Why do so many writers insist that the tarot has deeply ancient origins?

[chaosbloom]

I have recently started reading through Paul Fenton-Smith's The Tarot Revealed. It seemed interesting until I got to a very small chapter dealing with the Tarot's history and after that I just found it very hard to take the book seriously. He makes the claim that it originated somewhere thousands of years ago and that it was based on the kabbalah. As far as it's historically certain, kaballah originated in the southwest Mediterranean in the late middle ages at least in its current recognisable form. The tarot as well. He then repeats part of the tale invented by de Gebelin, that knowledge was suppressed but surfaced again disguised as a card game. At least he doesn't mention Egypt, that's something. Finally he claims that many believe it stems from the I Ching. I'm not sure how something that has apparently existed for thousands of years could have been influenced by the I Ching which was virtually unknown in the west until the early modern era. And how can the I Ching and the kabbalah be reconciled so easily.

Is there really any need for this any more? The system works regardless of its origins. The 19th century brotherhoods needed myths like those to justify their appropriation of a traditional popular divination tool. Upper class philosophers would not accept dealing with a supposedly vulgar tool used by gypsies and street tricksters so the whole idea that it was deeply ancient, carried secret knowledge and that the real meanings were held and could only be disseminated by the illuminates of the brotherhoods, was perfect for them. Does anyone today care if this system was used by gypsies for popular divination?

Even more disappointing is that I virtually never see any discussion, at least by actual practitioners and not historians, of the pretty clearly medieval symbols used. The Marseilles deck variations are pretty full of a kind of late medieval black humor that's still entertaining. The Popess (later transformed into the High Priestess) seems to refer to the legend of Pope Joan, a woman who pretended to be a male Pope for years until her secret was revealed when she gave birth during a procession. But a more obscure implication for modern readers would be the Popess being the various female members of the Italian aristocracy who succeeded each other in the papal throne, women who could control the Pope by being their mothers, daughters or mistresses. Although I'm not sure if Lucrezia Borgia did actually control her father, Pope Alexander VI, I can easily see the rival Sforza family using her or other aristocrats as models for the Popess, and getting a chuckle out of the whole thing.

There are other cards that are pretty obvious. The Wheel of Fortune, a pretty solidly western symbol, looks like the Katherine Wheel, making fortune look like a well known medieval torture device. The Death card being a completely traditional memento mori example. I can even see some influence of Byzantine iconography mixed with western motifs in the Sforza deck, which isn't too odd considering that there might have been some artistic influence by the fleeing Byzantines after the fall of Constantinople.

It really bugs me that instead of talking about these very nice and interesting things we get rehashings of century old myths about the secret origins of the tarot.

 

[madhatter00o]

OK, I'll bite.

I think it's fair to say that every Tarot scholar has his or her own pet theory of the origins of the cards. Most, however, will admit to the fact that no one truly knows the origins of the Tarot, and, thus, that any attempt at defining its origins is pretty much all speculation.

Without rehashing an history of the cards, I think it's easy to see why many people believe they have ancient origins. The symbols are arcane (pun not intended) and would generally fly under the radar of the "uninitiated" masses, leading to that theory that claims the Tarot is a means of preservation for secret transmissions that would call into question the orthodoxy at the time. Is there any credibility to this? Well, it's a convincing argument, but I personally don't believe that those secrets could possibly predate Western medieval times (roughly 1000 CE).

As far as the Tarot's link to the Kabbalah, there is a pretty strong lconnection that we can see. However, what we cannot do is firmly establish a link between the Kabbalistic influences and the creation of the Tarot deck. We simply cannot know if the creator(s) consciously intended them to work together, if there was a background knowledge of the Kabbalah that the creator(s) unconciously drew upon during the inception of the deck, or if later generations of tarotists retroactively imposed this connection. It's an ontological problem that has no real solution.

I am not familiar with Paul Fenton-Smith's The Tarot Revealed, but I can empathize with your irritation at these head-scratching theories that some Tarot experts produce. I really, really can... >_<

My advice is to take any Tarot history with a grain of salt, knowing that the author is attempting to add his or her own voice to a dialogue. I think it's great that you question these writers' opinions and stories; you should always do that! No one in this world has the answers to the origins of the Tarot. All we can do is speculate and form our own opinions based on the historical evidence we choose to accept and scholars' arguments that are particularly convincing.

Cheers!

~ Hatter

 

[EyeAmEye]

Why are using the Sforza deck as reference? It is only one deck of thousands and just like any other deck, uses symbolism relevant to the time/culture.

There is very little doubt that mystery schools/secret societies have existed throughout history. There is also very little doubt that knowledge has been passed down through the ages and modified/altered for cultural relevance. There is no way for anyone not initiated (and probably for the mass that actually were initiated) to know how that knowledge was filtered through time. What you see on the surface and what appears to be the obvious or most likely origin of tarot could very well be a smoke screen. No one has any clue, least of all those that write books and claim to know.

 

[chaosbloom]

OK, I'll bite.

I think it's fair to say that every Tarot scholar has his or her own pet theory of the origins of the cards. Most, however, will admit to the fact that no one truly knows the origins of the Tarot, and, thus, that any attempt at defining its origins is pretty much all speculation.

Without rehashing an history of the cards, I think it's easy to see why many people believe they have ancient origins. The symbols are arcane (pun not intended) and would generally fly under the radar of the "uninitiated" masses, leading to that theory that claims the Tarot is a means of preservation for secret transmissions that would call into question the orthodoxy at the time. Is there any credibility to this? Well, it's a convincing argument, but I personally don't believe that those secrets could possibly predate Western medieval times (roughly 1000 CE).

As far as the Tarot's link to the Kabbalah, there is a pretty strong lconnection that we can see. However, what we cannot do is firmly establish a link between the Kabbalistic influences and the creation of the Tarot deck. We simply cannot know if the creator(s) consciously intended them to work together, if there was a background knowledge of the Kabbalah that the creator(s) unconciously drew upon during the inception of the deck, or if later generations of tarotists retroactively imposed this connection. It's an ontological problem that has no real solution.

I am not familiar with Paul Fenton-Smith's The Tarot Revealed, but I can empathize with your irritation at these head-scratching theories that some Tarot experts produce. I really, really can... >_<

My advice is to take any Tarot history with a grain of salt, knowing that the author is attempting to add his or her own voice to a dialogue. I think it's great that you question these writers' opinions and stories; you should always do that! No one in this world has the answers to the origins of the Tarot. All we can do is speculate and form our own opinions based on the historical evidence we choose to accept and scholars' arguments that are particularly convincing.

Cheers!

~ Hatter

I don't really mind individual writers and researchers having pet theories, I'd say they're even obligated to have some sort of concept that explains the invention of the first decks. What I do take issue with is some writers either repeating fanciful tales out of sheer laziness to look into the evidence themselves, or maybe laziness coupled with gullibility when they just rehash already told fanciful tales about the origins of the Tarot.

The way this whole thing is framed, we'll never really have a satisfactory answer on the origins of the Tarot because of the whole assumption of secret transmission. Even if we had some sort of journal detailing what a singular artist-inventor thought about the deck at the moment he came up with it, there would still be people who would want to scrutinize that person's connections and try to uncover hidden clues that would link him with secret organizations, ancient knowledge and so on. It's a bit like a conspiracy theory at this time.

If the whole subject wasn't as hyped up as it has been though, we have some good albeit partial evidence towards the deck's creation. Popular games aren't usually created in isolation and they do convey or transmit current knowledge in the form of symbols. Take Monopoly for instance. You can understand a lot about western culture through monopoly, it's not hidden knowledge. But it is codified in a certain way and someone with a warped enough criterion could (very irrationally) claim that Mr. Monopoly, the guy with the big moustache, isn't just a symbol for the average very wealthy banker but actually the guy who pulls the strings in some secret society that controls western wealth and that the people who came up with Monopoly knew that and tried to inform the public through the use of symbols. See what I mean? The idea of secret knowledge being publicly spread but hidden under symbols is always bogus because it's always an ad hoc argument trying to justify someone's completely baseless theory of secret knowledge that no one else has ever noticed before.

The problem is funnier though because the stuff that seem to have influenced Tarot aren't all mundane. Along with Death and the Popess, you also have a strikingly alchemical card in The World, and astrological ones like the Moon, The Sun and The Star. While I do find pre-18th century kabbalistic influences likely but not obvious enough to be certain, alchemy and medieval philosophy, popular art, mysticism and astrology are right there for everyone to see. Actually, if someone wanted to make fanciful tales they could even use actual period circumstances to do so and it would make everything more interesting. Saying for example that somehow secret Cathar doctrine influenced the deck and The World doesn't signify the result of the alchemical magnum opus but actually the result of Cathar cleansing which results in transcending the evil world of flesh and becoming an angel again.

I don't have an issue with Paul Fenton Smith in any case. His work on the card's meanings isn't bad. It was that particular and very small part on the history of the Tarot that bugged me because it represents many of the ills that befall any inquiry into that subject by actual practitioners. An actual historian might be a practitioner but usually privately and while their scholarly research might inform their own divinatory practice, we'll never hear of that. I'm pretty sure that more accurate information regarding that time, which is actually available, would definitely inform and refine actual practice.

Why are using the Sforza deck as reference? It is only one deck of thousands and just like any other deck, uses symbolism relevant to the time/culture.

There is very little doubt that mystery schools/secret societies have existed throughout history. There is also very little doubt that knowledge has been passed down through the ages and modified/altered for cultural relevance. There is no way for anyone not initiated (and probably for the mass that actually were initiated) to know how that knowledge was filtered through time. What you see on the surface and what appears to be the obvious or most likely origin of tarot could very well be a smoke screen. No one has any clue, least of all those that write books and claim to know.

I'm not using just the Sforza deck but since there aren't too many very early, complete decks, the Visconti - Sforza deck is a good example of what Tarot was right at the beginning, before it was adapted by successive generations of users.

It's true that there have been mystery schools and traditions through history but not in the same way as they existed in every era. The Eleusinian mysteries were mysteries, they required initiation and only the initiates knew what they were really about but anyone could become an initiate. They weren't exclusive, they just required a rite of passage. That's completely different to early modern societies like the Hellfire Clubs that may have required an initiation rite but one that was just for kicks and theatricality and their only aim was to partake in orgies with anonymity for the members. Just like we don't have the Eleusinian Mysteries today, Hellfire Clubs didn't exist in antiquity. I'm certainly not aware of any organization that has survived from antiquity until today besides a few churches and even they can't really brag of a completely undisturbed historical progression. If even massive structures like state religions can have huge disturbances in their history where knowledge and archives are lost then a small organization of select few surviving for 25 centuries or more is completely impossible.

But let's say that it would be perfectly possible to have some sort secret Egyptian brotherhood disguising themselves as bored Italian nobles who want to play games. Can you offer any evidence for that explanation? Can you offer any examples of that kind of thing happening elsewhere to see if it's even plausible? I'm not aware of any such transmission. Passing knowledge through the centuries, very public knowledge, is so hard that most ancient knowledge is lost to us. Passing secret knowledge would be even harder. Just imagine transmitting secret knowledge through famine, pandemics and wars. People die, cities get destroyed. It's not as easy as it seems and not exactly perfectly plausible. It's actually very very unlikely.

But my point is that even if it was perfectly plausible, just because you can make a theory, doesn't make it true. Evidence is needed. As far as the Egyptian connection is concerned, there's none and there's actually no significant similarity with Egyptian theology. No animal headed deities, completely Christian theology regarding death and the afterlife (Death and Judgement) etc. And since we actually know who came up with the theory and when, we can also examine the background of the idea itself, which originated when people like Court de Gebelin discovered the decks and since Egyptology was very fashionable at the time, tried to link the two. Since we know that de Gebelin had no real knowledge of Egypt because there was no serious knowledge of Egypt at the time and the Rosetta Stone had not been discovered yet, so Egyptian hieroglyphics were still undecipherable, it's easy to see that even if de Gebelin was honest about his theory, he was still completely wrong.

 

[EyeAmEye]

No animal headed deities, completely Christian theology regarding death and the afterlife (Death and Judgement) etc.

Death and Judgment is not christian theology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_(afterlife)

Classic example of historical "borrowing" from one culture to another. Obviously, from just a religious point of view, it is very easy to see knowledge being passed down through the ages and skewed/altered. The religious text themselves are coded. Not very hard at all to pass down hidden knowledge as well. Some may get lost along the way, as well as some misinterpretation, but in the end, the core of the knowledge remains intact to those who understand it.

 

[chaosbloom]

Death and Judgment is not christian theology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_(afterlife)

Classic example of historical "borrowing" from one culture to another. Obviously, from just a religious point of view, it is very easy to see knowledge being passed down through the ages and skewed/altered. The religious text themselves are coded. Not very hard at all to pass down hidden knowledge as well. Some may get lost along the way, as well as some misinterpretation, but in the end, the core of the knowledge remains intact to those who understand it.

I was referring to the specific symbology of the early Tarot. Death depicted as a skeleton with a scythe falls within late medieval Christian religious imagery. It's pretty standard. It's just one of the many memento mori variations. Judgement, the card, contains an angel or angels blowing trumpets with the dead rising from their graves. Again, very Christian apocalyptic imagery. You may find analogues in other cultures but that doesn't mean that there's a connection.

Religious texts are actually notoriously corrupt as they came down through the centuries and many texts have been lost. Some of the Dead Sea scrolls might have counted as "secret" knowledge and even in that case, the society that created the scroll cache vanished mere decades later. The scrolls were found by archaeological investigation and chance.

Do you have any examples of this kind of secret knowledge that was passed down through the centuries? Religious texts aren't secret, unless you mean those things some people claim are secret and that they "rediscovered" them, like bible codes and other nonsense. For a very long time, western culture didn't really have a widespread concept of ancient hidden knowledge. They used divine revelation instead. From religious sources like monks having epiphanies, dreams and visions to non-religious occult sources like John Dee and Edward Kelley receiving Enochian through the mirror. While they received specialised knowledge, they didn't really call it known but secret. And they didn't really believe in secret societies that kept that knowledge for themselves. The alchemists did have a concept of secret knowledge held by particularly succesful individual alchemists and divine or rare books that might have held precious secrets. But it was all about meeting and asking the right persons, not being initiated into secret orders.

You might find this link interesting http://www.wopc.co.uk/tarot/index

 

[Zephyros]

I don't really mind individual writers and researchers having pet theories, I'd say they're even obligated to have some sort of concept that explains the invention of the first decks. What I do take issue with is some writers either repeating fanciful tales out of sheer laziness to look into the evidence themselves, or maybe laziness coupled with gullibility when they just rehash already told fanciful tales about the origins of the Tarot.

Often writers make erroneous assumptions, but their opinion isn't to be taken as gospel. The ancient origins of Tarot have long been discounted and there really isn't serious debate on the matter. The Historical forum is filled with real evidence about the origins of Tarot.

The way this whole thing is framed, we'll never really have a satisfactory answer on the origins of the Tarot because of the whole assumption of secret transmission. Even if we had some sort of journal detailing what a singular artist-inventor thought about the deck at the moment he came up with it, there would still be people who would want to scrutinize that person's connections and try to uncover hidden clues that would link him with secret organizations, ancient knowledge and so on. It's a bit like a conspiracy theory at this time.

Depends on what you mean by satisfactory. We will probably never know who the first person to combine the Trumps and Mamluke cards was, but evidence indicates that Tarot was not "invented" so much as "developed." Some decks had different Trumps and different suits and it took many years until the version we know today was finalized. Indeed, even the old packs can still change if you count the revamping the GD carried out relatively recently.

In any case, there are many historians who do not delve into the esoteric aspects of the cards, concerning themselves with actual history.

If the whole subject wasn't as hyped up as it has been though, we have some good albeit partial evidence towards the deck's creation. Popular games aren't usually created in isolation and they do convey or transmit current knowledge in the form of symbols. Take Monopoly for instance. You can understand a lot about western culture through monopoly, it's not hidden knowledge. But it is codified in a certain way and someone with a warped enough criterion could (very irrationally) claim that Mr. Monopoly, the guy with the big moustache, isn't just a symbol for the average very wealthy banker but actually the guy who pulls the strings in some secret society that controls western wealth and that the people who came up with Monopoly knew that and tried to inform the public through the use of symbols. See what I mean? The idea of secret knowledge being publicly spread but hidden under symbols is always bogus because it's always an ad hoc argument trying to justify someone's completely baseless theory of secret knowledge that no one else has ever noticed before.

I agree, that's why history as a scientific discipline eschews such theories in favor of real evidence, of which there is actually an abundance of. Tarot was originally a game; it would be 200-300 years into its history before any occult connections were made, and for all that time there was no mystique.

The problem is funnier though because the stuff that seem to have influenced Tarot aren't all mundane. Along with Death and the Popess, you also have a strikingly alchemical card in The World, and astrological ones like the Moon, The Sun and The Star. While I do find pre-18th century kabbalistic influences likely but not obvious enough to be certain, alchemy and medieval philosophy, popular art, mysticism and astrology are right there for everyone to see. Actually, if someone wanted to make fanciful tales they could even use actual period circumstances to do so and it would make everything more interesting. Saying for example that somehow secret Cathar doctrine influenced the deck and The World doesn't signify the result of the alchemical magnum opus but actually the result of Cathar cleansing which results in transcending the evil world of flesh and becoming an angel again.

I don't know about the Cathars, although there have been threads about them in the past, but the astrological connection isn't completely mysterious. This was accepted, settled science at the time, one of the oldest in the world. As for Kabbalah, I tend to see it as a certain potential fulfilled. Tarot was not originally planned to conform to the structure of the Tree of Life, but it does anyway as a happy accident.

But my point is that even if it was perfectly plausible, just because you can make a theory, doesn't make it true. Evidence is needed. As far as the Egyptian connection is concerned, there's none and there's actually no significant similarity with Egyptian theology. No animal headed deities, completely Christian theology regarding death and the afterlife (Death and Judgement) etc. And since we actually know who came up with the theory and when, we can also examine the background of the idea itself, which originated when people like Court de Gebelin discovered the decks and since Egyptology was very fashionable at the time, tried to link the two. Since we know that de Gebelin had no real knowledge of Egypt because there was no serious knowledge of Egypt at the time and the Rosetta Stone had not been discovered yet, so Egyptian hieroglyphics were still undecipherable, it's easy to see that even if de Gebelin was honest about his theory, he was still completely wrong.

Of course he was, but no one serious attributes any historical credence to his theories and if anyone does, they're just wrong. Not only that, but their research method is about 200 years out of date. I feel we are in agreement about most points, I just have the feeling of joining an argument in the middle. The going consensus isn't that Tarot has ancient roots, quite the contrary but if I understand you correctly you claim that it is.

One thing I find frustrating about discussing these things with "believers" is that the historical method is seen as a way to cover up, rather than reveal. After being presented with all the evidence I am asked "well, how do you know for certain that some Egyptian brotherhood didn't invent it?" The answer is of course that I have no such evidence, but it is not my place to produce any. If someone has a thesis it is their place to prove or disprove it.

 

[Ica'rus]

I would recommend that you give Robert Place's "The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination" a read. It is an exceedingly well written take on the origins of history with well researched and cited information. This includes some of the authors own conclusions but he cites fact rather than fiction. I found it compelling and even after removing the mystical veil on the possible origins of Tarot, I find it no less symbolic and meaningful. Possibly more so as I understand where all of the symbolism comes from.

I thought this was especially good as it helped to further show some of the more outrageous theories which are still commonly cited. The Egyptian Link is pretty well known these days, and there is a lot of research to back up how Court de Gébelin pretty much made it up, as there was never any prior connection before him.

 

[nisaba]

<mildly> I'm going to take an unpopular stance here: I believe that "the origins" as you put it, of Tarot, are, indeed, very ancient.

Tarot is a set of card images that, arguably, reflects the human condition.

The human condition has been around for perhaps a million years. People have been systematically thinking about it for at least 30,000 years, according to the issues presented symbolically in ancient art.

That succession of thought percolated down through the generations and down through the centuries.

Tarot is one of the ways that we express it these days. Who's to say where one form of organised representational symbols end and Tarot begins? With woodcut printing? With the invention of paper?

 

[Zephyros]

Tarot is one of the ways that we express it these days. Who's to say where one form of organised representational symbols end and Tarot begins? With woodcut printing? With the invention of paper?

That's usually where these kinds of discussions tend to fall apart, because terms must be defined. If you ask who defines them, well, there's a method to that, too. The question of what constitutes a Tarot deck is relatively easy to answer, it is a combined deck of pips and Trumps.

Whether or not Tarot-like images have always existed is beside the point because they are not Tarot. The Empress may very well be the archetypal Venus/mother figure, but that doesn't mean that every Venusian figure is a Tarot image. What makes this specific Venus/Madonna unique is her inclusion in a Tarot deck.