteric symbol of infinite potential that many recognize, but simply the lowest-ranking trump in the game.
The transformation of the tarot from a card game into an occult instrument of profound significance began in the late eighteenth century, when French Protestant pastor and scholar Antoine Court de Gébelin published his monumental work Le Monde Primitif (1781). In it, he made the extraordinary claim that these cards were not merely a deck of playing cards but a surviving fragment of the ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth—a repository of esoteric knowledge preserved in symbolic form. Though utterly unsubstantiated by historical evidence, de Gébelin’s theory captured the imagination of the European occult underground and would shape the tarot history for centuries to come.
De Gébelin further asserted that the word “tarot” derived from the Egyptian words “Tar” (road) and “Ro” (royal), meaning “the Royal Road of Life.” He connected the twenty-two Major Arcana cards to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, establishing a link between tarot and Kabbalah that would become central to later occult interpretations. While modern scholars have thoroughly debunked his Egyptian theories, de Gébelin’s influence on the tarot cannot be overstated—he single-handedly launched the esoteric tradition that continues to this day.
The next pivotal figure in the occult transformation of tarot was the French magician and occultist Éliphas Lévi (born Alphonse Louis Constant). In 1856, Lévi published Dogma and Ritual of High Magic, which integrated the cards into a comprehensive system of ceremonial magic. As the Victoria and Albert Museum explains, Lévi’s work turned tarot from a fortune-telling parlour game into a serious esoteric tool. He introduced the terms “Major Arcana” and “Minor Arcana” to distinguish the trump cards from the suit cards, and he wove together numerology, Kabbalah, astrology, and alchemy into a unified occult framework centered on the tarot. Lévi’s lasting contribution was the association of each Major Arcana card with a Hebrew letter and a astrological correspondence, a system that would be refined further by later occult orders.
The most significant development in the secret history of the tarot occurred in late Victorian England with the founding of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This secret society, established in 1888 by William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, and William Robert Woodman, synthesized virtually every strand of Western esotericism—Kabbalah, Hermeticism, alchemy, astrology, Enochian magic, and tarot—into a single, highly structured initiatory system.
For the Golden Dawn, the tarot was not merely a tool for divination; it was a complete symbolic map of the cosmos and the human psyche. Every card was assigned elaborate correspondences: astrological signs, planetary rulers, Hebrew letters, paths on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, and elemental associations. The Order’s members were required to memorize these correspondences and to meditate upon the cards as a form of spiritual training. Among the most famous members of the Golden Dawn were the poet W.B. Yeats, the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley, and—most importantly for our story—the mystic and scholar Arthur Edward Waite.
As the Rider-Waite Tarot Wikipedia entry details, Waite was a prolific author on occult subjects and a leading member of the Golden Dawn’s splinter faction, the Independent and Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn. He conceived of a revolutionary new deck—one that would finally make visible the esoteric correspondences that had previously been the exclusive domain of initiated adepts. To bring this vision to life, he turned to a fellow initiate and extraordinarily talented artist: Pamela Colman Smith.
In 1909, the London publishing house of William Rider & Son released what would become the most influential tarot deck in history: the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot. The deck was the brainchild of Arthur Edward Waite, who provided the conceptual framework and symbolic instructions, and brought to life by the remarkable artistic talent of Pamela Colman Smith, a fellow Golden Dawn initiate with a unique visual style.
What made the Rider-Waite-Smith deck revolutionary? Previous tarot decks—including the Tarot de Marseille and its predecessors—had left the Minor Arcana cards (the numbered suit cards) largely unillustrated, depicting only the suit symbols arranged in patterns, like a standard deck of playing cards. The reader was expected to memorize the meanings of these “pip” cards through rote learning. Waite and Smith changed everything. For the first time, every single card in the Minor Arcana was given a fully realized pictorial scene, rich with symbolism that directly conveyed the card’s esoteric meaning.
This innovation transformed tarot reading forever. The images on cards such as the Three of Cups, the Ten of Swords, and the Ace of Pentacles told a visual story that even a novice could begin to interpret intuitively. Smith’s distinctive artistic style—influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Japanese woodblock prints, and the symbolist movement—gave the deck an unmistakable aesthetic that has been imitated and reinterpreted countless times over the past century. As the Smithsonian Magazine recently explored, the colorful history of tarot is as mesmerizing as the decks themselves, and the Rider-Waite-Smith deck stands as its crowning achievement.
Waite also made significant changes to the Major Arcana. He swapped the positions of Strength and Justice (following the order prescribed by the Golden Dawn’s Kabbalistic system) and redesigned several cards to better reflect their esoteric correspondences. The most famous of these redesigns is the Death card, which in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck shows not a grim reaper cutting down the living, but a skeletal knight rising from the earth carrying a black banner adorned with a white rose—symbolizing transformation, not destruction. Similarly, the Temperance card was transformed from a simple figure pouring liquid between two vessels into an angelic being standing with one foot in water (the subconscious) and one on dry land (the material world), with a radiant crown of light upon her head.
Pamela Colman Smith’s contribution to the tarot has been historically undervalued. She was a prolific artist, a member of the legendary Abbey Theatre in Dublin, an illustrator of children’s books, and a follower of the Russian mystic George Gurdjieff. Having joined the Golden Dawn in 1901 through the introduction of W.B. Yeats, she brought a unique artistic vision to the deck that merged occult symbolism with folk art, stage design, and a profound emotional sensitivity. It was Smith who decided that the cards’ borders should be stripped away and the figures allowed to fill the frame, a design choice that made the deck feel immediate and alive. Her original drawings were done in ink and watercolor, with a distinctive, almost childlike directness that belies their deep esoteric sophistication. Yet for her work on what would become the world’s most popular and influential tarot deck, she was paid a flat fee of just £15 and received no royalties—a fact that has only recently begun to receive the recognition it deserves in histories of the tarot history.
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck did not end the evolution of tarot; it sparked an explosion of creativity. In the wake of its success, other occultists sought to create decks that expressed their own esoteric systems. The most notable of these is the Thoth Tarot, created by the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris over the course of five years, from 1938 to 1943.
Crowley, who had been expelled from the Golden Dawn but never abandoned its esoteric framework, designed the Thoth Tarot as a synthesis of his own philosophical system of Thelema, combined with Egyptian mythology, alchemy, astrology, and the Enochian magic of John Dee. The Thoth deck is notorious for its complexity—each card is dense with esoteric symbols, astrological glyphs, alchemical diagrams, and numerical correspondences. Unlike the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which aimed to make tarot accessible to the intuitive reader, the Thoth deck demands serious study. Lady Harris’s paintings, however, are stunning works of modernist art, characterized by bold colors, cubist influences, and a feverish intensity that perfectly matches Crowley’s visionary philosophy.
Other significant decks emerged in the twentieth century, including the Tarot de Marseille revival (which returned to the pre-Waite tradition), the Alejandro Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin restoration of the Marseille pattern, and countless modern interpretations that have brought tarot into the mainstream of popular culture. Each deck carries forward the essential structure of the seventy-eight cards while interpreting the symbolism through the lens of its own era and artistic vision.
Today, the cards occupy a unique position in the landscape of contemporary spirituality. It is both a tool of profound esoteric practice and a widely accessible instrument for personal reflection and psychological insight. The line of transmission from the Italian Renaissance courts, through the French occult revival, the rigorous systems of the Golden Dawn, and the revolutionary work of Waite and Smith, has produced a tradition that is at once ancient and ever-renewing.
For the serious practitioner, the cards remain a powerful means of accessing the subconscious mind, communicating with spiritual entities, and mapping the invisible currents of fate and destiny. In the tradition of spirit keeping and magical practice, the cards often serve as a bridge between the human and the spiritual realms—a language through which spirits, guides, and companions can communicate their wisdom. Just as the Understanding Spirit Companion: An Introduction to Spirit Keeping explores the fundamentals of working with spiritual entities, the tarot provides a structured symbolic system through which these relationships can be deepened and understood.
Modern practitioners have also found profound value in the practice of keeping a Book of Shadows and Ritual Diary, which complements tarot work by allowing the reader to track their interpretations, synchronicities, and spiritual growth over time. As with all serious occult work, the combination of a well-kept journal, deep study of symbolism, and consistent practice yield the most profound results.
In the current era, the practice has experienced an unprecedented renaissance. Digital apps, social media communities, and a thriving market for independently published decks have brought the cards to a global audience far beyond the confines of secret societies and occult bookshops. This democratization of the tarot has been both a blessing and a challenge. On one hand, more people than ever before have access to a tool of genuine spiritual insight. On the other hand, the depth of the tradition is sometimes lost in the rush toward Instagram-friendly aesthetics and simplified interpretations.
For those who wish to engage with the cards in their full depth, an understanding of its tarot history is essential. The cards are not arbitrary symbols; they are the accumulated wisdom of generations of occult practitioners, encoded in imagery that draws upon the Hermetic, Kabbalistic, alchemical, and astrological traditions of the West. To read the tarot without understanding its history is like reading a book in a language you only half understand—you may grasp the surface meaning, but the deeper currents will remain invisible.
How to Care for Your Spirit Companion: A Complete Guide for Beginners emphasizes the importance of building a relationship with the spiritual tools and entities you work with. The same principle applies—the more you study its symbols, honor its history, and approach it with reverence, the more it reveals. For those who seek to integrate tarot into their existing spiritual practice, it can serve as a powerful complement to spirit work, meditation, and energy healing.
Q: When were the first tarot cards created?
A: The earliest known tarot cards date to mid-15th century Italy, specifically the 1450s, with the Visconti-Sforza decks commissioned by Milanese nobility. These were originally used for playing a game called trionfi (triumphs).
Q: Is tarot really connected to ancient Egypt?
A: No. The claim that these cards originated in ancient Egypt was popularized by Antoine Court de Gébelin in 1781 and later adopted by occultists. While this theory shaped the esoteric tradition of tarot, there is no historical evidence supporting it. The true origins of tarot lie in Renaissance Italy.
Q: What is the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot?
A: The Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, first published in 1909, is the most influential tarot deck in history. Created by occult scholar Arthur Edward Waite and illustrated by artist Pamela Colman Smith, it revolutionized tarot by providing full pictorial scenes for the Minor Arcana cards for the first time.
Q: Who was Pamela Colman Smith?
A: Pamela Colman Smith was a Jamaican-born British artist, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck. She was also an illustrator of children’s books, a designer for the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and a follower of G.I. Gurdjieff. She was paid only £15 for her work on the tarot deck and received no royalties.
Q: How has the tarot been used in occult practice?
A: In occult traditions—particularly within the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn—the cards have been used as a symbolic map of the cosmos, a tool for meditation, a system for divination, and a means of spiritual development. Each card is assigned correspondences with astrology, Kabbalah, numerology, and alchemy.
Q: Is the tarot relevant to modern spirituality?
A: Yes. The practice has experienced a major resurgence in the 21st century, with millions of people using the cards for personal growth, creative inspiration, psychological insight, and spiritual connection.
The history of tarot is far stranger and more fascinating than any single origin myth can convey. From the gilded courts of Renaissance Milan, through the esoteric workshops of nineteenth-century Paris, the secret temples of the Golden Dawn, and the revolutionary collaboration between Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith, the art of tarot has evolved continuously for over five centuries. It has survived the ridicule of skeptics, the distortions of commercialization, and the attempts of various institutions to suppress it. Through it all, the seventy-eight cards have retained their essential structure and their power to speak directly to the human soul.
For those who choose to walk the path of spirit keeping, occult practice, or simply deep self-exploration, the cards offer a mirror in which the invisible becomes visible, the unconscious rises to the surface, and the hidden patterns of fate reveal themselves to those with eyes to see. The cards are not merely pieces of printed cardboard; they are keys to a door that has been kept open for five hundred years, waiting for those who have the courage to turn the handle.
Whether you are just beginning your journey with the tarot or deepening an existing practice, Astadewa offers spiritual tools and resources to support your path. Explore our collection of spirit companions and magical services designed to enhance your spiritual practice and connect you with the unseen realms.
