100 Fun Facts About Tarot

How many cards are in a full tarot deck?

That is four suits of 14 cards plus 21 trumps and the Fool.

Tarot cards were originally created for what purpose?

Trick-taking tarot games were played across most of Europe from at least the mid-15th century.

In which country did tarot cards first appear, in the mid-15th century?

The earliest records come from Ferrara and Milan, where 21 trumps were added to an ordinary pack.

What were tarot trumps originally called in 15th-century Italy?

The word became 'trumps' in English; 'tarocchi' only appeared around 1502.

The oldest surviving tarot cards were painted for the rulers of which duchy?

About 15 Visconti-Sforza decks survive from the mid-15th century.

Early European playing cards were probably based on the deck of which Egyptian dynasty?

The Mamluk deck was invented in or before the 14th century, after paper reached Western Europe from Asia.

The first European record of playing cards, from 1367, comes from which city?

Within a decade John of Rheinfelden was describing a 52-card, four-suit pack in Freiburg.

Which four suits make up the traditional Italian tarot pack?

Occult decks often rename batons as wands and coins as pentacles.

How many trump cards does a tarot deck have, not counting the Fool?

Depending on the game, the Fool may be the top trump or a card played to avoid following suit.

Which Florentine expanded tarot deck ran to 97 cards?

It added astrological symbols and the four elements; it was first mentioned as 'germini' in 1506.

After a 1950s boom, French Tarot became the second most popular card game where?

It took off in the 1950s after being confined largely to Provence; a national federation followed in 1973.

The oldest surviving Tarot of Marseilles cards were made in 1639 by whom?

They came to light recently and went up for sale in 2023.

The name 'Tarot de Marseille' was coined in 1856 by which French card historian?

Occultists Éliphas Lévi and Papus later popularised the label.

In the Tarot of Marseilles, the Tower card is named what?

Italian decks called it the Arrow, the Lightning, the House of the Devil or simply Hell.

In Italian decks, the Hanged Man (Le Pendu) was known as what?

The upside-down pose echoed the 'shame paintings' of traitors in Renaissance Italy.

In modern Italian, 'Tarocco' as a noun names a cultivar of which fruit?

The verb taroccare means to fake something, from a tarot card played in place of another.

Who in 1781 first claimed the tarot was a lost book of Egyptian wisdom?

A Protestant pastor, he wrote before Champollion had deciphered hieroglyphs and offered no evidence.

Court de Gébelin's tarot essay appeared in which of his vast works?

Volume eight of his compendium, 1781; Louis XVI headed the subscriber list.

Court de Gébelin welcomed which American as a lodge-brother at Les Neuf Sœurs?

He backed American independence and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1783.

Etteilla, the first to assign divinatory meanings to tarot, was the pseudonym of whom?

Etteilla is Alliette spelled backwards; he published his Book of Thoth treatise in 1785.

Around 1789 Etteilla produced the first tarot deck designed for what?

Its themes were Egyptian, following the belief that the cards came from the Book of Thoth.

The earliest evidence of tarot used for fortune-telling, c. 1750, concerns which deck?

An anonymous manuscript gives rudimentary meanings for its cards.

Who first used the terms 'Major Arcana' and 'Minor Arcana'?

Better known as Paul Christian, he published his Histoire de la magie in 1870.

How many cards make up the Major Arcana?

The Fool plus the 21 numbered trumps, from the Magician to the World.

Which is the only unnumbered card in a typical Major Arcana scheme?

It is sometimes placed first as 0, or last as XXII.

What is the Fool called in the Tarot of Marseilles?

Italian decks call him Il Matto; both mean 'the madman'.

In the Rider–Waite deck, the Fool walks toward the edge of a precipice with which animal?

He also holds a white rose, a symbol of freedom from baser desires.

What is the number of the Death card in most traditional tarot decks?

Some decks, like the Marseilles, leave the name off and call it 'The Card with No Name'.

In the Rider–Waite Death card, the skeleton carries a black standard bearing what?

His horse steps over a prone king: not even royalty can stop change.

In which year was the Rider–Waite Tarot first published?

William Rider & Son of London printed it in December 1909 in a very limited run.

Who illustrated the Rider–Waite Tarot?

She was a fellow member of the Golden Dawn; many readers now call it the Smith–Waite deck.

Both Waite and Smith belonged to which occult society?

Yeats introduced Smith to the order, which she joined in 1901.

Which two Major Arcana cards did Waite swap to fit the Golden Dawn's astrology?

Strength became VIII for Leo and Justice XI for Libra; the Sola Busca deck already had Strength there.

In the Rider–Waite deck, the Papess was renamed what?

Her papal tiara was removed; the Lovers became Adam and Eve in Eden.

What innovation did Smith bring to the Minor Arcana of the Rider–Waite deck?

Earlier decks, with rare exceptions, showed only simple pip designs on the suit cards.

Roughly how many copies of the Rider–Waite deck are estimated to be in circulation?

It circulates in more than 20 countries and has spawned countless imitations.

What was the title of Waite's 1911 revised guide to the deck?

It carried black-and-white plates of all 78 of Smith's illustrations.

What was the illustrator Smith's nickname?

The actress Ellen Terry is said to have given it to her at the Lyceum Theatre.

In which country did Smith's family live from 1889, inspiring her Annancy Stories?

Her two books of folklore retold Anansi the Spider tales.

Smith illustrated the last novel of which Lyceum Theatre colleague in 1911?

The Lair of the White Worm; Stoker had also written a book on Ellen Terry that she illustrated.

In 1907 Smith became the first painter shown at which New York photography gallery?

Alfred Stieglitz was intrigued that she painted visions that came to her while listening to music.

Smith died in 1951 in which Cornish town?

Her gravesite is unknown; she was probably buried in an unmarked grave.

Who painted the Thoth Tarot for its occultist creator?

Planned as a six-month job, it took five years, from 1938 to 1943.

The Thoth Tarot, meant to take six months, took how many years to paint?

Crowley also published a 1944 book, The Book of Thoth, to accompany it.

Where are the original Thoth Tarot paintings stored?

A conservation project completed in 2011 cleaned them and replaced acidic backings.

Which Éliphas Lévi book does Dummett say the whole modern occultist movement stems from?

Lévi, born Alphonse-Louis Constant, trained at Saint-Sulpice and was ordained a deacon.

Which cartomancer claimed to be the personal confidant of Empress Josephine?

The 36-card Petit Lenormand deck was published in her name after her death in 1843.

Who first published the Golden Dawn's tarot text 'Book T' openly, in 1912?

It appeared in his periodical The Equinox; the order itself never sold a deck to the public.

Which philosopher called occult tarot 'the most successful propaganda campaign ever launched'?

Dummett also wrote The Game of Tarot (1980), the standard history of the playing-card tradition.

In 1997 which filmmaker completed a reconstructed Tarot of Marseille with Philippe Camoin?

Camoin is heir to a Marseilles card-making house that traces back to Nicolas Conver.

Despite his name, the Hanged Man of the tarot dangles upside down from which part of his body?

One foot is all that holds him, and his calm face suggests he is there by choice, so readers take the card as self-sacrifice rather than punishment. Only the Sicilian tarot hangs him by the neck.

In which Bond film does Jane Seymour play Solitaire, a tarot reader serving the villain Kananga?

Live and Let Die has Bond stack a pack with nothing but the Lovers card to convince Solitaire that fate means them to be together.

Which rock band's untitled fourth album has inside artwork modelled on the tarot's Hermit card?

Led Zeppelin's painting The Hermit borrows the old man on a mountain top from the Rider–Waite card, and Jimmy Page later played the figure himself in the concert film The Song Remains the Same.

Which court card appears in every suit of a tarot deck but is missing from a standard 52-card pack?

The Knight rides between the Page and the Queen in each tarot suit, making four court cards where a modern pack has three. French-suited playing cards dropped him and kept the queen.

William Rider gave the Rider–Waite Tarot half its name by playing which role in the deck's creation?

Its publisher was the London firm William Rider & Son, which issued the cards for the mystic A. E. Waite, the other half of the name.

In the Tarot of Marseilles, the Death card traditionally lacks which feature of the other trumps?

A title is missing, which earned the trump its nickname, the card with no name. Readers rarely take it literally: it usually marks the close of one chapter of life.

Which Surrealist painter, asked to design a tarot deck for a Bond film, later released his own?

Salvador Dalí asked a fee the film's budget could not meet, so another artist got the job. He kept painting anyway, and his finished deck came out in Spain more than a decade later.

The Lovers card in the Rider–Waite tarot replaced a couple being blessed with which Biblical pair?

Adam and Eve stand in their garden under a watching angel, where older decks showed a couple being blessed by a nobleman or cleric.

In which Disney film does the villain Dr. Facilier give Prince Naveen a tarot reading during a song?

The Princess and the Frog stages the reading as the Randy Newman song Friends on the Other Side, with Facilier doing tricks with his cards while he reads Naveen's money troubles.

Which suit of a standard 52-card pack is the usual match for the tarot's suit of Wands?

Clubs translates basto, the Spanish name for the suit of batons, which suggests Spanish-style cards reached England before the French ones that draw the same suit as a clover leaf.

In the Rider–Waite tarot, which symbol floats above the Magician's head as he raises his wand?

An infinity sign hovers over him and a snake swallowing its own tail forms his belt, a double emblem of eternity.

In the Rider–Waite tarot, the Hermit carries a staff and lifts which object to light his way?

A lantern holding a six-pointed star lights the old man's mountain path, and one tarot writer called it the lamp of truth, there to guide those who do not yet know.

On the Judgement card of the tarot, what does an angel sound as the dead rise from their graves?

A trumpet hung with the flag of St George wakes a man, a woman and a child, a scene borrowed from Christian paintings of the Last Judgment.

Which Rider–Waite tarot card shows a naked child riding a white horse and holding a red flag?

The Sun is among the most positive cards in the deck, read as joy, vitality and success, and sunflowers bloom behind the young rider.

On the Tower card of the tarot, what strikes the building and knocks a large crown from its top?

Lightning matters so much to the image that some old Belgian decks simply named the card La Foudre, the thunderbolt.

Which classical element is tied to Pentacles, the tarot suit of money and possessions?

Earth fits a suit concerned with the body, property and wealth. The Thoth deck gives the same suit a plainer name, Disks.

In tarot, the suit of Cups, once an emblem of the clergy, mainly speaks to which side of life?

Emotions are the business of Cups, so a spread full of them points to matters of the heart, while the other three suits cover the physical, the mental and the creative.

Which heist film series has magicians called the Four Horsemen summoned by tarot cards from the Eye?

Now You See Me treats the cards as calling cards: in the third film, Now You Don't, the scattered Horsemen each receive one, and together the cards point the way to a château.

Which T. S. Eliot poem features Madame Sosostris, a clairvoyant who lays out tarot cards?

The Waste Land lets her cards foretell the rest of the poem, including a drowned sailor who turns up in a later section.

Which founder of analytical psychology is credited with the idea that tarot images are archetypes?

Carl Jung wrote that the pictures on the cards seemed distantly descended from archetypes of transformation, and a later generation of tarot writers drew heavily on his work.

Which Major Arcana card of the tarot shows a winged angel pouring liquid from one cup into another?

Temperance takes its picture from an old emblem of the virtue, in which watering down wine stood for moderation.

Which Major Arcana card, last in the tarot's numbered sequence, shows a dancer ringed by a wreath?

The World closes the sequence with a dancer holding two wands while a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle look on, so readers take it as completion.

Which Rider–Waite tarot card, a robed figure giving a blessing, was the Pope in older decks?

The Hierophant took its Greek name, the rank of the chief priest in the ancient mysteries of Eleusis, from an 18th-century writer who wanted the pack dechristianised.

In the Rider–Waite tarot, which creatures, one black and one white, pull the Chariot?

Sphinxes replaced the horses of older decks because Waite adopted a variation by the French magician Éliphas Lévi, and the driver holds no reins at all.

On the Moon card of the tarot, a wolf and a hound howl while which creature crawls out of the water?

A crayfish stands for what Waite called that which comes up out of the deeps, a nameless urge lower than the savage beast.

On the Rider–Waite Wheel of Fortune card, which Egyptian god rises up the right side of the wheel?

Anubis climbs as the snake-like Typhon sinks down the other side, a picture of luck rising and falling, while the rim spells out the letters T, A, R and O.

Which planet's symbol replaced the imperial eagle on the Empress's shield in the Rider–Waite tarot?

Venus, named for the goddess of love and beauty, suits a card about fertility and abundance, and the same redesign gave the Empress her crown of twelve stars.

Which animal's heads adorn the Emperor's throne in the Rider–Waite tarot, a nod to his zodiac sign?

Rams stand for Aries, ruled by Mars, which readers tie to the Emperor's themes of initiative, leadership and power.

On each Ace in the Rider–Waite tarot, what emerges from a cloud bearing the suit's emblem?

A hand offers the wand, cup, sword or pentacle like a gift from above, which is why readers treat every Ace as a new beginning.

Which Rider–Waite tarot card shows a man lying on the ground with a row of blades in his back?

Ten of Swords looks like the bleakest card in the pack, yet readers often take it as the end of a hard cycle, with hope of a fresh start after the disaster.

What are the tarot's Minor Arcana cards numbered Ace to Ten called, as opposed to the court cards?

Pips, or pip cards, are named for the small suit symbols counted out on each one, a word that also covers the dots on dice and dominoes.

The Latin word arcana, used for the two halves of a tarot deck, originally means what?

Secrets is the literal sense: arcana is the plural of the Latin arcanum, a hidden thing or mystery, and it was once a favourite word of alchemists.

In a tarot reading, the Tower card most often warns of what?

Sudden upheaval is the Tower's message: Waite called it above all a card of unforeseen catastrophe, and it follows straight after the Devil in the sequence.

Writers in the 1850s spread the unfounded theory that which people brought tarot cards to Europe?

The Romani were long cast as the keepers of the cards, yet there is virtually no evidence that they told fortunes with any kind of cards before the 20th century.

The magician Éliphas Lévi matched each Major Arcana card of the tarot to a letter of which alphabet?

Hebrew letters gave Lévi his bridge between the cards and the Kabbalah, a link that turned the pack into what historians of the cards call a prime ingredient in magical lore.

Western Qabalists see the tarot's Major Arcana as the paths joining ten spheres on which diagram?

The Tree of Life has one path for every trump, while the Ace to Ten of each suit are matched to the ten spheres themselves.

The Devil card of the Rider–Waite tarot is partly based on which drawing by Éliphas Lévi?

Baphomet, Lévi's winged goat-horned idol with a torch on its head, lent the card its pose: right arm raised, left arm lowered.

On the Rider–Waite Devil card, which symbol appears upside down on the horned figure's forehead?

A pentagram pointing downwards crowns a squatting figure with bat wings, while two naked, tailed captives, one male and one female, stand chained to the block beneath.

The feminist Motherpeace Tarot, created in 1970s Berkeley, prints its cards in what unusual shape?

Round cards were chosen to echo the Moon, long linked with the Mother Goddess, and decades later the deck inspired a Christian Dior fashion collection.

Whose novel The Castle of Crossed Destinies has mute travellers tell their tales with tarot cards?

Italo Calvino built the book in two halves, each told through a different deck: a painted Renaissance pack first, then the Tarot of Marseilles.

Which sculptor filled the Tarot Garden in Tuscany with giant mosaic figures of the Major Arcana?

Niki de Saint Phalle lived inside her Empress sculpture for several years while she built the garden, which opened to the public in 1998.

Which manga's Stardust Crusaders arc gives fighters powers called Stands, named after tarot cards?

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure names hero Jotaro's Stand, Star Platinum, after the Star card, while later Stands in the same arc are named after Egyptian gods instead.

Which Japanese role-playing series ties every character and summoned being to a tarot Arcana?

Persona 4 has its heroes call up their inner selves by destroying a tarot card, and skill cards in the series are drawn as Major Arcana.

Which HBO drama set in the Dust Bowl opens each episode by diving through a pack of tarot cards?

Carnivàle begins with a deck falling into sand, and the camera plunges into one card after another to find footage of the Great Depression inside.

Which carnival novel by William Lindsay Gresham heads each chapter with a different tarot card?

Nightmare Alley drags its hero Stan down until he is a hobo, staying afloat by giving card readings and selling horoscopes.

Which poker roguelike by solo developer LocalThunk has players spend Tarot cards to alter a deck?

Balatro uses the Major Arcana as one-shot power-ups that can change a playing card's suit, enhance it or destroy it outright.

In the Thoth Tarot, which name replaces Judgement on the trump that once showed the dead rising?

The Aeon pictures the deities Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Harpocrates where older decks show the Christian Last Judgment.

One Swiss tarot pack replaces the Pope and Popess of older decks with which pair of Roman gods?

Jupiter and Juno supply the JJ in the pack's nickname, 1JJ, while the 1 is nothing grander than a number in a card maker's product line.

Which 15th-century tarot, shown in photos at the British Museum, likely inspired Rider–Waite images?

Sola Busca photographs reached the museum two years before the Rider–Waite artist set to work, and her heart pierced by three blades closely echoes the older card.

Under which pen name did French physician Gérard Encausse write The Tarot of the Bohemians?

Papus took the name from a spirit of medicine listed in an ancient magical text, a neat fit for a working doctor who also founded the modern Martinist Order.