Most of the focus on tarot is found in its divinatory uses and esoteric code. Books, blogs, websites, and courses abound on symbolism, tarot spreads, and interpretative meanings. Self-care advocates agree that the archetypal meanings are useful without any magic required. Social media is brimming with live video feeds of hopeful content-creating oracles giving readings, for free or for cash, to audiences with questions about their fates. They boast personalized decks and private sessions. Driving down any highway long enough, too, you’re bound to discover a neon sign, sooner rather than later, that reads simply “TAROT” in the window of an odd building.

No one has ever walked into one of those places expecting to play Bridge. 

But why not? It is a game after all. That has been all but forgotten, deemed far less useful of a thing compared to the 1909 Rider-Waite divinatory promise. What a shame. I think the members of the Golden Dawn would be disappointed, that is, if they didn’t expect it. 

If you believe that deck, the Rider-Waite, contains especially esoteric information, you must then give credit to its ancestor, the Marseille deck. Our “common tarot” is based on a deck that we can pinpoint with certainty existed at least 500 years prior to the births of the creators of the Rider deck. The RWS band was jamming a cover tune the whole time.

Prior to around 1400, the history is a little muddy, yet there is plenty of indication that the deck existed even hundreds of years earlier. The evidence is found quite globally, too. It’s common that anthropological investigations often include the discovery and study of games and toys. No matter when you think it originated, the fact that can’t be displayed is that it is very very old. Consider that this game, and most certainly its concept, was chosen in particular, much in the same way every other detail was meticulously selected in the Rider deck. 

Unfortunately, many of our pocket oracles do not know how to play the tarot as a game, although many of them know at least that there is one. They may even be able to offer up the fun fact about how the Minor Arcana is the same as a standard playing card deck. Little beyond that has been deemed valuable knowledge, as divination practices pay the bills. The information about all of the rules of play is limited and considerably harder to find than the spiritual meaning of the reverse King of Swords, for example, so perhaps is less often sought. 

The rules themselves can get quite complicated indeed, however there are various ways of simplifying play for the beginner. Plainly put, it is a trick-taking game. Anyone familiar with a standard playing card deck knows the basic idea of how a game like that works, with the highest card played winning each hand, and a point system to determine the winner. In tarot, there are 22 extra trump cards, all of which are numbered to support the object of the game. There is one card, the Fool, (represented in standard decks as the joker), for which special rules apply. At number 0, the Fool can be used in any hand when the player holding him needs to protect a higher trump card for a later hand. He can only be played once, and is returned to the player who used him at the end of the hand. 

At the end of the game, when tallying points, 10 bonus points are awarded to the player who is dealt the Magician, card number 1, the lowest of the trumps, but only if the Magician is played to win the final hand of the game.

Perhaps Rider, Smith, and Waite had hoped that even a fool would understand that significance. A player who wins the bonus points truly understands the game, and often that final hand alone determines the winner overall once points are tallied. 

This is not a coincidence. 

The Magician, I, wins as long as you understand his power and hold onto him until the very very end. 

Your divination studies will tell you all about the Magician as a motif, an icon, an archetype. You’ll no doubt understand that the Magician is using the suits of the tarot for some mystic purpose. Rest assured that it is not mystic. He is simply playing to win, and has no need to hide anything at all. He understands the game. 

How it must feel to have the World in your hands, only to be forced to discard it, so close to the end, in the name of Judgment. How it must sting when next, you must look upon the final scene to find the lowly Magician has won it all. How terrible to know that fact that he was never in your grasp doomed you from the very start, despite all of your best efforts. 

Divination? 

Play the game.