What is Tarot?

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Tarot is a system of illustrated cards whose history reaches back to fifteenth-century Europe and even earlier. it was a time of heresy and persecution for Gnostics, Pagans, Witches, Occultists and other non-conforming belief systems struggling to survive in the dark world of Christendom.

As an encoded system of knowledge transfer, the earliest surviving Tarot decks are associated with such heretical beliefs as Catharism and ritual theurgy practiced in secret by various groups who were always afraid of being discovered by the inquisition. 

Sometimes described as having originated in ancient Egypt, Tarot's formal transformation into an occult and divinatory system came to the public eye in eighteenth-century France, when writers such as Antoine Court de Gébelin and Etteilla began publicly outing the cards as repositories of symbolic, philosophical, and esoteric knowledge.

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Over time, tarot developed into a remarkably versatile language of images. Its cards encompassing recognizable human experiences: beginnings and endings, conflict and reconciliation, ambition, uncertainty, loss, transformation, and renewal. It has functioned variously as a game, a divinatory instrument, a system of spiritual instruction, a map of personal development, and a tool for meditation and self-examination.