BEST TAROT BOOKS for 2022: Best Tarot Guides, Best Tarot Books, Best Tarot Decks, Best Tarot Reviews (T4) offers you a curated selection of the best Tarot books, Tarot guides, and Tarot decks for self-help and personal development.

TAROT: initially known as trionfi and later as tarot, is a deck of cards used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe. By the end of the 18th century, some tarot decks began to be used for divination via the reading of tarot cards and cartomancy leading to custom decks developed for occult purposes.

The oldest surviving tarot cards belong to the Visconti-Sforza tarot decks painted in the mid-15th century for the rulers of the Duchy of Milan. A lost tarot deck was commissioned by Duke Filippo Maria Visconti and described by Martiano da Tortona probably between 1418 and 1425. He described a 60-card deck with 16 cards having images of Roman gods and costumes depicting four types of birds. The 16 cards were considered “assets” since in 1449 Jacopo Antonio Marcello recalled that the now deceased Duke had invented a "genre novum quoddam et exquisitum triumphorum" (an exquisite new genre of triumphs). Early games that also featured classic motifs include the Sola-Busca and Boiardo-Viti games from the 1490s. In Florence, an expanded game called Minchiate was used. This 97-card deck features astrological symbols and the four elements, as well as traditional tarot designs.

The first trace of a tarot deck used for fortune telling comes from an anonymous manuscript dating from around 1750 which sheds light on the rudimentary divinatory meanings of the Tarocco Bolognese cards. The popularization of esoteric tarot began with Antoine Court and Jean-Baptiste Alliette (Etteilla) in Paris in the 1780s, using the Tarot de Marseille. French tarot makers abandoned the Tarot de Marseille in favor of the Tarot Nouveau around 1900, with the result that Marseille motifs are now mainly used by fortune-tellers. Etteilla was the first to publish a tarot deck specially designed for occult purposes around 1789. In accordance with the unfounded belief that these cards were derived from the Book of Thoth, Etteilla's tarot contained themes related to ancient Egypt.

ESOTERIC TAROT: the 78-card tarot deck used by esotericists consists of two distinct parts:

The Major Arcana (great secrets), or trumps, consist of 22 colorless cards: The magician, the high priestess, the empress, the emperor, the hierophant, the lovers, the chariot, the force, the hermit, the wheel of fortune, justice, the hanged man, death, the temperance, the devil, the tower, the star, the moon, the sun, the judgment, the world and the fool. The Magician of the World cards are numbered in Roman numerals from I to XXI, while the Bishop is the only unnumbered card, sometimes placed at the start of the game as 0, or at the end as XXII.

The Minor Arcana (little secrets) consist of 56 cards, divided into four suits of 14 cards each: Ten numbered cards and four court cards. The court cards are the King, Queen, Knight, and Page / Jack (or Jack), in each of the four tarot combinations. The traditional Italian tarot cards are swords, staves, denarii and cups; however, in modern occult tarot decks the wand card is often referred to as wand or staves, while combinations of denarii are often referred to as pentacles or discs.

The terms “major arcana” and “minor arcana” were first used by Jean-Baptiste Pitois (also known as Paul Christian) and are never used in connection with the decks of Tarot cards. Some games exist primarily as works of art; and these art games sometimes contain only the 22 major arcana. The three most commonly used decks in esoteric tarot are the Tarot de Marseille, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, and the Thoth tarot deck. Aleister Crowley, who designed the Thoth card game with Lady Frieda Harris, said of Tarot: “The origin of this card game is very obscure. Some authorities seek to trace it back to the ancient Egyptian mysteries; others try to advance it as late as the 15th century or even the 16th century ... [but] The only theory of ultimate interest in the Tarot is that it is an admirable symbolic image of the Universe, based on Kabbalah ”.

BEST TAROT BOOKS & TAROT DECKS: there are many books devoted to Tarot reading. Tarot books for beginners, easy Tarot books, and more advanced Tarot books. There are books focused on psychology and tarot, and other about Tarot and the divine feminine. These are some selections.

Best Tarot Books for Oprah: https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/g35462340/best-tarot-books/

Best Tarot Books for Cosmopolitan: https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/g35462340/best-tarot-books/

Tarot Decks: famous tarot decks include the Rider Waite Tarot deck, Thoth Tarot deck, Tarot of Marseilles, Gilded Tarot deck.

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