It’s on the cards
The history of playing cards is lost in the mists of time. Some claim they were the invention of the ancient Chinese, others that they were first used in Ancient Egypt. India has also been put forward as the place where they originated. There are perhaps links with the crusaders who may have learned about them from the Saracens, who may have used them to divine the future since the eighth century AD and there may be a connection with the Knights Templar. The truth? We shall probably never know.
What we do know is there are, in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, seventeen cards, sixteen of which are recognisably Tarot in origin. It was once thought that these dated from the reign of Charles VI (1368-1422), the French king who lost the Battle of Agincourt and died insane. But recent research suggests that they are Italian, taking the name ‘Tarot’ from the river Taro, a tributary of the Po.
The Tarot is the forerunner of the modern pack. The earliest complete pack, painted by Italian Renaissance artist Bonifacio Bembo, is now in the J. Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York: the cards are virtually identical to the modern Tarot deck.
As the modern playing pack gradually evolved from the Tarot, the names of the suits – Cups (sometimes called Chalices), Wands (Batons), Pentacles (Coins) and Swords evolved (in the English pack) to Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds and Spades.
Both the Tarot and the ordinary pack can be used to divine the future.
Each of the cards in the pack has its own meaning - one for when it is drawn properly and one when it is reversed. The suits, too, have their own stories, which are significant, when many cards of the same suit turn up in a spread.
Wands: Concerning career & matters creative, reputation, fame, enterprise & efficiency.
Cups: To do with love, happiness, harmony, sensitivity, fertility and unity.
Swords: Ideas and communications to the fore, hostility, struggles, bitterness and malice.
Pentacles: Matters financial, economic and concerning stability.
The Tarot is a complex system of divination, its meanings subtle but deep. On the superficial level it is just another form of ‘fortune-telling’ but the cards have a deeper significance offering insights into the forces that are at work in both your life and within your innermost self.
You have to work hard to get the most out of the Tarot, but remember that words are no substitute for experience and being taught by others is no substitute for using your own instincts. Surrender to them and you will be richly rewarded.
If our fate is ‘written in the stars’ as the astrologers’ say, then the Tarot also speaks of our life journey.