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Sacred-texts home
Esoteric  Neopagan  Prophecy and Divination

The Tarot

The best known Tarot deck is the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. There are hundreds of others, but the images of the RWS Tarot are the ones which are instantly recognizable. This page has abundant detail about the history and significance of the RWS deck, as well as other texts about Tarot divination.

Texts

  The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by A.E. Waite [1911]
This is the essential Tarot reference by the designer of the best known Tarot deck.

  The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]
This is a detailed study of the esoteric roots of the Tarot.

  The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]
This is a short essay on the Tarot, by a prominent occultist of the 19th Century. Mathers also wrote The Kabbalah Unveiled.

  The Symbolism of the Tarot by P. D. Ouspensky [1913]
An evocative inner journey through the Major Arcana of the Tarot.

Other Resources

    Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck Copyright FAQ
Strangely enough, "what is the copyright status of the Tarot deck?" is the most commonly asked question about this section. This FAQ attempts to address this complicated issue.

  Tarot Card Cross-reference. This is an index of all of the Tarot Card images at sacred-texts. Currently this includes the color 1909 RWS deck, the greyscale RWS images from the Pictorial Key, and the Wirth and Marseilles images from Tarot of the Bohemians.

  Tarot Card Comparison, by J.B. Hare
This presents high resolution images of three cards from the 1909 Tarot deck and the US Games deck. Are they different? You be the judge.

NOTE ON THE COLOR TAROT CARD IMAGES: Holly Voley has scanned a set of vintage Tarot cards. These images can be viewed when you click on any of the black and white thumbnails in the Pictorial Key to the Tarot, or in the right-hand frame in the Tarot card reader. They can also be viewed sequentially in the Tarot Card Cross-reference.