Welcome back to The Diviner’s Desk, your cozy corner for all things mystical, symbolic, and reflective.
In our last dispatch we gave you an overview of who we are and what we are aiming to achieve.
Today, we’re pulling back the curtain on a bigger question: Where did the concept of tarot and divination come from?
Long before anyone shuffled a modern deck of Rider-Waite-Smith cards, humans were looking for ways to speak with the unseen. Let’s take a quick walk through time and trace how ancient rituals evolved into the cardboard mirrors we shuffle today.
1. The Ancient Roots: Reading the Cosmos
Divination isn't a modern invention; it is as old as human curiosity. From the earliest days, our ancestors believed the universe was trying to talk to them.
The Elements: The Babylonians and Greeks looked to the stars (astrology) and the flight patterns of birds (augury).
The Earth: Ancient Chinese scholars tossed yarrow stalks to consult the I Ching (Book of Changes) over 3,000 years ago. A practice based on balance and shifting energies that is still used today.
The Bones: Across many indigenous cultures, casting bones, stones, or shells allowed the diviner to interpret patterns as a map of the immediate future or spiritual landscape.
The core throughline? Divination has always been a tool for reflection. It didn't predict a rigid future; it helped people ask better questions about the present.
2. The Birth of Tarot: From Parlor Games to Oracle
If you think tarot started as a mystical, secret occult tool, you might be surprised to learn its true origins.
The 15th Century: Trionfi (Triumph): Tarot was actually born in Renaissance Italy as a luxurious card game called Tarocchi. Wealthy families played it during gatherings. The deck included standard suit cards alongside a special set of trump cards featuring allegorical figures like Death, the Fool, and the Lovers.
The 18th Century: The Shift to the Esoteric: For centuries, the cards were just for gaming. But during the occult revival of the 1700s and 1800s, French and English occultists (like Etteilla and later Arthur Edward Waite) looked at these symbolic cards and realized they held a profound, secret language.
The 20th Century: The Golden Dawn & The Modern Deck: In 1909, occultist Arthur Edward Waite teamed up with artist Pamela Colman Smith (a brilliant creator whose name was unfortunately minimized for decades) to create the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Smith’s vivid, story-driven illustrations for the Minor Arcana changed everything, turning abstract numbers into relatable human dramas. Almost every modern tarot deck you see today is a descendant of this masterpiece.
3. Why History Matters to Your Practice
When you pick up a deck of tarot cards today, you aren't just looking at pretty pictures. You are holding a portable museum of human psychology, philosophy, and art.
The archetypes on those cards, the wanderer stepping off a cliff (The Fool), the storm that clears the tower (The Tower), the star of hope (The Star), have survived hundreds of years because they mirror the human condition. They endure because no matter how much technology changes, humans still face heartbreak, ambition, transition, and renewal.
The Diviner's Prompt for Your Week
Take a moment with your journal (or your favorite deck) and reflect on this:
If the symbols we use to seek guidance change across centuries, what is the universal question underneath all of them? What are you really asking when you seek an answer?
Until next time, keep your intuition sharp and your desk sacred.
Warmly,
Divinationmail - Mel