The Truth About Tarot Cards and the New War of the Roses The only indicated use of the Tarot was for playing a card game, and the earliest evidence comes from the courtly circles of northern Italy in the 1440s. The Tarot pack probably was invented there in the mid- 1420’s. The Tarot in its original form included four suits, of Swords, Batons, Cups and Coins, each and four co-suit being composed of ten numeral cards from Ace to 10 and four court cards - Jack, Knight, Queen and King.
In 1781 And Antoine Court de Gebelin propounded an ancient Egyptian origin for the pack. But it was a fortune-teller who called himself Etteilla who invented for the purpose a greatly altered type of Tarot pack based on occult- Hermetic books, and named it the'Book of Thoth'. In the middle of the XIX century, Eliphas Levi father of the French Occult revival, repudiating Etteilla's theories, integrated the Tarot into occultist doctrine by another means: Levi next associated the pack, quite erroneously, with the Cabala. Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval's “Talisman” fails to mention the total change from the Swords, Batons, Cups and Coins, each and four co-suit being composed often numeral cards from Ace to 10 and four court cards - Jack, Knight, Queen and King that Court de Gebelin was referring to, and the ’Cabala’ interpretation from Eliphas Levi that ‘Talisman’ manipulatesand axiomatic among followers of the Western tradition of magic that the Tarot is an essential component of the occult sciences.