Let's see if I can get this straight

I've been trying to get some things straight in my head for the last few days because I think it's 

important. Why do we read cards a certain way and who were the first people to do things the way we do? Why did they make those choices? Who says we have to keep doing it that way? Stuff like that. 

I'm no tarot historian and most likely never will be. My eyes glaze over when I try to read theories about the Astro-Alpha-Numeric correspondences of pre-de Gebelin cartomancy...and stuff like that. But several comments read in rapid succession at Aeclectic Tarot which made a strong implication that the Thoth Tarot was somehow superior to the Rider Waite Smith deck made me start to squint and wonder. And it's so rare lately that my cerebral gears try to kick into motion, I had to follow up on it. 

Okay, I know both Uncle Al and dear old Arthur were Golden Dawn. The thinking is, if I've got it right, that Waite illustrated Golden Dawn meanings, but did so in an obscure way because of his vows of secrecy, whereas Crowley put it all out there on the deck, trusting that we were all big boys and girls enough to learn the system and could handle it. Right, okay, I'm fine with that. But where, I suddenly began to wonder, did these Golden Dawn meanings come from? It sounded to me like they'd 'always' been the tarot meanings, and that only a few people knew them, that the meanings were closely guarded esoteric secrets that had only been released to us, the great unwashed, sometime near the turn of the 19th century. Could that be right? I had a few questions that needed answering. 

I found all the answers to these questions in the book, 'Mystical Origins of the Tarot' by Paul Huson, and I highly recommend it for your collection. 

1. When were tarot cards first used, not for gaming but for divination? The earliest evidence is around the 1750s. (That doesn't mean they weren't used earlier!) A manuscript from that time has been found that lists meanings for 35 tarrochi cards and gives advice for laying them out. Card reading was mostly a matter of drawing single cards and interpreting the meaning.

2. Who was the first person to make a name for himself as a card reader? Etteilla (real name Jean-Baptise Alliette, a Parisian algebra teacher and the world's first --as far as we know--professional tarot card reader). He literally did make a name for himself, turning his name around backwards! :) 

3. Who first claimed that a tarot deck contained some form of 'ancient wisdom'? Antoine Court de Gebelin, a French-Swiss Protestant pastor in 1781. He claimed they were Egyptian in origin.  

4. Where did card meanings come from, in the sense that we think of card meanings today? Eteilla and his students were the most important in laying the groundwork for modern tarot card interpretation. And that was in the late 1700s. 

5. Where did the idea of reading multiple cards come from? Eteilla again. He and his students used large spreads of card which they linked and read in 'sentences' and complex ideas. Again, late 1700s. 

6. So who was it who first linked tarot card majors to the Kabbalah? A Roman Catholic ex-deacon turned writer and illustrator, who used the pen name Eliphas Levi, writing in 1855. He linked the 22 majors to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Why?? Twenty-two of each, maybe he thought it looked plausible. He certainly worked very hard to make a connection, and obviously convinced a lot of people. 

7. And where did elemental correspondences come from? Also Eliphas Levi! He gives no clear explanation for how he arrived at this, but he took the idea from Agrippa (16th century chronicler of Renaissance magic) that the four letters making up the name of Jehovah (JHVH) correspond to the four Pythagorean elements (fire, water, air, and earth) and by some leap of...whatever...assigned them to the four minor suits of the tarot deck. Why would he do that? And why do we keep repeating it? (See what I mean?)

8. Right, then. So who came up with the notion that the minor cards all have an astrological correspondence? Three main sources: Jean-Alexandre Vaillant (1857), Paul Christian (1870), and the Golden Dawn (ca 1888). All linked pip cards 2-10 to astrological decans. 

It was the Golden Dawn in particular that linked the tarot deck with occult meanings, the suit cards with the astrological decans and the trump cards with the kabbalistic Tree of Life. Dear old Arthur (in 1910) worked with Pamela Coleman-Smith to create his deck, and later Uncle Al (in the 1930s) worked with Frieda Harris to create his deck. These are the Golden Dawn decks that prompted me to revisit this tarot history timeline. 

Of the Thoth deck, Huson writes, 'Though of great occult interest, the Thoth cards bear very little similarity to historical tarot decks, although many cartomancers enjoy using them. They reflect Crowley's own personal philosophy, which some consider an advantage.' That made me chuckle. 

Of the Rider-Waite Smith deck, he says even less, noting only that they are the most well-known and widely available deck today. 

I'm not a deck snob, I'm not a purist. I do love the RWS decks. I do not like the Thoth decks and have no interest in Crowley's Thelema. Lately my favourite deck is the pips-only Davis Celtic Tarot, and working with it probably prompted all this questioning to begin with. Lack of illustrations makes you begin to wonder where the ideas for certain illustrations came from. 

But anyway. I got my questions answered, and I remain pretty firm in my original idea that you don't need to know astrological or elemental correspondences in order to use a tarot deck. Occult meanings, however useful and sensible to many, really do seem to be a late addition to the cards. To me, they seem quite optional. And there's nothing superior about Thoth, when it comes to tarot. In the occult world, yeah maybe. If you expect your deck to reflect to occult themes, yes I'm pretty sure it's tops. But for plain old tarot divination (which neither Crowley nor Waite seemed to rate very highly), nah. 

I've felt kind of embarrassed for not knowing astrology and being uninterested in it, and for using the RWS. For not being that adept at elemental dignities, and for not knowing anything about the Tree of Life. (Just looking at the diagram makes me feel like I'm back in driving lessons or something). But now I know, that's not needed. It's just extra.