The Tarot is a tool to wake up our intuitive faculties and to put to us in contact with our inner world. It is a metaphorical system that takes to us on the way of the mythical hero, a way of adventure and autodescubrimiento. Using the arquetípicos symbols of letters of the Tarot and their relation with the daily subjects of the life, we can explore our personal mythologies and more clearly see the reality of our existence.

In essence, the Tarot is means for the meditation, reflection, contemplation, problem analysis, clarification of decisions, stimulation of the intuition, autoentendimiento, spiritual growth and divination. The letters of the Tarot allow us to explore a dimension of the universe that of another way can be inaccessible. They are not necessarily predictive but often they acquire this characteristic. They always offer an alternative vision and a new perspective concerning the problems of the life.

The deck of the Tarot consists of seventy and eight letters similar to modern cards. The Tarot contains three types of letters: the twenty-two Real Triumphs, the forty Signals and the sixteen letters. There are twenty-two Arcane Majors (Secret Majors) or Triumphs and fifty and six Arcane Minors (Secret Minors) made up of sixteen Real or Personal letters.

The twenty-two Triumphs of Arcane Majors represent, in allegorical images, the route of the trip of a crazy person towards the understanding. The Arcane Majors indicate situations and internal states of deep, personal, spiritual and arquetípico meaning.

The forty letters Signals include four woods of ten letters each (Coarse, Pentáculos, Swords and Glasses). In the symbolism of the Tarot the letters Signals mark typical situations on a map and emotional states, all the things of the daily life; our events and fights, our attitude, belief and behavior generally.

The sixteen Real or Personal letters consist of Kings, Queens, Caballeros and Pajes of each one of the four woods. They represent our relations; often they indicate real people in our life.

Additionally they mean aspects of we ourself: our characteristics, talents and faults, and how we were related to the others. Kings and Queens represent people with authority, our parents, old, etc. The Horsemen indicate activity, value, energy and desire to be in action. Pajes suggests young children and people, often the news and information.

In summary, there is a total of seventy and eight letters in the deck of the Tarot that consist of:

• The twenty-two Arcane Majors or letters of Triumph that represent the trip of the Crazy person towards the understanding, and
• The fifty and six Arcane Minors who consist of (1) forty letters Signals (from the one to the ten of each wood), and (2) the sixteen real letters (Paje, Horseman, Queen and King of each wood).

ORIGINS AND HISTORY

 

Perhaps although first naipes was originated in China and Korea around centuries X or XI, if they owned images of Tarot or it is not mere conjecture. The symbolism of the Tarot probably is a mixture of different cultural sources. Another complication is that great part of the symbolism has changed through the centuries due to the iconographic transformation, process by means of which the symbols are altered subtly and reinterpretados by a series of artists. For example, the letter of the Hermit sometimes was the Time, a old one with a sand clock. The Strength used to be the representation of a man balancing a stick towards a bent lion. The Star sometimes characterized a woman surrounds a precipice, taking hold with its left hand a star of eight ends. Without a doubt these early images evolved still more of old others. To study the present symbolism of the Tarot could offer tracks on its original form, but the same form probably is outside our reach.

 

The Theories

A registry dated in February of 1392 in the accounting book that the treasurer Charles Poupart took for Carlos I SAW of France, mentions the payment by three decks sea breams guinea fowl for the king by Jacquemin Gringonneur. Peculiarly, 1392 were also the year in which Carlos I SAW lost the reason. Bought somebody the deck to maintain it quiet during its mental disease? Perhaps the first Tarot was created simply to entertain an aristocratic crazy person? Interesting idea… Until the moment for writing this article, it still did not exist demonstrates signs some that the missing person ties shuffles Gringonneur with 17 letters with silver edge and gold bottom - in its majority Triumphs - kept in the National Library from Paris. Many consider that the style of the clothes of the figures belongs to a later period.

The Tarot more early existing is the Visconti-Sforza, painted by hand in the middle of century XV. It could be created like gift to commemorate the politically advisable wedding of Bianca Maria Visconti, daughter of the ruthless Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, with condottieri (welded professional) Francesco Sforza in 1441. Eleven incomplete versions of the deck exist; greatest, the reprinted version of Pierpont Morgan-Bergamo, contains 74 cards. Neither the letters of figure triumph nor those contain numbers or titles. Nobody knows with certainty which version is oldest. Heraldic standards of both families appear in many of letters. According to Stuart Kaplan, the bird that radiates air lines while revolotea on a nest, the sun with mixed straight and curved rays, the crown outlined with edges of frondas, the black eagle (found on a shield), and mote of the letter is emblems of Visconti; the emblems of Sforza include an interlaced lion, three ring, and an enormous hexagonal source. The book of Kaplan, the Encyclopedia of Tarot, contains magnificent illustrations of these standards and diverse letters of this old deck.

The Tarot of Marseilles is another one of the first decks. Probably it is based on certain wood engravings. Unlike many modern decks, his Arcane Minor, excluding figure letters (” court cards” in English, of “coate,” talking about to the real túnicas), does not own scenes or figures.

Originally, only the letters of the Arcane Major showed detailed illustrations. The Arcane Minor of many of the first decks shows to Swords of curved blades and Coarse thicknesses, massive Currencies of gold and Glasses, but no landscape. A manuscript of century XV of the sermon of a priest against the chance games exists. It discusses “triumphi” (term in Latin) and cards of four woods. Also it makes reference to the triumphs and arcane minors like separated organizations. This one is an evidence piece that supports the popular theory that the arcane majors and minors evolved of independent way. Towards end of century XV decks of Tarot by all Europe existed.

Called author Covelluzo wrote in 1480 who the cards arrived at Italy in 1379 from Africa of the North, perhaps brought by the Arabs, but nobody knows if these included the Tarot. Before 1750, the majority of the known decks of Tarot, if she is not that all, carried Italian marks. This, by all means, suggests an Italian origin. The French names with Italian marks came later. The wood engravings German and the French Renaissance of the occultism in century XVIII helped to scatter the Tarot by everybody. The gypsys and the western interest of the modern one by hidden it increased their popularity still more. Nowadays, the decks of Tarot are sold in the majority of the biggest cities in the world.

The words

The Words Some students look for the origins of the Tarot in the word “Tarot,” that could be derived from: The Taro River in the north of Italy.
Orat (Latin),” speaks, argues.”
Defeat (Latin), “one rolls.”
Taru (Hindu), “letters.”
Tarosh (Egyptian), “the real way.”
Torah (Hebrew), “the Law.”
Thoth, an Egyptian God.
Ator, of the Egyptian goddess Hathor.
Troa (Hebrew), “door.”
You tare, talking about to the edge punteado in old letters. Tarotee, talking about to a landlord to the back.

The Theoreticians

Analyzing some theoreticians of the origin, we began with Antoine Court de Gebelin, French linguist, clergyman, occultist, Masón, member of the Lodge of the Philalethes and author of the work of nine volumes Cleans Primitif. Convinced of the mystical importance of the Tarot and fan to Egyptian popular science, this author previous to the Stone of Rosetta thought that the birthplace of letters had been old Egypt, where they were used like tools of initiation in the priesthood.

For him, the Arcane Major of the Tarot was Libro de Thoth, a synthesis of all the knowledge sometimes contained in hieroglyphic form in libraries and burned Egyptian temples. It lived in the middle of century XVI and apparently it affirmed to have tracked the origin of naipes until old China. Etteilla (that is “Alliette,” its name, spelled the other way around), fanatic of Court de Gebelin, was a fortune teller and manufacturer of wigs in Napoleonic France.

Student of Egyptian magic, astrology, alchemy and divination, thought that the God Thoth-Hermes had been the creator of the deck. Its theory contains mathematical ideas similar to those of Pitágoras, to that admired. Elifas Levi (true name: Alphonse Louis de Constante, author of History of Magicœ), 1810-1875, was priest and French Rosacruz who thought that the Tarot was the key of the Bible, the Jewish Cábala and all the other old spiritual writings. It tried to tie 22 letters of the Arcane Major to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It found parallelisms between woods of the Tarot and the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, YHVH (” Yahweh”).

The Parisian author of end of century XIX, Paul Christian (Jean Baptiste Pitois), was a follower of Levi that thought that the letters of the Arcane Major represented found hieroglyphic paintings in the columns of old Egyptian galleries. He also looked for parallelisms between the Tarot and the cabalistic astrology. Papus (Gérard Encausse, 1865-1916), French doctor, philosopher and teósofo, was another believer in the Egyptian origins of the Tarot. Famous by its book the Tarot of the Bohemians, thought that the Tarot was carrying of old designs enrolled in hidden cameras under Pyramids. The designs represented initiation tests. When the temples were in danger, the priests transferred the mystical designs to the materials that later got to be a letter deck. Papus also described to a nexus between the Tarot and the Tetragrammaton. Also one was interested in the numerología and the Tree of Life.

Other theories

The letters are allegories of Sufíes teachers; representations of the legend of the Grial; the Indian game Chaturanga, precursor of the chess; Indian sacred texts; gypsy imports; Hebrew popular science; Greek philosophy; ancestors of the mesopotánicos copper cylinders; symbols transmitted from prehistoric oral legend; symbols of old Central American Indian cultures; wisdom of prehistoric matriarcales cultures; tools of education of the Waldenses, persecuted Christian sect; surviving popular science of the Order of the Templarios Horsemen, founded on 1188 to protect to the pilgrims and to preserve the Earth customs Santa; or creations of alchemists of century XIII - and certainly the Tarot is loaded of alquímicas images.

Making to a side the speculation, we do not know, and perhaps we will know never it, how they were the first letters of Tarot. We do not know either from where they came or it created who them. Not even we know how many letters conformed a deck. Although this has produced frustration in the experts of the Tarot and inspired innumerable theories on its origin, it pleases that mystery to me. There are so many beautiful things with opaque beginnings that not to know a space abre it to the fantasies where the audacious spirits paint those first wonderful images in a ecstasy to wake up creative. As it is that they have been created, the images of the Tarot, like all the true symbols, make echo to the spontaneous expressions of the being from the deepest springs of psique; and for that reason they maintain in high magical mirrors against any reaction that we present/display to them. Like all the authentic artistic creations, the Tarots is a mystery after all, and thus they will have to remain.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribes to my RSS feed!

Related articles

• None.