The earliest reliable clues are at the gaming table
The Metropolitan Museum of Art places early records of tarot in northern Italy in the mid-fifteenth century. Its structure added a series of trumps and the Fool to four suits, for a trick-taking game: players follow rules for playing cards and try to win a trick. Familiar occult uses form a layer of interpretation that developed widely only centuries later. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Before Fortune-Telling
Rather than a simple claim about “who invented it first”, the precise identity of an object deserves attention. The date, place of production, materials, family emblems and collection history of the Visconti-Sforza cards, for instance, locate them in a real social setting. The Morgan's collection record studies the cards as Renaissance works of art and clearly distinguishes their dating from later claims of Egyptian origins. The Morgan: Visconti-Sforza collection record
The presence of a pope, a virtue or Death on a card shows the use of recognisable imagery of its time. It does not establish that players treated the cards as a secret religious textbook. An image having symbolic meaning and an image being used for divination are two claims that require separate evidence.
New origin stories emerged in the eighteenth century
In 1781, Court de Gébelin interpreted tarot as a remnant of ancient Egyptian wisdom in volume eight of Le Monde primitif. De Mellet's essay, immediately following in the same volume, connected it with the Book of Thoth and discussed ways of reading the cards. The Morgan's curatorial account describes this stage as a reshaping of tarot's identity, not the eventual confirmation of an Egyptian origin. The Morgan: Occult Tarot
The distinction is subtle: an origin story can have genuine cultural effects even when it lacks historical evidence. People subsequently wrote books, redesigned cards and established courses on that basis; those activities are themselves part of history. We need to distinguish “someone believed tarot came from Egypt” from “tarot did come from Egypt”. Publications can establish the first; the second requires earlier objects and evidence of transmission.
Alongside these theories, Etteilla, whose name was Jean-Baptiste Alliette, helped teach and spread cartomancy. His works offered diagrams and practical methods. MIT's playing-card research page also notes scattered evidence of divination before extensive publication, so 1781 should not be treated as the year all card divination suddenly began. MIT: A Brief History of Cartomancy
How occult systems entered the cards
In the nineteenth century, tarot became increasingly involved in networks of Western occult interpretation. In the setting of the Golden Dawn, studying cards could also involve ritual and correspondences. The V&A places the meeting of Waite and Pamela Colman Smith within that group; their RWS collaboration was published in 1909. V&A: A history of tarot cards
“Correspondences” can be understood as an interpretive table through which a particular school links different symbols. Crowley's published Liber LXXVIII, for example, sets card names alongside Hebrew letters, zodiac signs or planets, and describes the elements and positions on the Tree of Life associated with the minor cards. It is a primary text for studying that occult tradition. It establishes that the author used those connections, not that they were objective laws present when the cards first appeared. Crowley: Liber LXXVIII
Even different periods of one author's work should not be conflated. The modern editor of Mathers's 1888 The Tarot explicitly states that it uses Lévi's order and correspondences, rather than the Golden Dawn's later tarot teachings. Combining everything under the same author's name into an eternal standard erases the development of ideas. Mathers: editorial note to The Tarot
Later practitioners did not converge on one deck
RWS brought many everyday actions into the experience of reading cards. Later, the Thoth collaboration between Crowley and Frieda Harris developed another visual language; the Warburg's exhibition material dates the related work to 1937–1943. The two decks can be compared, but every interpretation of an image in one cannot simply be transferred to the other. The Warburg: conversation with the exhibition's co-curator
Another path centres on contemplation and practice. The official introduction to B.O.T.A., founded by Paul Foster Case, includes tarot meditation and the Tree of Life in its teaching. This is the organisation's account of its own tradition and should be understood as a statement of belief and practice. B.O.T.A.: The Open Door
The diversity of modern tarot is therefore not simply an original set of answers copied increasingly badly. Different authors, artists and groups have their own questions and deliberately revise imagery and uses. Understanding that makes it less necessary to smooth away differences when reading different guidebooks.
Tell the legends, but keep the question marks
Was the Popess a particular historical person? Does tarot conceal heretical ideas? Such questions are engaging, but an evocative subject is not an established origin. Gertrude Moakley, for example, linked the Visconti-Sforza Popess with Maifreda. An article devoted to that view should likewise be read as an approach to identifying an image, not proof that all tarot came from one secret group. Le Tarot: the Popess Maifreda
When you next encounter a compelling story, try a small exercise: write down separately “when this object appeared”, “who proposed this interpretation” and “what evidence connects the two”. Leave any unfilled boxes blank. Keeping the unknowns does not weaken a story; it lets readers enjoy imagination and investigation together while seeing more clearly whether they are reading history, tradition or legend.
Try it with a clear idea of what to expect.
Try the tarot table