Game or Divination?

All talk of Tarot origin aside, because frankly the topic seems overwhelming to me, I would like to know if the cards started out as a simple game, or as a divination tool. which came first?

And when and how did the cards go from playing cards (w/ numbers as we know them today), to the tarot that we used today (w/ symbols and pictures)?

i also have another question - them meanings we use today, attributed to the cards by Waite (I think that's his name), I beleive he got those meanings from the order he belonged to (Order of the Golden Dawn), what meanings existed prior and are his meanings at all related to the earlier meanings? I wonder this because I question his authority on assigning meanings to cards that existed so many hundreds of years ago - didn't someone back then attribute meaning to the cards and wasn't this documented somewhere, or was it just an oral tradition?

I have alot of questions, because I find Tarot history mind boggling! I hope these questions can be answered by some of you more experienced and knowledable card enthusiast. Thanks alot.

TCarbonell:

The best place on the web for providing the answers you seek is Tom Tadfor Little's Hermitage site at www.tarothermit.com

Start with the "TarotL History Information Sheet," and the "Open Letter to Card Readers." If your interest in the subject is intensified by that read, rather than satisfied, the rest of the site goes into more detail.

And if you're really strongly motivated to learn in this area, I'd highly recommend Stuart Kaplan's books "The Encyclopedia of Tarot." (Strangely enough, the best volume to start with is no. II.) He mostly reproduces the old cards and other artifacts, without spinning a lot of theories.

Tarot history is not really any more mind-boggling than any other history if you just take it one step at a time and proceed methodically. When I was in college I always used to tell people I was a history major because it's the easiest subject -- first this happened, then this happened, then this...etc. What makes tarot history frequently confusing is that there's as much misinformation on the subject as there is information, and it's sometimes hard to separate the two.

Tarot misinformation is usually the result of wishful thinking and wild speculation, and it has a history of its own. That history is chronicled by Michael Dummet in his two books, "A Wicked Pack of Cards: Origins of the Occult Tarot" (with Thierry DePaulis and Ron Decker) and "The History of the Occult Tarot, Volume II" (with Ron Decker).

Good luck.