The tarocchi game eventually spread to other European countries, including the south of France, where it was renamed Tarot. The cards were only released in the late 18th. It was considered mystical in the 19th century, when the occult came into fashion.. A man named Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote a popular book that linked the cards to ancient Egyptian lore and argued that tarot symbols contained the secret wisdom of a god named Thoth.. Around the same time, Jean-Baptiste Alliette, who wrote under the pseudonym Etteilla, published a treatise on the use of tarot cards as a divination tool.
The popularity of tarot cards spread as Europe’s fascination with occultism grew. French writer Eliphas Lévi popularized the idea that tarot symbols are somehow connected with the Hebrew alphabet and thus with the Jewish-mystical tradition of Kabbalah. The pasty book The Tarot of the Bohemians invented the notion that tarot cards were a gypsy invention. At that time, it was believed that Gypsies originated in Egypt, which was home to many Europeans of the 19th. century as the cradle of human knowledge.. Many American tarot practitioners use a set of cards known as the Waite Smith deck created by A, E in 1909.
Waite, a British member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and artist Pamela Colman Smith. Another popular deck, the Book of Thoth, was developed by magician-cum-guru Aleister Crowley. Both have become essential accessories for modern fortune tellers. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company.
Tarot cards probably originated in northern Italy in the late 14th. or early 15. century.. The oldest surviving set, known as Visconti-Sforza’s deck, was thought to have been inspired by the costumed characters who took part in carnival parades. Interestingly, the same carnival is mentioned in Edgar Allen Poe’s infamous short story “The Cask of Amontillado”. I personally have been using the Thoth Tarot for more than 25 years and although many other decks have been released since the 1960s, I believe Crowley’s deck is the true highlight of the cards..
As occult interest in Tarot grew, it became more associated with Kabbalah and the secrets of Hermetic mysticism.. However, in the eighteenth century, people began to assign a specific meaning to each card and even make suggestions as to how they could be interpreted for divination purposes.. Currently, the Visconti Sforza tarot is used collectively to refer to incomplete sets of about 15 decks from around 1460, which are now in various museums, libraries and private collections around the world. If you want to understand tarot cards and the games played with them in the wider context of the card game, this is a must-have book.
Etteilla’s premise echoed the writings of Court de Gébelin, who supposedly recognized Egyptian symbols in tarot card illustrations. The cards seem to have been originally known as “Carte da Trionfi” or “Cards of Triumphs.”. Oracle decks such as the Lenormand usually rely on more direct imagery than traditional tarot cards.. Waite’s Key to the Tarot, released with a full 78-card deck of esoterically crafted masterpieces.
According to Etteilla, the book was engraved in gold plates by Thoth’s priests and provided the pictures for the first tarot deck. I have a suspicion that the tarot was created around the year 1006 close to the appearance of this year’s nova.. I’m honestly so tired of all the new photoshopping tarots and slick art, with their complete lack of scaffolding or substances.. The tarot is now useful for entertainment, fortune telling, answering questions, meditation and spiritual exploration, as well as magical focus.
Members of the nobility commissioned artists to create their own cards for them, which featured family and friends as triumph cards.. Even if you’re not familiar with tarot card reading, you’ve probably seen one of the common decks, like the famous Rider-Waite, which has been printed continuously since 190.But to balance such arcane decks, there are fortune teller cards that offer little room for interpretation, such as “Le Scarabée d’Or” or The Golden Beetle Oracle, one of Wolf’s most valuable decks.
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