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Tarot

From Spiritfold
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Tarot is a pack of 78 picture cards used both for playing card games and for fortune-telling.[1] It began in Renaissance Italy as a game played for entertainment, and only later became a tool of divination. Today it is best known for readings, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London describes it as a tool for both prophecy and self-exploration.[2]

Description

Key terms

  • Major arcana and minor arcana are the two groups of cards in a tarot deck (described below). The terms were introduced by the French occultist Eliphas Levi in the 19th century.[2]
  • A spread is the pattern in which a reader lays out the cards.[1]
  • Cartomancy is fortune-telling with an ordinary pack of playing cards; tarot reading grew out of it in 18th-century France.[2]

The deck

A standard tarot deck has 78 cards in two groups. The 22 cards of the major arcana, also called trumps, carry pictures of forces, characters, virtues and vices, such as the magician, the emperor, the lovers, the wheel of fortune, death, the moon and the sun; the fool has no number. The 56 cards of the minor arcana form four suits of 14 cards: wands (also batons or rods), cups, swords, and coins (also pentacles or disks). Each suit has ten numbered cards and four court cards: king, queen, knight and jack.[1] The sequence of the major arcana came to be read as a journey from foolishness to wisdom.[2]

Tarot uses the Italian suits rather than the French suits of spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds. In tarot today the suits are understood to stand for areas of life or for the four elements: swords for thoughts or air, cups for emotions or water, coins or pentacles for material things or earth, and batons or wands for action or fire.[2]

A reading

For fortune-telling, each card is given a meaning. According to Britannica, the major arcana relate to spiritual matters and to important trends in the questioner's life, while among the minor arcana wands mainly concern business and career, cups love, swords conflict, and coins money and material comfort. The questioner shuffles the deck, and the reader lays out a few cards in a spread. A card's meaning changes according to whether it is upside down, where it sits in the spread, and which cards lie beside it.[1] This is why two readings of the same card can differ: the reader interprets the whole layout, not single cards in isolation.

One well-known layout is the ten-card Celtic Cross spread.[3]

Reflection without prediction

Tarot imagery is also used for reflection rather than prediction. A 2026 article in a nursing journal proposed a self-reflection framework for nurses experiencing burnout. It drew on the Rider-Waite tradition, using the positions of the Celtic Cross spread and the symbolism of the cards as prompts for nurses to think about their working lives, explicitly not for prediction or divination.[3]

What the evidence says

Writing in the journal of the Louisiana State Medical Society about his experience with palm and tarot readers in New Orleans, one author suggested that these practices work as a form of "archaic psychotherapy", using supportive treatment and placebo to give clients hope. This was his own interpretation, not the finding of a controlled study.[4]

Scope

What it includes

  • Readings in which cards are shuffled, laid out in a spread and interpreted[1]
  • Use of the cards for self-exploration and reflection[2][3]

What it is not

  • Tarot was not made for fortune-telling. It began as a card game and was first used for divination in the late 18th century.[2][1]
  • It is not an ancient Egyptian teaching. Claims of an Egyptian origin, first made in the 1780s, remain unproven.[2]
  • It is not mediumship. Spiritualist bodies describe mediumship as giving evidence that life continues after death, not foretelling events (see Within Spiritualism below).[5]

Traditions and lineage

An Italian card game

Tarot decks were invented in Italy in the 1430s, when a fifth suit of 21 illustrated cards called trionfi ("triumphs") and an extra card, il matto ("the fool"), were added to the ordinary four-suited pack. The triumphs acted as a suit more powerful than the others, which is where the word "trumps" comes from.[1] Tarot was played as a trick-taking game in the courts of Renaissance Italy. The pictures on the triumphs probably showed characters from medieval re-enactments of Roman triumphal processions,[1] and the order of the major arcana may have been based on Renaissance carnival processions.[2] Writers have also traced tarot's origins to India, Egypt, and the invention of paper and playing cards in China and Korea, but its origin remains uncertain; it most likely entered Europe through Venice in the 15th century.[2]

Among the oldest surviving cards are the Visconti-Sforza tarot cards, painted with gold and silver between 1450 and 1480 and attributed to the painter Bonifacio Bembo. Two noble families of Milan, the Visconti and the Sforza, commissioned them to mark a marriage. Seventy-four of the original 78 cards survive, divided between institutions including the Morgan Library & Museum in New York and the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy.[6]

Fortune-telling and the occult

Tarot was first adapted for the occult and fortune-telling in France around 1780.[1] In the 1770s the cartomancer Etteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette) created the first deck designed for divination, using French suits. In the 1780s several writers claimed that tarot came from ancient Egypt, attaching mysticism to the cards for the first time, and Etteilla then added tarot to his card reading.[2]

In 1861 the French occultist Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant) published a book on high magic that turned tarot into a tool for serious occultists. Around this time elements of the cards were adapted to fit ideas from other traditions, including numerology and Kabbalah, and Levi introduced the terms "Major Arcana" and "Minor Arcana".[2] By the late 19th century tarot was firmly associated with the occult and fortune-telling.[6]

The Rider-Waite-Smith deck

According to the V&A, tarot was introduced to Britain in 1886 through Arthur Edward Waite's English translation of Levi's book. Waite and the artist Pamela Colman Smith met as members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an occult society formed two years later. Their deck, published in 1909, was the first with fully illustrated number cards that could be read intuitively. Waite gave precise instructions for the major arcana, but Smith designed the minor arcana freely, and many decks still use her imagery.[2] The deck was published by William Rider & Son.[6]

Tarot today

Interest in tarot has grown again in recent years, including through online communities, and artists continue to reinterpret its imagery.[2] In 2026 the Morgan Library & Museum in New York held a major exhibition, Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions, tracing tarot from its Renaissance origins to contemporary art.[6]

Context

Within Spiritualism

Tarot is common around Spiritualist churches, but it is a different thing from Spiritualism's central practice. The religious historian J. Gordon Melton writes that what sets Spiritualism apart from other psychic groups is its emphasis on survival after death and on mediumship. He places the reading of tarot cards, with astrology, numerology and palmistry, among the arts of divination that belong to the wider occult field.[7]

Spiritualist bodies draw the same line. The National Spiritualist Association of Churches in the United States says its mediums are not fortune-tellers and that predicting the future matters very little,[8] and the Spiritualists' National Union in Britain says mediumship exists to give evidence that life continues after death, not to foretell events.[5] The line has a history too: in 19th-century America, local Spiritualist associations licensed their mediums, ministers and lecturers partly to protect them from local laws against fortune-telling.[9]

In a Montreal Spiritualist congregation, the anthropologist Deirdre Meintel found that most members used tarot, astrology or crystals now and then but kept them apart from their spirituality.[10]

In Australian Spiritualism

In the Australian sources Spiritfold has found, tarot appears as a course, workshop or reading activity at Spiritualist churches rather than in services. Matt Tomlinson, who joined the Canberra Spiritualist Association in 2015, took its night courses on mediumship, psychic skills, tarot and dream interpretation.[11] The Brunswick Spiritual Lyceum Church in Melbourne says that one of its long-serving mediums gave clairvoyant and tarot readings at its monthly Readings Days for more than twenty years.[12] In South Australia, the New Age Spiritual Mission in Unley lists tarot among its past workshops,[13] and the Spiritual Mission of Noarlunga's 2026 Friday development programme includes evenings of tarot and angel card readings.[14]

In 1981 Paul Gillen observed that Sydney Spiritualists tended to be drawn to popular divination, tarot included.[15] He also noted that Spiritualists were sensitive to being accused of "fortune telling" because of its link with legal persecution.[16]

A Spiritualist perspective

Tarot turns up often around Spiritualist churches, as the classes and readings days above show; a good teacher would welcome it as a separate skill. What matters is being clear about what it is. Mediumship, in Spiritualist understanding, exists to show that life continues after death. A card reading is something else, and the two shouldn't be blurred. A reader who is also a medium should say which they are offering at any moment, so that the sitter knows whether they are hearing an interpretation of cards or a message they are being asked to weigh as evidence of survival.

From a Spiritualist point of view, the cards are best used to help a person think about their life and choices, not to hand down fixed predictions. Never frighten anyone with a card, or press a person who is anxious or grieving into coming back again and again. Be honest about what a reading can and can't do, and leave the sitter feeling more able to take charge of their own life.

Tarot in Australia

In Western Australia, the state's Consumer Protection agency notes that many clairvoyants run their businesses with little controversy, but it has warned about scammers offering "psychic" readings. Its advice to anyone paying for a psychic or clairvoyant service is to find out the total cost and exactly what they will receive, to ask about conditions and any ongoing or hidden costs, and not to be pressured into further readings, ceremonies or payments.[17]

Safety and good practice

Western Australia's Consumer Protection agency advises people to be very wary of any psychic or clairvoyant who tells them they are in danger, unlucky or cursed, because the solution on offer is likely to be a scam. People who have lost money this way can contact WA ScamNet.[17]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Parlett, David and the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Tarot". Encyclopaedia Britannica (accessed 11 October 2026).
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 Billingham, Rebecca, Ruth Hibbard and Josephine Nardecchia. "A history of tarot cards". Victoria and Albert Museum, London (accessed 11 October 2026).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Crawford, C.L. "A holistic, tarot-inspired framework for understanding and mitigating burnout in nurses through self-reflection". Holistic Nursing Practice (2026). doi:10.1097/HNP.0000000000000801. Abstract read via Europe PMC (accessed 11 October 2026).
  4. ↑ Pejic, N.G. "Palmistry, tarot cards, and psychotherapy". Journal of the Louisiana State Medical Society 160 (2008): 107, 109–110. Abstract read via Europe PMC (accessed 11 October 2026).
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Spiritualists' National Union (United Kingdom). "Mediumship". SNU (accessed 12 October 2026).
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Anderson, Sonja. "See visions of the past and future in this New York City exhibition on the Renaissance roots of tarot cards". Smithsonian Magazine, 11 June 2026 (accessed 11 October 2026).
  7. ↑ Melton, J. Gordon. "Western Esoteric Family II: Spiritualism & New Age". Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions. Gale. Via Encyclopedia.com (accessed 12 October 2026).
  8. ↑ National Spiritualist Association of Churches (United States). "Frequently Asked Questions". NSAC (accessed 12 October 2026).
  9. ↑ Buescher, John B. "Spiritualism". Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed. Gale, 2005. Via Encyclopedia.com (accessed 12 October 2026).
  10. ↑ Meintel, Deirdre. "When There Is No Conversion: Spiritualists and Personal Religious Change". Anthropologica 49 (2007): 149–162, p. 153 (accessed 12 October 2026).
  11. ↑ Tomlinson, Matt. Speaking with the Dead: An Ethnography of Extrahuman Experience. punctum books, 2024, p. 15. Open access (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) (accessed 12 October 2026).
  12. ↑ Brunswick Spiritual Lyceum Church Inc. Home page (accessed 12 October 2026).
  13. ↑ New Age Spiritual Mission Inc. (Unley, South Australia). "Activities" (accessed 12 October 2026).
  14. ↑ Spiritual Mission of Noarlunga. "Spiritual Development" (Friday programme, 2026) (accessed 12 October 2026).
  15. ↑ Gillen, Paul. The Spiritualists: Gnosis and Ideology. PhD thesis, School of Behavioural Sciences, Macquarie University, 1981, PDF p. 145. Macquarie University Research Data Repository, posted 28 March 2022, doi:10.25949/19431146 (accessed 12 October 2026).
  16. ↑ Gillen, Paul. The Spiritualists: Gnosis and Ideology. PhD thesis, School of Behavioural Sciences, Macquarie University, 1981, PDF p. 144. Macquarie University Research Data Repository, posted 28 March 2022, doi:10.25949/19431146 (accessed 12 October 2026).
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chopping, Lanie (Commissioner for Consumer Protection). "Commissioner's blog: Beware the misfortune tellers". Consumer Protection, Department of Local Government, Industry Regulation and Safety, Government of Western Australia. First published 27 August 2020; last updated 14 August 2024 (accessed 11 October 2026).

Further reading

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