Origin and Meaning of Tarot: Historical Insights on Major and Minor Arcana Symbolism

When we hear about Tarot, we immediately think of fortune tellers, an oracle, a way to see the future, as well as a form of spirituality and false esotericism that is often confused with charlatanism. This is a typical phenomenon of profanation, that is, when there is a formal transmission of knowledge, but at the same time there is a loss of the presence and force that corresponds to it. From profanation we arrive at superstition, where superstition means a practice or formal knowledge that survives (superstition = super - existere) to those who were its authors and who know its meaning. Of Tarot, in fact, not only has the meaning of the cards been lost, but even the very function of Tarot itself. In reality, the function of Tarot was not to predict the future, but rather to change the future. Which is also logical, because knowing the future without being able to change it is undoubtedly useless. When Tarot appeared in Europe, it was the 14th century. It is possible that some decks of cards were already circulating partially, probably brought by the Arabs. However, the meaning of the cards was already lost at that time. In fact, Tarot entered Europe as an ill-defined card game in which the 22 main cards, now called Major Arcana, played no role, so the Spanish found no better way than to isolate the 22 Major Arcana cards and simply play with the other 56. Many historians suggest that these major arcana would have been created by 14th-century moralists to teach the people and children some fundamental moral concepts. Although the fact that Tarot is a form of book, made to transmit and teach special knowledge, may be true, it is evident that the type of cards and ideas that appear in the deck do not fit with the culture of the time. Some of the cards could seem scandalous for the era, presenting a "Papess" of equal dignity to the "Pope" or an "Empress" of equal dignity to the "Emperor". Other cards were considered malevolent and sometimes removed from decks. For example, the first complete deck of cards we have was commissioned for the Visconti family to celebrate their marriage with the Sforza family. And in this deck there are 76 cards, because the author wanted to avoid, probably out of fear or for other reasons, the figure of the "Devil" and that of the "Tower". Another case is that of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who, when he commissioned his deck of cards, removed the "Papess", so as not to disturb the Pope and placed the new card of the "Grand Duke" which obviously disappeared soon after. This means that despite the variations, the attempts at omissions, the apparent uselessness of certain cards, nevertheless, all 78 cards, or rather, the 77 cards plus 1, have reached us today. Despite this, the original meaning of the cards was apparently lost, until a French scholar Court de Gébelin, invited to a marquise's dinner, saw some women playing with these cards, and in them recognized the principles of Egyptian initiation. Court de Gébelin and Count de Mellet were the first to expose again in "Le Monde Primitif" the principles of Egyptian initiation illustrated by Tarot, also called by Gébelin the "Book of Thoth". In fact Court de Gébelin was right and to fully understand the structure of Tarot, it is necessary to understand the foundations of Egyptian initiation. Therefore, first of all, we must...