ABSTRACT
Tarot cards most likely were a 15th century Italian invention mainly used for playing games. The seemingly mysterious origin of the tarot cards fueled further speculations and hermetic interpretations. With the successive occult revivals in France during the 19th century the tarot was defined in terms of Hermetic-Kabalistic traditions as a principal occultism. Some of the tarots reflect human interactions, relationships, groups, associations, and institutions, as well as other human products and artifacts: friendships, kinships, cliques, polities, economies, asylums, unions, foundations, theaters, merchandise, vehicles, dwellings, and edifices. Occult interpretations of the tarot climaxed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when it was fully integrated with the Hermetic-Kabalistic tradition. The origin or origins of the tarot is abstruse and perhaps inexplicit historically. In Great Britain the writings of Eliphas Levi also had stimulated interest in the occult tarot. Kenneth Mackenzie visited the revered Master, Levi, in Paris during 1861.
