A fortune-teller turned three cards -- a man under guard, a
judge and a gallows. Seeing this, the client, Hency Cuffe, knew
there was no escape. On 13 March 1601 Cuffe, secretary to the Earl
of Essex, was hanged for treason.
The origins of the tarot -- even the word itself -- are shrouded in
mystery. All that is known is that these cards first appeared in
Europe in the 14th century and that both the Arabs and the Gypsies
(Romanies) are credited with introducing them. At first they were
used only for playing games, but gradually they took on deeper
meanings, as well as fortune-telling powers.
In 1781 scholar Antoine Court de Gebelin presented his theory that
the tarot represented universal knowlegde and secrets handed down
from ancient Egyptian priests. He identified the word tarot as
Egyptian for "royal road". In the next century French occultist
Eliphas Levi (whose real name was Alphonse Louis Constant) linked
the tarot with the Jewish cabbala, a complex system of mysticism
and magic that originated in medieval Spain and became the basis
for occultism in Europe. Levi believed "tarot" was derived from the
Latin word rota, meaning
"wheel". His idea of the tarot as a key to wisdom was later
developed by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an esoteric
society founded in London in 1888. whose members included poet W.W.
Yeats and satanist Aleister Crowley. Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela
Colman Smith, also members of the order, together designed the
popular English tarot cards known as the Rider pack.
Tarot cards appear in a range of designs based on the same images
or symbols. The pack consists of the major arcana (meaning
"secrets") of 22 cards, and the minor arcana of 56 cards divided
intor four suits. The minor arcana is used for card games, and the
major arcana for meditation and spiritual enrichment. The two
together are said to reveal the past, present and future.
The minor arcana was the precursor of the modern deck of playing
cards. Of the four suits, the swords (spades) tell of conflict and
power; the cups (hearts), of emotions and desires; the pentacales
(diamonds), of money and material things; and the wands (clubs), of
communication and growth. In medieval societies the suits were
sometimes thought to represent the different classes of society --
noble, priests, merchants and peasants -- and reading the cards
offered moral lessons.
Traditionally, the readings of tarot cards begin as the cards are
shuffled and laid out in "spreads". The position of each card as
well as its symbolic meaning is taken into account in interpreting
the layout as a whole. Tarot enthusiasts believe it may be a
valuable tool in the control and understanding of one's own pathway
through life.
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