The best books for understanding the historic philosophy and symbolism of the Tarot

When I first started researching the Tarot in the 1980s, there was a lot of misinformation that I had to sift through. Moakley was the author who set me in the right direction.

Writing in the 1950s, when there was a lack of knowledge about the history of the Tarot, she researched its origins in 15th-century Italy but did not ignore the symbolism of the Tarot’s enigmatic imagery. She was the first modern author to relate the Tarot trumps to the Renaissance triumphal parade, in which each character trumps the one who came before. 

To understand the mystical philosophies that influenced the creators of the Tarot, I had to delve into many historic texts such as the Hermetica and Plato’s Republic and look for their links in Renaissance culture.

Godwin offers an intelligent overview of Western Mysticism, from Hermes Trismegistus to the Rosicrucians and Theosophists. He views this wisdom tradition as the perennial philosophy that runs through Western history like a golden thread.

Ronald Decker coauthored with Michael Dummett and Thuerry Depaulis A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot.

Although A Wicked Pack of Cards is an important factual history, I feel that Dummett dominated the other authors of this book with his preconception that the Tarot is only a card game that the occultists seized on as a vehicle for their fantasies. He showed little interest in its symbolism. In The Esoteric Tarot, Decker was on his own, and this allowed him to focus on the symbolism and meanings of the cards, rooted in Western mysticism.  

I not only wanted to understand the symbolism and philosophy of the Tarot, but I have also always been curious about how people in the past before occultists discovered the Tarot, made use of the cards for divination.

Matthews has researched this more than any other author. She points out that rather than creating lists of meanings for the cards that needed to be memorized, they tended to relate directly to the imagery. This approach has influenced my use of the cards for divination.

Court de Gebelin and the comte de Mellet writing in Monde Primitif, in 1781, were the first modern authors to delve into the origins of the Tarot. Their belief that the Tarot originated in ancient Egypt became the spark that led to numerous unfounded occult ascensions. I feel that because of this, these two authors have been maligned and misunderstood.

They were actually conducting a serious investigation at a time when there was no one who could read Egyptian texts and very little known history to go on. The fact that until now their work was badly translated did not help. Vine, an expert on 18th-century French, came to the rescue and provided the first accurate translation of their essays.