Tarot is a time-honored system based on 78 archetypal energies, each with its own name and traditional meaning. When you get right down to it, though, a Tarot reading is not a math equation. There’s not a single “right” solution or interpretation you’re striving to identify. Instead, Tarot works with the power of intuition.
While some mysticism aficionados claim that the practice of tarot reading has roots in Kabbalah, the I Ching, Indian Tantra and ancient Egyptian culture, there is no historical confirmation of this.
In fact, tarot card decks didn’t even start out as tools for mystic predictions and insight. Like traditional card decks we use for various games, they were used as playing cards, not for tarot readings.
Starting from the mid-15th century, the tarot card decks had a few different names, first trionfi, then tarocchi or tarock and these decks were used to play games in European countries like tarocchini in Italy, tarot in France and Königrufen in Austria. (These games are actually still played today.)
It wasn’t until 300 years later that people began using tarot cards as an occult practice through tarot readings and cartomancy—which means fortune telling using decks of cards—and this led to the creation of custom tarot card decks specifically for mystic purposes.