There have been many arguments among historians about the origin of Tarot cards. Many people believe that Tarot cards were used as playing cards as late as the 18th century. In fact, some also believe that the 56 cards known as minor arcana were just like a set of playing cards until 1909. The minor arcana had some minor differences in that instead of the jack, there was a knight and a page in each suit. The suits are the traditional Italian suits of staves, cups, swords, and coins, rather than the suits we are familiar with, which are the French equivalents of clubs, hearts, spades, and diamonds.

A Tarot card actually differs from a traditional deck of playing cards. The major difference being that there are an additional 22 picture cards called the major arcane or trumps. These picture cards are a collection of images, some of which were common figures in the medieval world: The Fool and The Magician represent human figures. Some are figures of power, The Emperor and The Pope. Some cards depicted virtues, The Justice, The Temperance and Fortitude and others show the very forces of life in the Wheel of Fortune, the Death card, and The Devil card. There are images that represent the Spiritual forces, such as The Sun, The Moon, and the final Judgment.

Historians believe that these cards were created to play a game which was similar to bridge. Robert O'Neill, author of the book Tarot Symbolism, makes a sound argument that the tarot were designed to depict the mystical ideas of Neo-Platonism, a philosophical system developed at Alexandria in the third century A.D. by Plotinus and his successors. We can trace the roots of their current meaning and how they became used today as an insightful tool for divination and guidance. One can start with the occult movement in France in the 18th century.

Antoine Court de Gebelin, the French linguist, cleric, occultist, Mason, member of the Lodge of the Philalethes, and author of the nine-volume work Monde Primitif noticed a deck of tarot cards and felt that the trumps must surely carry lost religious secrets from ancient times. His speculation brought great interest in discovering the true meanings of the cards. He actually believed that the cards originated in Egypt. He also believed that the cards must have served as the tools of initiation into priesthood. He proposed that the Tarot's Major Arcana was the Book of Thoth, and was a synthesis of all knowledge once held in hieroglyphic form in ancient Egyptian temples and libraries.

This theory even gave rise to beliefs that the cards were brought to Europe by gypsies from Egypt. Aliette, a wig maker from Napoleonic France is believed to have been the first to correlate the cards with mathematical concepts that were similar to those of Pythagoras. He also said that God Thoth-Hermes made the deck of Tarot cards.

Learn How to Read Tarot Cards - The history and basics