THE BEGINNINGS OF TAROT
The beginning of the Tarot card deck remains obscure to date. Tarot appears to have been rediscovered in the XVIII century by Antoine de Gebelin (1725-1784), who described it as "the only book that was conserved to posterity from the lost treasures from the Egyptian libraries". Since then, the origin and history of Tarot has been investigated, especially by the peoples of Israel, as the link between old Egypt and the Occidental world. This hypothesis is based in the analogies between the 22 Major arcana tarot cards and the kabalistic meaning of the 22 hebrew alphabet letters. Some believed that the origin of Tarot traces back to a hindu origin, since some symbols int he cards are attributes of hindu divinities. Interestinglu, Roger Tilly in his book "Playing Cards" (1973) points to a parallel between the 4 main Court card types (Wands, Swords, Pentacles, and Cups) also are subordinated to the supreme divinity Ardhanari, whose let side represents Shiva and whose right side represents Shakti.
However, all clues are lost during the XIII century. There is evidence that in the XIV century that card games were prohibited. Many think that the gypsies took the cards to Europe. Therefore it is hard to know whether the cards are only 500 years old or whether they are much older. What we can be sure about is that the 22 major arcana are archetypes of the "soul", a soul which has already existed since the beginning of mankind.
THE GAME'S STRUCTURE
The first card games were constituted of a varied number of cards. In Florence, there were 41 main cards and 56 others. In Bologna, 62 cards were played, and some decks had 50 cards only. There were games composed by twelve series of 12 cards, or eight series of 12 cards. Around 1600, an Italian (Garzoni) described a game corresponding to the current Tarot's structure, with 22 major cards, and 56 minor cards. In this fashion, this deck was denominated Venetian deck or Marseilles Tarot. This is our favorite deck, fashioned with blue and red vibrant colors and expressive symbolism!
WHAT ARE THESE MAJOR AND MINOR ARCANA?
The Major arcana are represented by 22 cards (from 0, "The Fool", to XXI, "The World"). These are familiar figures of mythology and other traditions. The 56 Minor arcana are the court cards and are composed of four "suits" (Wands, Swords, Cups, and Pentacles or Coins) and 14 cards each, 10 of which are numbers (from 1 to 10) and 4 cards are court cards (King, Queen, Knight, and Page or Valet.
THE WAITE TAROT CARD DECK
At the end of the 19th century, the Tarot cards began to inspire more and more interest when the Waite deck was created by Arthur Edward Waite. Waite was born American and raised in England and an occultist. The deck was created by the graphic artist Pamela Coleman Smith. Interestingly, her initials, PCS, can be seen in the Waite deck cards. The Waite tarot deck was the first to show images/symbols also in the minor arcana, while the previous decks had only wands or swords, etc. in their drawings. This deck inspires the interpretation of the minor arcana to a higher level, and has helped Tarot to become very popular not only among professional readers, but among the layperson as well.
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