What's your fave tarot history theory?

Where did tarot come from ... your views

  • Invented in Italy in the 15th Century

    Votes: 74 69.8%
  • Invented by the Ancient Greeks

    Votes: 2 1.9%
  • Invented by the Romans

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • Invented by the Persians

    Votes: 4 3.8%
  • Invented by the Mongols

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • Been around in one way or another since people could draw on cave walls

    Votes: 9 8.5%
  • Came from somewhere in the xargle diplock alpha system :O)

    Votes: 15 14.2%

  • Total voters
    106

VGimlet

I chose the last one, because it made me laugh.

For myself, I don't think where it came from, however interesting, is as important as what it has become.

I've read lots of books, with many different theories, and while in reality I tend to lean more toward the tarot-as-playing-card theory, who knows?

I look at it this way - with all the decks that are out now for gaming (and don't many of those games seem like a kind of tarrochi variation?) who knows what someone will use them for in, say two or three hundred years if they were to come upon a deck.
 

light2000

I voted for the first option, no one knows for sure, so i think many of the old decks shows a lot of things form Italy. thing that doens't prove anything because they chould saw somewhere else and then changed to their own symbols.

But hmmm.... i will go for that
 

Rosanne

This thread was opened in 2003. Very fun to read and really what has changed in eleven years?
Not much. We are still asking.
The proof so far is Italy for Tarot, was in 2003 also, but more people believed in the Gypsy diaspora eleven years ago.
I wonder if Tarot was a medicine, would the Chemical Companies have an answer in 11 years?
~Rosanne
 

Amber Lamps

Royal Fez

This thread was opened in 2003. Very fun to read and really what has changed in eleven years?
Not much. We are still asking.
The proof so far is Italy for Tarot, was in 2003 also, but more people believed in the Gypsy diaspora eleven years ago.
I wonder if Tarot was a medicine, would the Chemical Companies have an answer in 11 years?
~Rosanne

My source (Daniel, arriving tonight on a plane) informed me that it was "invented" by two very bored travelers (on a west bound train in Canada sometime in the '60s) who discovered the secret of time travel whilst looking out the window (time being all there was to see) and simultaneously withdrew from and entered into a temporal vortex, wherein they discovered themselves to be in, of all places, ancient Morocco! Slightly dazed, they nonetheless infused the concept of Tarot (not an a or the Tarot, just straight up Tarot) into the psyches of an amazing collection of geniuses who amazingly happened to be there. At nearly the same instant they were back on the aforementioned train, traveling west through '60s Canada, and then one said to the other "Got a smoke?" to which came the reply "Righto, got a light?" and now, I'm pretty sure, here we are today!

Just, y'know, so to speak, like as how I heard it.
 

conversus

I voted with the herd.

But my heart wanted to vote for the Cave Painting thing! All literature, culture, play stems from there, but i threw my vote to the other end of the spectrum.

Alack!

CED
 

drwitz

I voted with the herd.

But my heart wanted to vote for the Cave Painting thing! All literature, culture, play stems from there, but i threw my vote to the other end of the spectrum.

Alack!

CED

Have to agree in terms of derivation, and I also vote for the Italian creation theory, but what intrigues me is why a bunch of Italians during a not-so-friendly time for the Jews would add a layer of Kabbalah into the mix?

I have to say that the correlation of 22 major arcana with the 22 letters of the alef-bet, and the 22 pathways on the tree of life is intriguing. For minor arcana, the 10 sefirot matching the 10 pips with the four court cards matching the 4 letters of the name of G-d (yod, hay, vov, hay) is also very intriguing.

Too much coincidence to be coincidence, I think...

So, where is the Jewish mysticism option in the poll above? :)
 

Zephyros

Have to agree in terms of derivation, and I also vote for the Italian creation theory, but what intrigues me is why a bunch of Italians during a not-so-friendly time for the Jews would add a layer of Kabbalah into the mix?

I have to say that the correlation of 22 major arcana with the 22 letters of the alef-bet, and the 22 pathways on the tree of life is intriguing. For minor arcana, the 10 sefirot matching the 10 pips with the four court cards matching the 4 letters of the name of G-d (yod, hay, vov, hay) is also very intriguing.

Too much coincidence to be coincidence, I think...

So, where is the Jewish mysticism option in the poll above? :)

Well... if I must be baited... })

The Jewish connection doesn't exist, strictly speaking. The Kabbalah is Tarot in not strictly Jewish, it is an adaptation of Christian Kabbalah, which was in turn adapted to Hermeticism. Kabbalah underwent quite a few permutations in order to "Christianize" it, and by the time the first Kabbalistic attributions were assigned by de Gebelin, it had evolved into a field of its own.

Now, about the Jews in Italy, it shouldn't be supposed that there was rampant, blanketed anti-Semitism throughout all history. Prior to the exile of Jews from Spain in 1492, there was what is known as "the Golden Age" of Jewish history, which was possible under the Moors and tolerant Christian rulers. During that time the Jews of Spain arose to respectable heights in society, becoming statesmen, advisors to the kings, doctors and lawyers. Their fame in the arts, especially poetry and literature (I like the poetry from that time especially) was especially esteemed. They also made names for themselves in philosophical, religious and social issues.

While all that changed in Spain because of the expulsion, other countries of the time were very willing to accept the refugees, recognizing their usefulness. Jewish history has known many ups and downs.

Now, although this may have little to do with Tarot, since the first evidence there is for Kabbalistic Tarot is in the 17th century, if you're looking for a source of promulgation of Jewish culture and Kabbalah, that period is actually great for it, both because they were at their highest, and later on at their lowest.
 

drwitz

Fair comments, however as a practicing Reform Jew living in the Diaspora I still find value in an overlay of Kabbalah with Tarot. My post was merely commenting on the implied connection between the systems (believe me, I've read and understand a fair amount of medieval Jewish history, and understand that the likelihood of the Tarot being a creation of Jewish mystics is unlikely - not to mention the strict prohibition of divination coming from text).

All of that said, whether the Kabbalah connection was included by Christian mystics influenced by the Kabbalah or just a random encounter, I still find the connections intriguing.

As a non-Tarot themed Kabbalah book, read for example Lawrence Kushner's "The Book of Letters: A Mystical Alef-Bait". I find a resonance in understanding that the letter Alef (which I assign to the Fool) is a letter of potential sound, an inward drawing of breath, which itself has no verbal expression. It is a letter full of potential, much like The Fool, ready for a journey, but not having begun the journey yet. Linking this card to the pathway between Keter (the Crown) and Hokhmah (Wisdom) also is meaningful to me as it represents the journey from Ultimate Knowledge to Transcendent Knowledge.

In any event, I could wax poetic here for a while. All I really meant to say is that I draw value from thinking of a possible connection between these systems, and I sit in both (Tarot and Torah). I am not an outsider to either.

Thanks for listening / reading.
 

Richard

I'm mainly interested in when and where tarot assumed the form having the numbered trumps, as in the Marseille deck. Did that happen in Italy?