From Card Game to Divination

Overview

The transformation of tarot from a recreational card game to a tool of divination and occult study is one of the most remarkable cultural shifts in the history of Western esotericism. This transition occurred primarily in France during the late 18th century, driven by a small group of writers and self-proclaimed mystics who reinterpreted the cards' imagery through the lens of ancient Egyptian mythology, Kabbalah, and ceremonial magic. What had been a pastime for Italian nobility became, within a few decades, a global system of fortune-telling and spiritual exploration.

The Pre-Divination Era: Tarot as a Game (1440s–1770s)

For over three centuries after its invention, tarot was used exclusively as a card game. There is no evidence of divinatory use before the 1770s.

"Tarot is a game of trick taking, as the many trump cards clearly indicate, and even though there are many variations (mostly minor), the rules of the game likely have not changed significantly since the 15th century. The present-day association of tarot with fortune-telling and the occult gained currency only later."
— The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Before Fortune-Telling: The History and Structure of Tarot Cards"
Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/tarot-2

"From its origins in gambling, to a canvas for artists and political expression, tarot went through one last transformation in the 18th century before its revival as a spiritual tool in the 1970s."
— National Geographic, "Tarot cards don't just tell the future. Here's what they reveal about the past."
Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/tarot-cards-history-fortune-telling

During this period:

• Tarot was played across Italy, France, Germany, and Austria
• The cards carried no special spiritual significance
• Church authorities occasionally condemned card-playing in general, but not tarot specifically for occult reasons
• The imagery was understood as allegorical and decorative, not mystical

The Pioneers of Tarot Divination

Jean-Baptiste Alliette ("Etteilla"), 1738–1791

Etteilla (an anagram of his surname Alliette) was a Parisian seed merchant turned fortune-teller who became the first person to systematically use cards for divination and publish instructions for doing so.

Key milestones:

• 1770: Published Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes ("Etteilla, or the Way to Entertain Oneself with a Deck of Cards") — one of the world's first printed guides to cartomancy
• 1783: Published a revised and expanded edition
• Late 1780s: Designed the first tarot deck purpose-built for divination (not for gaming)
• 1788: Founded the Société littéraire des associés libres des interprètes du livre de Thot (Literary Society of Free Associates of the Interpreters of the Book of Thoth) — the first organization dedicated to tarot reading

"Etteilla (the reversed pen name of Jean-Baptiste Alliette, a Parisian seed merchant turned fortune-teller) designed the first tarot deck purpose-built for divination. Etteilla had actually published a cartomancy work as early as 1770, eleven years before Court de Gebelin."
— Crazy Alchemist, "History of Tarot Cards: Game to Divination"
Source: https://www.crazyalchemist.com/mysteries-esoterica/tarot-cartomancy-history-how-to-read

"In 1783, Etteilla published Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes (Etteilla, or the Way to Entertain Oneself with a Deck of Cards), one of the first printed guides to tarot reading. Unlike earlier traditions that saw tarot primarily as a game or as an obscure symbolic tool, Etteilla's work treated the cards as a practical system for divination."
— The History Girls, "ETTEILLA: THE 18TH-CENTURY TAROT MASTER"
Source: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2025/08/etteilla-18th-century-tarot-master-by.html

"In 1770, Jean-Baptiste Alliette (under the pseudonym Etteilla) published the book How to Entertain Yourself With a Deck of Cards, providing one of the world's first guides to cartomancy—that is, fortune telling with cards."
— Smithsonian Magazine, "The Colorful History of Tarot Is as Mesmerizing as the Decks Themselves"
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/colorful-history-tarot-mesmerizing-decks-themseles-180986811

Important note: Etteilla's 1770 work initially dealt with standard playing cards (cartomancy), not tarot specifically. He incorporated tarot into his practice after reading Court de Gébelin's claims about Egyptian origins.

Antoine Court de Gébelin, 1725–1784

Antoine Court de Gébelin was a French Protestant pastor and scholar whose speculative writings provided the intellectual foundation for tarot's esoteric reinterpretation.

Key work:

• 1773–1782: Published Le Monde Primitif ("The Primitive World"), a multi-volume encyclopedia attempting to reconstruct humanity's original wisdom. In Volume VIII (1781), he included a section on tarot.

His claims (all unproven):

• Tarot was a surviving fragment of ancient Egyptian wisdom
• The cards represented the "Book of Thoth" — the legendary writings of the Egyptian god of knowledge
• The 22 trumps encoded the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet
• Romanies ("Gypsies") had preserved and transmitted the cards from Egypt to Europe

"If we heard that there still exists today a work of the ancient Egyptians, one of their books that escaped the flames which devoured their superb libraries, and which contains their purest doctrine about interesting objects, everyone would, without doubt, be eager to know."
— Antoine Court de Gébelin, Le Monde Primitif (1781), quoted in Smithsonian Magazine
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/colorful-history-tarot-mesmerizing-decks-themseles-180986811

"Court de Gébelin's entirely speculative account, which counted Louis XVI among its readers, spurred a European craze for all things ancient and Egyptian—and forever tied the origin myth of tarot with the stereotype of 'Gypsy' fortune-tellers."
— Smithsonian Magazine, "The Colorful History of Tarot Is as Mesmerizing as the Decks Themselves"
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/colorful-history-tarot-mesmerizing-decks-themseles-180986811

Impact: Despite being entirely speculative and historically inaccurate, Court de Gébelin's claims:

• Gave tarot an aura of ancient mystery
• Connected it to the fashionable "Egyptomania" of the era
• Provided a narrative framework that occultists would build upon for centuries
• Influenced Louis XVI and the French intellectual elite

The Egyptian Myth Debunked

Modern scholarship has thoroughly disproven Court de Gébelin's Egyptian origin theory:

"The astrological use of tarot cards derives from scholarly misinformation published by Antoine Court de Gébelin in 1781. He traced their origin to ancient Egypt, identifying them with the Book of Thoth, the scribe of the Egyptian gods."
— The Morgan Library & Museum, "Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards"
Source: https://www.themorgan.org/manuscript/158525

"In reality, 'there is absolutely no evidence for Roma in the origin of tarot cards, or for any significant role in their spread,' says Egil Asprem, a professor at Stockholm University who studies the role of the Roma in the European history of magic."
— Smithsonian Magazine, "The Colorful History of Tarot Is as Mesmerizing as the Decks Themselves"
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/colorful-history-tarot-mesmerizing-decks-themseles-180986811

The Occult Transformation (19th Century)

Eliphas Lévi (Alphonse Louis Constant), 1810–1875

French occultist Eliphas Lévi transformed tarot from a fortune-telling parlour game into a serious esoteric discipline.

Key work:

• 1856: Published Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (Dogma and Ritual of High Magic)

Lévi's contributions:

• Connected tarot to Kabbalah (the 22 trumps = 22 paths on the Tree of Life)
• Connected tarot to numerology
• Introduced the terms "Major Arcana" and "Minor Arcana"
• Argued that tarot was a universal symbolic language encoding all esoteric knowledge
• Elevated tarot from entertainment to a tool for spiritual initiation

"In 1861, French occultist Eliphas Levi (born Alphonse Louis Constant) published his book Dogma et Rituel de la haute magie, turning tarot from a fun fortune-telling parlour game to an esoteric tool for serious occultists. Around this time several elements of the tarot were changed to fit with a combination of beliefs from different religions and mythologies, such as numerology and Kabbalah."
— Victoria and Albert Museum, "A history of tarot cards"
Source: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/tarot-cards

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 1888

Founded in London in 1888, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a secret society dedicated to the study and practice of the occult. Its members included:

• Arthur Edward Waite (1857–1942) — scholar and occultist
• Pamela Colman Smith (1878–1951) — artist and illustrator
• Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) — controversial occultist
• MacGregor Mathers (1854–1918) — translator and ritualist

The Golden Dawn systematized tarot's esoteric correspondences:

• Each trump card assigned to a Hebrew letter
• Each Minor Arcana card assigned to a decan (astrological division)
• Court cards linked to the four letters of the Tetragrammaton (YHVH)
• Detailed ritual uses for each card

The Rider-Waite-Smith Deck, 1909

The collaboration between Waite and Smith produced the most influential tarot deck in history:

"The Rider Waite Smith tarot deck, featuring iconic artwork by Colman Smith, was first published in 1909. It was the first deck to have fully illustrated pip cards which could be read intuitively. Though Waite gave precise instructions for the design of the Major Arcana cards, Colman Smith was given a blank slate to create the Minor Arcana."
— Victoria and Albert Museum, "A history of tarot cards"
Source: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/tarot-cards

Why it mattered:

• First deck with fully illustrated pip cards (numbered cards showed scenes, not just repeated suit symbols)
• Made intuitive reading accessible to beginners
• Deliberately altered some traditional imagery (e.g., Strength and Justice swapped positions)
• Became the template for most subsequent English-language decks

The Thoth Tarot, 1943 (published 1969)

Aleister Crowley designed the Thoth deck (painted by Lady Frieda Harris), incorporating:

• Thelemic philosophy
• Egyptian mythology
• Astrological and Kabbalistic correspondences
• Abstract, modernist artwork

The Thoth deck represents the most complex esoteric tarot system, though it was not published in complete form until 1969, after both Crowley and Harris had died.

The 20th-Century Revival

The 1970s Counterculture

Tarot experienced a major revival during the 1970s counterculture movement:

• Feminist spirituality embraced tarot as a tool of empowerment
• New Age bookstores made decks widely available
• The Rider-Waite-Smith deck was reprinted and became ubiquitous
• New decks proliferated (Morgan-Greer, Aquarian, Motherpeace)

The Internet Era (1990s–present)

The internet democratized tarot knowledge:

• Free card meanings available online
• Online communities for readers (Aeclectic Tarot Forum, Reddit r/tarot)
• Digital tarot apps
• YouTube tutorials and readings
• Social media (Instagram, TikTok) tarot content

"In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in tarot, including new online communities. Although the traditional symbology remains, artists and designers have reimagined and reinterpreted the visual language of tarot."
— Victoria and Albert Museum, "A history of tarot cards"
Source: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/tarot-cards

Timeline of the Transformation

Why Did the Transformation Happen?

Cultural Context

The late 18th century was a period of intense interest in:

• Egyptomania: Napoleon's Egyptian campaign (1798) and the decipherment of hieroglyphics
• Freemasonry: Secret societies claiming ancient wisdom
• Romanticism: Rejection of pure rationalism in favor of mystery and intuition
• Orientalism: Fascination with "exotic" Eastern and ancient knowledge systems

The Appeal of Ancient Authority

By claiming Egyptian origins, Court de Gébelin and his successors gave tarot an authority of antiquity that a mere 15th-century Italian card game could never possess. In an age that revered ancient wisdom, connecting tarot to Egypt elevated it from entertainment to sacred knowledge.

The Human Need for Meaning

The cards' rich imagery — archetypal figures, cosmic symbols, narrative sequences — naturally invites interpretation. The transition from game to divination may have been inevitable once people began looking at the cards as a system of meaning rather than merely a set of game pieces.

Debates and Different Perspectives

Was the Divinatory Use Inevitable?

View 1: A natural evolution

Some argue that the cards' symbolic richness made divinatory use inevitable — it was only a matter of time before someone looked at the imagery and saw a system of meaning rather than game pieces.

View 2: A specific cultural invention

Others argue that the divinatory use was a deliberate invention by specific individuals (Etteilla, Court de Gébelin) responding to specific cultural conditions (Egyptomania, Freemasonry, the Enlightenment's shadow). Without these individuals, tarot might have remained purely a game.

Did Etteilla or Court de Gébelin Come First?

View 1: Etteilla was first (1770)

Etteilla published his cartomancy guide in 1770, eleven years before Court de Gébelin's Le Monde Primitif. However, his 1770 work dealt with standard playing cards, not tarot specifically.

"Etteilla had actually published a cartomancy work as early as 1770, eleven years before Court de Gebelin, but that work dealt with standard playing cards."
— Crazy Alchemist, "History of Tarot Cards: Game to Divination"
Source: https://www.crazyalchemist.com/mysteries-esoterica/tarot-cartomancy-history-how-to-read

View 2: Court de Gébelin provided the intellectual framework

While Etteilla was first to publish, it was Court de Gébelin's Egyptian theory that transformed tarot from a card-reading curiosity into a system of esoteric knowledge. Etteilla himself incorporated tarot into his practice only after reading Court de Gébelin.

Is the Esoteric Overlay a Corruption or an Enrichment?

View 1: A corruption of the original

Purists and game historians argue that the esoteric overlay distorts the cards' original purpose and imposes meanings that were never intended by the creators.

View 2: A legitimate evolution

Others argue that cultural objects naturally accumulate meaning over time, and that the esoteric tradition represents a valid (if historically inaccurate) engagement with the cards' symbolic potential.

"What prompted de Gebelin, Levi and Etteilla to find esoteric connections in tarot?"
— Reddit r/tarot discussion
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/tarot/comments/avbwh5/what_prompted_de_gebelin_levi_and_etteilla_to

The "1785" Dating Question

Some sources cite 1785 as the date of the "first tarot divination manual," while others point to Etteilla's 1770 and 1783 publications. The discrepancy arises from whether one counts general cartomancy guides (1770) or tarot-specific works (1783/1785).

"1785: First tarot divination manual published (by Etteilla in France, following Gébelin's claims). This marks the beginning of tarot's transformation from gaming to occultism."
— The World of Playing Cards, "History of Tarot and Playing Cards: Timeline & Origins"
Source: https://www.wopc.co.uk/the-history-of-playing-cards/history-of-tarot-and-playing-cards-complete-timeline

Sources consulted: Victoria and Albert Museum (vam.ac.uk), Smithsonian Magazine (smithsonianmag.com), The Morgan Library & Museum (themorgan.org), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org), National Geographic (nationalgeographic.com), Crazy Alchemist (crazyalchemist.com), The History Girls (the-history-girls.blogspot.com), The World of Playing Cards (wopc.co.uk), Reddit r/tarot.