Come here friend, I we need to talk about something they won't put on the box. I have been reading Tarot for over ten years. I am a student of its history, a practitioner of it wisdom, a custodian of its culture. And I am here to tell you with love, with receipts, and absolutely no apology, almost everything the mainstream world has told you about these cards is wrong. No a little wrong. Completely wrong. So, pull up. Because class in in session. Let's start with the biggest name in the room.
Aliester Crowly did not create Tarot. What he created between 1938 and 1943, alongside Lady Frieda Harris... was the Thoth Tarort...one deck. It was the Thoth Tarot, one deck. It was remarkable, complex, and deeply symbolic, yes. But one deck in a lineage that existed centuries before he ever drew breath.
Here's the gag, Crowley himself believed Tarot had an ancient Egyptian origins. He built his entire deck around that mythology, and built it into every image, every symbol, every chosen deity. He, was wrong! The fact that one of history's most studied occultists got it wrong should tell you everything about how deep this misinformation runs.
Egypt as well, did not give us Tarot, and you know what? The Smithsonian will back me up. The National Museum of African History (part of the Smithsonian Institution) houses Tarot cards in its permanent collection. Their own documented research states clearly: claims of Egyptian or ancient Indian origins for Tarot have been discounted.¹
So, where did Tarot come from? Northern Italy. The 15th century. A card game called tarocchi, placed by the most powerful families in Renaissance Milan. The Oldest complete deck we have physical evidence of the Sola-Busca Tarot dating the 1490's. It was 78 hand -painted cards, engraved on cardboard and colored with gold.² Beautiful. Aristocratic. Complete. Not mystical artifacts passed down from a mystery school. Not relics of ancient Egypt. Luxury playing cards for Italian nobility.
So, why does everyone believe otherwise? Because in the 18th century, occultists reframed the cards as ancient divination tools, and that story took off and never let go. Because "ancient Egyptian mystery" carries much more cultural weight than "renaissance card game." Because people surrender their trust more readily to something that feels primordial and touchable. The cards didn't change. The story around them did. And someone needed that story to land exactly the way it did.
None of this diminishes the practice, not one card, not one reading, not one moment of genuine insight into these 78 images have ever produced. Knowing the history makes a powerful reader and seeker. Because now you're standing on truth, not myths. Don't take my word for it, check it out for yourself. A custodian of any culture owes it to that culture owes it to that culture to know its real story-not the one that was packaged, polished, and sold.
Next month.. religious institutions, the occult revival, and the woman behind the most famous deck in history that history almost erased entirely. We are just getting started.