The History and culture of Tarot Reading

The word “Tarot” is derived from the Italian word tarocchi. The concept behind ‘tarochhi’ is vague. Though some relates this word with a river called Taro River in Italy. Europeans first started playing cards from the late 14th century from Egypt. The original purpose of tarot cards was to play gamest though the rules and regulations of the game defers from one cultural boundary to another. The heritage of tarot is much related with Italy but when time passed, the game lost its popularity in Italy and got popular in France and central Europe. During the spread of tarot in Europe, there were also four types of tarot disks. They were very similar to the Swords, Staves, Cups and Coins pentacles. These ancient disks are still used in the traditional tarot disks of Italy, Spain and Portuguese. The first set of documented tarot card family was created in northern Italy in Milan, Ferrara and Bologna in the years between 1430 and 1450. There is a record about first generation of picture cards; it was first appeared between the years 1418 and 1425. It was too different from the modern online tarot reading cards. The cards in the decks were manually painted by the painters. The then decks were consisted of 16 picture cards where various ancient Greek Gods and some kinds of birds were depicted not like the modern online tarot reading cards. As the cards were hand printed, the number of tarot decks were very small and precious around the world. After the invention of the printing press, the decks became easily available. Though the first generation cards were used only for game and fun but later on tarot become associated with magic and mysticism. The tradition of associating tarot with mysticism, religion first recorded in 1781 by a Swiss clergyman. There are many varieties in the tarot decks and designs worldwide. The most popular tarot design is called Tarot de Marseille. There are Swiss tarot, French suited tarots, Italian suited tarots and many other forms of tarot. French suited tarot cards started appearing during the 18th century in Germany. Göbl of Munich was one of the best card designers in the history of French suited tarot. The Italian suited tarot is the oldest form of tarot decks originated in the 15th century in the northern Italy. French occultist Etteilla first issued a revised tarot deck specifically designed for occult purposes. These occult purpose tarot decks consists 78 cards. These decks have two distinct parts called "major arcana" and "minor arcana". Many popular decks have modified the traditional symbolism to project the beliefs of their creators. Some of such decks are Rider-Waite-Smith deck, Crowley-Harris Thoth deck, Mythic Tarot, Hermetic Tarot etc. The culture and tradition of tarot reading has changed over time and the advent of modern technologies has opened many doors for accessing such games, information etc. Nowadays online tarot reading is very popular among the young generation. There are many good websites available throughout the web that provide nice information about tarot and also provides online tarot reading solutions.