About Tarot

From playing cards to divination

Tarot is documented in northern Italy in the fifteenth century. Early packs combined four suits with a sequence of trumps and the Fool, and were used for trick-taking games. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s history of tarot places the earliest surviving references in the 1440s and 1450s and discusses the Visconti and Visconti-Sforza cards.

Occult interpretations and systematic tarot fortune-telling developed much later. The V&A’s history describes the late-eighteenth-century turn toward divination and subsequent occult traditions. Claims that tarot preserves a demonstrably ancient Egyptian book are not established by the surviving early cards.

The Rider–Waite–Smith deck appeared in 1909, combining Arthur Edward Waite’s project with Pamela Colman Smith’s artwork. Her narrative scenes on the numbered suit cards became especially influential. Other families, including Marseille-style packs, often use arrangements of suit symbols instead. Different visual traditions invite different ways of reading.

The structure of a deck

Cups, Swords, Wands or Batons, and Coins or Pentacles are common suit names. The historical structure is described by the Met; the reading approaches in this table are suggestions for this site.

1. Set a question and select a deck, layout, and position keywords.
2. Look at each card before reading the supplied text: figures, gestures, setting, and repeated shapes can all matter.
3. Connect the card’s imagery to its position and to neighboring cards.
4. Write a short interpretation that addresses the question, rather than collecting unrelated keywords.

Decks, meanings, and reversals

The app provides small spreads, Cross, and Nine layouts. You can study a chosen card or draw a spread, select keyword frames, and open cards for a closer view. Check Settings before drawing if you want reversed cards.

Waite’s The Pictorial Key to the Tarot is a primary source for one influential occult system, with Smith’s illustrations and divinatory meanings. It is not a universal dictionary for every deck. The site’s interpretation libraries and newly made artwork are contemporary presentations; a change of deck can alter which visual details support a reading.

A useful journal entry keeps the question, layout, cards, and your first interpretation together. When revisiting it, distinguish what the images suggested from what actually occurred.

Which library should I choose?

Mystical is the foundation of each reading. Open Explore another perspective on a card to compare a book. Choose Compare two libraries to view two perspectives on the same card and orientation; they sit side by side when space allows and stack on smaller screens. Use Study to browse its interpretations. Settings remembers your preferred comparison and Study source; saved readings keep the Mystical foundation and the comparisons you explored on each card. Open a comparison to include it; choose Show one library to omit the second. The Save Reading dialog lists the included libraries. Saved text stays as it was when you saved it, even if a library changes later. In Scriptorium, choose Compare saved perspectives to view those interpretations together, or Show full saved reading to return to the complete entry. Shared readings keep the Mystical foundation.

All book libraries cover the 78 standard cards except The Archetypal Journey and Meditations on the Tarot, which cover the 22 Major Arcana. Additional cards depend on the selected deck. Every reading has distinct reversed content. New editorial reversals are labelled as Alchemysterium additions; source quotations, symbolism, and historical commentary remain contextual. Reversals can suggest blocked expression, excess, inward development, release, or recovery rather than simply a negative opposite.

Card names follow the selected deck, while comparisons match card identities: Coins and Disks correspond to Pentacles, Batons to Wands, and Marseille Justice VIII and Strength XI retain their identities across numbering changes. When comparing a standard deck with Thoth, Kings correspond to Thoth Knights, Knights to Princes, Pages to Princesses, and Queens to Queens.

Reading with Holistic Tarot

Choose Holistic Tarot in a card’s comparison selector or in Study to explore original Alchemysterium summaries of Benebell Wen’s approach for the 78 standard cards. Each card includes an upright or reversed reading, a note on Wen’s perspective, a site-authored reflection question, and a source citation. These are selective paraphrases, not quotations or a complete replacement for the book.

Wen calls her approach “tarot analytics”: using imagery to bring patterns and possibilities into awareness and consider choices. Read a card in relation to your question, its spread position, and its neighbors. The book’s main card discussions use Rider–Waite–Smith imagery, so an image-based distinction may not transfer directly to every deck.

Her WIND reminder offers four possibilities for a reversal: weakened energy, inverted meaning, negative influence, or delay. Reversal does not automatically mean the opposite or a worse outcome. Court cards may describe people, facets of yourself, or functions: Pages bring messages, Knights suggest action, Queens nurture, and Kings exercise authority.

Sources and further reading

• Tim Husband, “Before Fortune-Telling: The History and Structure of Tarot Cards” (The Met, 2016)
• V&A, “A history of tarot cards”
• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — 1922.
• Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth — Benebell Wen, 2015.

The Archetypal Journey — Sallie Nichols

This library follows the 22 Major Arcana as images for exploring identity, projection, opposing needs, and individuation. Nichols works with Marseille imagery: Justice is VIII and Strength XI. Cards are matched by identity across decks, even when numbering differs.

These are original selective summaries, with Alchemysterium reflection prompts. Reversed readings and prompts are Alchemysterium additions, separate from Nichols’s symbolic commentary. This library remains limited to the Major Arcana. Consider images alongside personal associations and lived experience, rather than as predictions or evidence about other people.

The Way of Tarot — Alejandro Jodorowsky and Marianne Costa

This comparison library covers all 78 cards through original selective summaries of the authors’ Marseille method. Swords concern intellectual life; Cups emotional life; Wands desire and creativity; Pentacles embodied and material life. Numbers describe stages of development, and Knights carry the court sequence beyond the Kings toward a new cycle.

The authors read cards in relation to their neighbors and the question, rather than as fixed predictions. These entries are starting points for reflection, not a substitute for that relational reading. Justice VIII and Strength XI are mapped by card identity across decks. The authors deliberately avoid reversed-card readings. The site offers distinctly labelled Alchemysterium reversals alongside their contextual commentary. Reflection prompts are Alchemysterium additions.

Ultimate Guide — Johannes Fiebig and Evelin Bürger

This library offers original selective interpretations of all 78 cards based on The Ultimate Guide to the Rider Waite Tarot. Each entry combines a reading, a specific image focus, an Alchemysterium reflection prompt, and an expandable reference.

The authors treat the cards as mirrors and attend closely to visible details: posture, color, objects, and relationships within an image. Every card and symbol can have helpful and difficult possibilities. A figure may represent another person or a part of yourself; personal associations should be distinguished from established symbolism and tested against what is actually visible. Practical consequences matter more than a confident-sounding prediction.

This approach does not assume that a number has one universal meaning across every card. The summaries preserve ambiguity rather than assigning only favorable meanings to upright cards and difficult meanings to reversals. Distinct reversed readings are Alchemysterium additions; source commentary remains context. Visual observations refer specifically to Rider–Waite–Smith artwork; other decks may show different details. Strength VIII and Justice XI are mapped by card identity.

Marseille Revealed — Yoav Ben-Dov

These original, selective notes cover all 78 cards in The Marseille Tarot Revealed. Each card offers a reading, an open-reading approach, an Alchemysterium reflection prompt, and an expandable source reference.

Ben-Dov’s open reading begins with the whole picture formed by the cards. Gestures, gazes, spacing, and lines that continue across neighboring images can change what a card means in this particular reading. Learned meanings are starting points. His basic three-card reading does not assign fixed roles to the positions in advance. The site’s comparison notes bring this approach into your chosen spread; they do not change its layout or position labels.

The numbered cards are read through their arrangements, boundaries, crossings, and plant forms. Cups and Coins can suggest relationships within groups; Wands and Swords can show forces meeting or spaces being protected, restricted, or opened. Court figures can describe attitudes and interactions without assigning fixed ages or genders.

Separate reversed notes follow Ben-Dov’s inverse readings. For the 16 cards with similar inverse meanings, distinct Alchemysterium editorial reversals are clearly labelled. Visual descriptions and the orientation of the Five and Six of Wands refer to his CBD Tarot de Marseille; other decks may differ. Coins map to Pentacles, the Popess to the High Priestess, the Pope to the Hierophant, and the Lover to the Lovers. Justice VIII and Force XI are matched by identity, and the unnamed XIII is shown under Death.

Tarot Deciphered — T. Susan Chang and M. M. Meleen

This source explores all 78 cards through the shared esoteric roots of Rider–Waite–Smith and Thoth tarot. Each card includes an Alchemysterium interpretation, a correspondence map, two attributed quotations from the book’s deck-specific symbolism sections, a reflection question, and an expandable reference. Quoted passages are distinguished from the site’s original notes.

The authors connect astrology, the elements, mythology, alchemy, and Hermetic Qabalah. In the numbered cards, the planetary ruler of a decan interacts with its zodiac sign and the card’s place on the Tree of Life. Court cards combine an element with an element: fire directs, water receives, air thinks, and earth gives tangible expression. These relationships offer a way to investigate a card’s tensions and possibilities, rather than a single fixed prediction.

The book distinguishes Hermetic Qabalah from traditional Jewish Kabbalah. It also explains that its esoteric readings of Pamela Colman Smith’s imagery are interpretive associations, not claims about her artistic intention. The quoted visual details refer specifically to RWS or Thoth and may not appear in your selected deck.

Court mapping follows the book: RWS Kings correspond to Thoth Knights, RWS Knights to Thoth Princes, Pages to Princesses, and Queens to Queens. Strength/Lust and Justice/Adjustment are matched by identity despite different numbering. The Emperor and Star retain the distinct RWS and Thoth letter assignments. The reversed reading and prompt are Alchemysterium additions. The esoteric map and quotations retain the source material without assigning a reversal doctrine to the authors.

Meditations on the Tarot — Anonymous

Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism presents twenty-two letters to an Unknown Friend. Its Major Arcana are spiritual exercises for contemplative reading. This source provides original, selective notes on each letter, a clearly labeled reading adaptation, an Alchemysterium reflection question, and an expandable bibliographic reference.

The author brings Christian prayer, the sacraments, conscience, and love into dialogue with Hermetic philosophy. The first four letters move through direct spiritual experience, reflective knowledge, sacred action, and philosophical understanding. Later letters explore the temptations of mastery, the development of conscience, inspiration, organic growth, intuition, and the integration of a spiritual life. These religious and metaphysical views are presented as the book’s perspective.

This is a Major Arcana source: the final letter briefly offers a framework for the Minor Arcana but does not provide individual notes for all 56 cards. Minor cards keep their Mystical reading and other available comparisons; this source is not listed as a comparison where it has no entry. Study mode explains the coverage when a Minor Arcana card is selected. Selecting the source does not change your draw settings.

The book uses Marseille identities: Pope maps to Hierophant, Lover to Lovers, Force XI to Strength, and Justice VIII to Justice. The Fool is the subject of Letter XXI, after Judgement and before the World in Letter XXII. That is the order of meditation, not a change to the deck’s card numbers. The letters are not an upright/reversed divination dictionary. Letter commentary remains contextual, while the reversed reading and prompt are labelled Alchemysterium additions.

Mystical Origins — Paul Huson

Paul Huson’s Mystical Origins of the Tarot adds a historical and cartomantic perspective to all 78 cards. Each entry offers a selective reading, a note on the interpretive tradition, an Alchemysterium reflection, and a source reference.

The readings preserve meaningful differences from familiar Rider–Waite–Smith interpretations. Earlier authors and schools are identified where relevant; their views and Huson’s historical proposals are not presented as universal meanings or settled history.

Selective upright and reversed applications follow the distinction in Huson’s Suggested Interpretation for each card. The Sun and Five of Swords have labelled Alchemysterium reversal additions. Tradition notes remain contextual; reflection prompts are specific to orientation. Predictions and stereotypes are recast as contextual possibilities or omitted; reversed cards are not automatically negative.

The Big Book of Tarot — Joan Bunning

Joan Bunning’s practical approach explores all 78 cards through recognizable experiences and the movement of energy. Each entry contains a selective reading, an energy lens, an Alchemysterium reflection, and an expandable reference.

A reversal need not mean the opposite of an upright card. Bunning distinguishes energy that is emerging from energy that is receding. Consider the question and neighboring cards when deciding which phase is useful; these notes invite interpretation rather than a fixed prediction.

Bunning treats upright cards as a strong, developed expression of a theme and reversals as lower-intensity expression that may be emerging or receding, sometimes unacknowledged. A reversal is not automatically the opposite or a negative version of the card. These selective notes retain both early- and late-phase possibilities instead of deciding the phase for the reader. Energy lenses and reflection questions are original Alchemysterium applications. The four Knights retain both constructive and excessive tendencies in either orientation.

The Qabalistic Tarot — Robert Wang

Concise paraphrases for all 78 cards, drawn from the Golden Dawn divinatory outline presented in Wang’s book. These meanings offer a practical entry into the tradition; they do not reproduce the book’s extended Qabalistic discussions.

Read each meaning with the question and neighboring cards. The same contextual reading appears in both orientations for 77 cards. The Ace of Swords retains the outline’s explicit distinction for the inverted sword. Reversal is not treated as poor elemental dignity, and no automatic dignity calculation is implied.

Wang’s Kings remain Kings; his Princes map to Knights and Princesses to Pages. The Universe maps to the World, and Judgment to Judgement. These identities remain consistent across the site’s decks.

The Book of Thoth — Aleister Crowley

This library explores the symbolism of all 78 Thoth cards through selective original commentary. Each entry contains a reading, a Thoth symbolism note, an Alchemysterium reflection, and a reference to the supplied text. Its Thelemic and Hermetic framework remains explicitly attributed to Crowley.

Thoth titles map to the site’s existing card identities: Adjustment to Justice, Lust to Strength, Art to Temperance, Aeon to Judgement, and Universe to the World. Disks map to Pentacles. Thoth Knights correspond to the site’s Kings, Princes to Knights, Princesses to Pages, and Queens to Queens. Card numbers and Hebrew-letter assignments are not interchangeable between traditions.

These notes refer to Thoth symbolism even when another deck is selected. Helpful and difficult possibilities depend on context and neighboring cards. Distinct reversed readings are labelled Alchemysterium additions, separate from Crowley’s symbolism.

Symbolic commentary remains contextual; reversal readings and prompts are site-authored. It does not invent a separate Crowley reversal dictionary or equate an inverted card with poor dignity. Interpretive emphasis depends on the question, neighboring cards, and the constructive or difficult expression of a force; no automated dignity calculation is implied.