Secret History of the Tarot
The secret history of the tarot was again stirred up by the notion that the originator of the secrets was a god known as “Thoth” also called Hermes Tresmagistus. Modern occult tarot began in 1781 when the same swiss clergymen and Freemason Antoine Court de Gébelin, published a speculative study “Le Monde Primitif”, which included the religious symbolism of the tarot. He wrote that the symbolism of the Tarot de Marseille contained symbols representing Isis and Thoth. He further said that the word Tarot came from the Egyptian word “Tar” meaning royal and “Ro” meaning road. He concluded that the Tarot was meant as the royal road to wisdom. He also asserted that it was indeed the gypsies who were descendants from Egypt who used the cards for divination first and were the first as a nomadic group to introduce the cards to Europe. Although the later Egyptologists could not find anything to substantiate this it has remained solid as part of the Tarot legacy.
In 1781 the Comte de Mellet wrote a short article on tarot published in Court de Gébelin’s Le Monde Primitif. He was the first to write that there was a connection between Hebrew letters and the cards. In the 19 century the famous occultist Eliphas Levi developed a relationship between the Kabbalah and the Tarot. The Kabbalah is what is referred to as Hebrew mysticism. Now, this fuelled the idea that the Tarot originated in Israel and contained the wisdom of the Tree of Life from the Kabbalah. This idea brought the 78 cards together into a uniform key to the mysteries and was passed on to the English speaking world through the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Theosophical Society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Rosicrucians, the Church of Light, and the Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.) all secured the Tarot’s position in the 19th and 20th centuries as a viable form of divination.
Tarot in the 20th Century
It was author Edward Waite who was accredited with the Renaissance of the Tarot in the 20th century. It was he who commissioned Pamela Coleman Smith to create what he called the “Rectified Tarot”. He, himself being a member of secret societies also collaborated with one of his brothers known as a revered mystic. The man whose last name was Rider gave way with Waite to the Rider-Waite’s 1910 Tarot Deck. This deck has become the worldwide standard Tarot deck. It was and still is the most popular deck to date because of its rich symbolism and ease to interpret.
