Are tarot card readings true?
Well, it is hard to take them very seriously for a number of reasons. First of all, there is the physical aspect – it is pieces of card and ink when you think about it. They seem special because of the pictures but there is a story behind those. Tarot cards are actually playing cards, they were created in the mid 15th century by adding a fifth suit of picture cards to what was the standard Latin suited pack of playing cards. These new cards took as their theme, not an occult philosophy or magical symbols but a Christian triumph procession, hence their early name, trionfi, meaning triumphs and from which we get our word trump. It was the invention of tarot that marked the introduction of trumps into card games. Certainly, some of the images look mysterious to us now but that is because we are looking at them with modern eyes. Looked at in context of the art of 15th century Italy, they are nothing special. Lets look at a couple of popular examples. The Female Pope, re-named High Priestes
