Historical Tarot

A collection of meanings and interpretations Sola Busca Tarot It is not easy to find different meanings and interpretations for the Sola Busca cards on the internet. I made a collection from various sources (Mentioned below). Various meanings and interpretations Sola Busca cards Triumphs, Majors, Court Cards, Minors and numbered cards. Major Arcana – Triumph cards 0. MATO a. 0: strangeness, infantilism, holiday, detachment from worries, madness. b. 0. MATO: upright: Foolishness. reversed: Insanity. c. 0. The Fool (Mato): It doesn't matter if you are misunderstood, as long as you are true to yourself. Ther…

I created this so that we may have an umbrella thread where we can discuss and post updates on the premium historical decks series by Lo Scarabeo. Separate threads on each offering in the line are listed here: Tarocchi Sola Busca Tarocchino Mitelli Minchiate Etruria Tarots Egyptiens

I read that Arthur Waite had a daughter called Sybil. But I can't find any information about her at all. Does anyone know what happened to her ? Her life and when she died and all ? I only found one photo of her with her father. There doesn't seem to be a thorough biography of Arthur Waite written. It's odd. Would be a fascinating endeavour for a biographer.

Does anybody here have the Limited Edition of the Sola Busca Tarot recently released by Lo Scarabeo? How was it? It seems that a fly card there stated that to recreate the original physical look of the ancient deck, they decided to ditch the card varnish so that it may not be ideal for shuffling. Given this, do you even read with it? I ordered this online through my source, and since it is to be exported from half a world away, it might take weeks before it gets here. I just hope I'd have it in my hands before the month ends. I'm so excited!

Recently, I've been seeing a lot of readers say that The Hierophant and the High Priestess are counterparts (similar to the Empress and the Emperor) but that doesn't make any sense to me. When I first started reading tarot I assumed that the High Priestess and The Magician were counterparts seeing as how they come right after one another and the High Priestess deals with spirituality, intuition, psychic abilities while the Magician deals with manifestation, creation in the physical world, beginnings. To me those two just seem to go together. I'm wondering if there is any history behind the Hierophant and High Priestess being considered counterparts…

Who knows the origin of the Celtic Cross and why it seems to be as abundant as it is? I've been doing a lot of reading teaching back to the origin of tarot, the Kabala beginings and I've found some unique geometric designs all based on numerology that I feel make power spreads and I've been using them. Very energized. I also found a spread in the Brotherhood Of Light Book that seems to have been forgotten about using 7 cards. I just wonder if 7 questions are necessary for it.

Ok the first thing I'd like to say is just @Rose Lalonde I was so happy to learn all you said in your first response about how the Golden Dawn influenced the RWS. I didn't even realize that Christian Mysticism was a huge interest of Waite but that is amazing to know and makes so much sense now with all the biblical imagery especially in cards like Judgement and The World. Secondly, I don't feel I am knowledgable enough about the Tarot to really add much to this conversation but I am learning a ton by reading through it so I will definitely be following the progression. @sixdegrees I will be looking forward to these posts now 🙂

Does anyone here work with the Minchiate? Which version/s do you own? What are your experiences with it, and how accurate was it? I've heard that among Tarot decks, it is one of the most useful when you want to read on everyday concerns, sorta like the Lenormand, Kipper, and Sibilla.

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Here is the question! Actually a few Tarot of Besançon decks (TdM) are very nice, but for those who don't know, there are 2 cards in them that are different from the other TdM decks: the Popess and Pope. From what I understood, because of the French Revolution, they didn't want to depict ecclesiastical people anymore, and so replaced the Popess by Junon, and the Pope by Jupiter. But how do you interpret these cards in the Tarot of Besançon? Do you just ignore these changes and apply the meanings of the Popess for the Junon card and the meanings of the Pope for the Jupiter card, or do you apply some particular meanings there, in relation to mythology …

When did, and why did, the pictures for the minor arcana change from simple depictions of the suits? Meaning a picture of two swords change to two people with swords, etc. Also, prior to the more illustrative minor arcana were the cards interpreted solely with numerology (and what flavor) mixed with the suit meaning? If this has already been discussed elsewhere, all apologies, and could a link be placed? Thank you.

Every seen that one hermetic deck by Dobson that looks so cool? Probably everybody...ever wonder what make it so Hermetic? Gosh i sure did…. Chances are most of us are using hermetic decks and don’t know it, the most of the rest of us just know they are. A quick search of the internet about hermetic orders reads like a cool medieval story. Brotherhood of this, Brotherhood of that, Rosy roses, knights, and freemasons…. The beginning of the end is between Austria and France around 1800….by 1870 the old orders were collapsing just like the rest of the world around them. Fun stuff for sure. But what makes a deck Hermetic? Not so apparent...Hermeticism is in gene…

A few months ago, at a fair, I bought a vintage copy of the Richard Gardner Tarot https://www.abriefhistoryvintage.com/sold1/1970-richard-gardner-rare-tarot-card-set-2005-tarot-book-78-cards-england (I paid much less than the price quoted here!). I have the corresponding book too (The Tarot Speaks). The Gardner Tarot is a brighter version of the Insight Institute Tarot, apparently https://www.wopc.co.uk/tarot/insight-institute. The latter is rather lovely with its muted colours. Both decks seem a curious mix of different Tarot traditions. Has anyone worked with either of these decks?

Strange Attractor Press and the Magic Circle Museum in London are currently running a Kickstarter to produce the first ever reproduction of Austin Osman Spare's long-lost Tarot deck. Spare was a legendary English artist, a one-time friend of Aleister Crowley, and an innovative occultist often considered the father of Chaos Magic. In 1906, Spare created a unique Tarot deck featuring marginal drawings which can link the cards together to form specific cartomantic meanings. His card designs drew from hundreds of years of both Tarot cartomancy and standard card-reading traditions. Lost for decades, the cards were recently rediscovered by Jonathan Allen in the archives of the …

I open this discussion to share some paintings and depictions of Strength, Justice and Temperance across history, that I found on the web. It is interesting to compare them with the pictures that we can see in tarot. These three arcana are part of the seven christian virtues, that include four cardinal vitues: Fortitude (Strength), Justice, Temperance and Patience, and three theological virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity. But only three of them made their way into the tarot. The topic will be divided into several posts, as only three pictures are allowed by post. All pictures are from free sources, and all links to the originals are included. Let's first…

(Not sure if this is the right place to put this thread but it seemed appropriate) I posted this over in another forum but thought I would see what other information I could get... I don't know much when it comes to tarot. In fact I don't know much about a lot of things, but I am working to remedy that I am curious to learn about the differences between deck styles (is that the right word?) such as Thoth, TdM, RWS, and any others that may be out there that I am unaware of. Are they read differently? In what way? How does the symbolism differ? Do card meanings change? Do they have different card orders? Why? Sorry if I have gone really wide with m…

I decided to make my own facsimile version of the Etteilla Deck - Type I! You can see that Etteilla I tarot deck at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Since the deck has no copyright, and fall into the public domain, the task was fairly simple; you can freely download each image and print your own version of it. To make it more professional and authentic, I have polished the scans in Photoshop, fixed the border and made sure they are all formatted by the same template (size, color, sharpness, etc). It’s a fairly long process, but it is rewarding at the end. There is variations of patterns in the backs of the Etteilla I (and also diff…

Do you use decks that are not of the Golden Dawn heritage? What are they? I use the Egyptian Tarot by the Brotherhood of Light. This deck is structurally built to the guidelines of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. The last surviving members of the Luxor chapter had someone in america take on their teachings, and this is that deck. The art for the major arcana was taken from a sort of mysterious Astrology book written in 1901 written by someone claiming to be Count saint Germain. The hermetic brotherhood of Luxor and it's two or three sister chapters ironically(?) are the origins of the handful that would initiate the Golden Dawn itself but in the end Alister …

This N. Conver deck was published by Camoin between 1890 and 1900. It is from the Paul Marteau collection. What is of interest to me are the inscriptions on the Majors cards. What are your thoughts about these? For instance, on frame 147, the Moon card, you can see the words "ombre, or, reflet," or "shadow, gold, reflection." https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10539497f/f147.item.r=camoin tarot Others are simpler (and more positive than I'm used to) such as a meaning for the Tower (f143): "balance" (équilibre) https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10539497f/f143.item.r=camoin tarot Ho…

I am sure that many Tarot lovers would like to know about the english version of my book Giuseppe Maria Mitelli and the Tarocchino Bolognese (118 pages, illustrated in full color) entirely dedicated to the Tarot deck created around 1660 by the bolognese painter and engraver Giuseppe Maria Mitelli. The news are many and all very interesting: - life and works of Mitelli; - use of Tarot cards in the Baroque age for literary games; - legends and funny stories on Bolognese tarot; - customs of Tarocchino bolognese card players; - the first Bolognese manuscript on cartomancy (c. 1760). A long Appendix (written by Greta Boni Dori) is completely dedicated to cartomancy …

Following on from the earlier article on the translations of the founding documents of the occult Tarot by Court de Gébelin and Etteilla, I have published a study on the origins of the Egyptian myth of the Tarot, which may interest those who enjoy history, myth and other enigmas. The article may be read here.

What is the earliest deck dating back in or before the 14th/15th century with original illustration?

Hello tarot fam! So at the end of last month, I ordered a bundle pack from Editions SIVILIXI containing the Vieville Tarot and book as well as the Tarot de Paris (at the time, CollecTarot was out of stock of the latter). Shipping from France to the US wasn't cheap. but the total cost came close to what buying the two decks and Vieville book would have been had I purchased from CollecTarot, and I had my package exactly seven days after I placed the order, which I thought was pretty righteous. Anyway! I've been working with the Tarot de Paris this month, and I'm finding it to be so fascinating. Most of the pips and several of the majors are quite a b…

First, I will preface this by saying I am NOT a TdM reader, but got this deck because I liked it visually. I had had some of the trad primary colored TdM's and thought were very lovely, but wasn't connecting with them. Do you see the Ancient Italian as just TdM style, not really TdM? Does it appeal to you if you read with more the trad TdM's? For someone not really that familiar with TdM's, was just wondering your thoughts.

Many people who know me as a Tarot historian asked me to explain why, after having worked for 30 years with great publishing houses, like Lo Scarabeo in turin and Dal Negro in Treviso, taking care of the re-edition of about 20 ancient Tarots and the project of about 25 modern decks of Tarots and Sibyls, I decided to start the "RINASCIMENTO PROJECT", which seems to follow the same editorial lines already started by other publishers. The answer is that the big publishing houses, wanting to be competitive on the global market, have to print large quantities of low price decks. To do this, they must print Tarot capable of being appreciated by a large audience. This choice…