So, what is Tarot?

So, what is Tarot? 

Simple question, right?

The dictionary describes Tarot as thus:

(Yes, I used the word ‘thus’ in a sentence and  in context. Don’t worry, I’ll throw in a random swear sooner or later to level the playing field.)

ta·rot
/ˈterō/
noun

1. playing cards, traditionally a pack of 78 with five suits, used for fortune-telling and (especially in Europe) in certain games. The suits are typically swords, cups, coins (or pentacles), batons (or wands), and a permanent suit of trump.
   “tarot is a powerful way of revealing the truth about your life”
   • • a card game played with tarot cards.
     • a tarot card.

So that doesn’t even come close to defining tarot. 

What does Wikipedia have to say?

Quite a bit actually. But what does it have to say about the ‘practice’ of tarot? You know the fun stuff. What does it have to say about cartomancy? Another fancy ass ‘big’ word I know, but hold out for the swearing. It’ll be good I promise.

Ok, so playing cards in general are first mentioned in the 1300’s in Italy. And then there’s some historical stuff about cards but not specifically tarot, or rather the practice of tarot (aka the rules). Fascinating read if you’re an art history buff. I’m not (no offense to art history buffs) so moving along….

So for the next little while – ok several hundred years – cards evolved. Somewhere along the way cartomancy was developed. This makes sense since other popular forms of divination at the time included fun things like sifting through animal entrails looking for divine guidance, or placing your ear over the mouth of a dead person trying to hear a message from the great beyond.  Of course, there was more standard stuff but most of that was unwieldy, and obvious. 

It’s safe to assume that whatever it was called in the 1300’s, that some form of tarot, divination or fortune telling was developed almost immediately. This was a time in history when a fart had divinatory meaning, and things like the previously mentioned reading of entrails was common. The church was also gaining in power and one of their, not so cute, pet peeves was divination of any kind. Anything portable, less obvious and easily explained (in this case as a game) was safer. So, yeah, even though we have absolutely nothing that proves what did or did not exist back then, it’s pretty much a certainty that some kind of divinatory practice existed.  

The first actual reference to tarot as a practice doesn’t show up until 1750 and included some card descriptions and rudimentary card meanings and not much else. 

Fun fact: common people in the middle ages often lived out their entire lives without ever going more than 40 miles away from their place of birth. Another fun fact: illiteracy rates during the middle ages were insanely high like 90-95%, even among the nobility.

So, we’re looking backwards over a span of at least 400 years, trying to figure out the ‘rules’ of tarot, which rapidly became a suppressed practice, at a time when it was not only nearly impossible to put anything in writing, but doing so could get you killed. Oh, and all it took was 3 witnesses (1 if the witness was a nobleman and you weren’t) to get you executed for witchcraft so, yeah the whole oral tradition thing came with serious risks as well. 

So yeah, after all that time the best history can give us is a somewhat vague mention of Tarot as a practice four centuries later. Sure it grew from there but the church was still powerful and with so many variations and practices it’s pretty clear that Tarot as a practice has taken many, many twists and turns over the years. We don’t even have enough information to be sure that the 1750 reference we do have record of is the best or most widespread of existing practices.

But Peggy, this is a hot mess on steroids, what the fuck? 

My thoughts exactly! What the actual, fucking fuckity fuck! No wonder no one can agree on how tarot should look and feel as a practice. The fact that it exists, and has existed for a very long time is not in dispute. But the rest? What the hell do we do now?

The short answer: Anything you fucking want. It’s your practice. You make the rules.