before spreading far and wide across Europe (7). In the 1600 and 1700s the tarot game was at its peak, being played in many intellectual salons throughout the continent (8). There is little evidence that any mystical or esoteric meaning was associated to the Tarot prior to Gebelin’s revelation: apparently it was only in the early 1700s that symbolism began to be associated with it (9). What is certain is that, after Gebelin and Mallet’s “manifestos”, Tarot became less and less of a game and more and more of an instrument of divination, meditation or esoteric philosophy, as it remains until today. You can hardly hear of anyone actually playing the Tarot, even though except for the 22 trumps, the others are very similar to the normal playing cards.
Leaving prosaic history aside, why did the two Frenchmen choose Egypt as the origin of Tarot? Some people point out, rightfully I would say, that “Egyptian Tarot” was the offspring of an Egyptomania craze in the 1700s (10) which culminated with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1799 and Champollion’s deciphering of the Rosetta Stone. Needless to say, Egyptomania is still with us today, witness Stargate, The Mummy trilogy, Indiana Jones or the Discovery Channel’s fascination with Tutankhamen. Perhaps Egyptomania makes me write this article today.
However, the Egyptian roots of Tarot cannot simply be attributed to a 1700 folly. Gebelin himself was the heir of a long Western esoteric tradition that traced its legacy to Egypt, Thoth / Hermes Trismegistus and the Corpus Hermeticum. By placing Tarot into Egyptian tradition, Gebelin was only trying to contribute to the long and laborious work of restoration that Renaissance scholars committed themselves to.