Origins of Halloween and Tarot Cards

(image from Lazarev on pixabay)

Halloween began with the Celtic pagan harvest festival of Samhain, about 2500 years ago. People would wear costumes and light fires to ward off ghosts. The harvest marked the beginning of a new year. The pagan belief was that spirits walked the earth during the festival. Then the Catholic church designated November first as All Saints Day, with the day before being called All Hallows Eve. This name morphed into Halloween. The church also adopted November second as All Souls Day, to commemorate those who had passed away. As such, the secular and sacred combined and morphed into Halloween.

Speaking of pagan rituals, I have recently been studying Tarot cards and I was interested in their origins. They came from Italy around 1430 as a type of parlor game to entertain royalty. This is why the court cards (king, queen, pages, knights) feature prominently. The twenty-two major arcana card were seen as trump cards in playing various parlor games. The fifty-six minor arcana cards are divided into four suits, much like our modern playing cards. Later on, the swords became spades, the hearts became cups, the wands became clubs, and the diamonds became pentacles.

 In 1909, two British-American people devised the most popular modern Tarot deck, called the Rider-Waite deck, which was published by William Rider and Son of London.  A woman named Pamela Coleman Smith designed the imagery for this deck. Arthur Edward Waite, a poet and esoteric scholar, commissioned her to produce the artwork, while he wrote the accompanying guidebook for interpretation. Both of them were members of a bohemian society called The Order of the Golden Dawn, which examined occult practices across various cultures. They began using the cards for divination, with the minor arcana foretelling day-to-day events, and the major arcana depicting significant life lessons.

I find this practice quite fascinating. While I do not have complete faith, I do believe that spending some time in daily meditative self-reflection is healthy, and using Tarot cards is a fun way to do this.

Have you ever had a tarot card or any other kid of reading? Please subscribe / comment below.