It is very biased and stereotypical to present tarot as a divination method without also informing students that the tarot was really made for games. Tarot should also be defined as playing cards because that's what they really were meant to be and the university should inform students of this fact.

Well I suppose as we are there teaching divination...We would explain tarot as a meathod of such...A meathod of asking a question and getting an answer....which you could actually use anything to do...If we were there to teach cards...like go-fish or spades...we would define them as playing cards.

This is from the website from the International Playing Card Society.

"Tarot - a diversion

The study of the development of playing-cards has further been bedevilled by overmuch attention to tarot packs. To the best of our knowledge, the first packs of cards in Europe comprised 52 cards in four Italian-type suits each with three court cards (king, knight, and foot-servant), and were used for games of skill involving trick-taking, as well as for gambling games, which were often prohibited. Very soon, the idea of adding extra cards to act as permanent trumps came into being, and the tarot pack was born. At the same time a queen was interpolated between the king and the knight, so that, with the extra 22 non-suited cards, a pack of 78 cards was created. Such packs have continued to be used for their original purpose right through to the present day.

In the course of their long life, many variations have been tried: the pack has been extended to 97 cards for Minchiate by adding more trumps; shortened to 63 cards by dropping low-value numeral cards; converted to using French suit-signs; shortened to 54 and 42 cards by dropping numerals; but always with the object of playing trick-taking games. Many of these variants are still in use for just that purpose.

Cartomancy and the occult

It is the choice of subjects for the trump cards which has been the focus for so much attention by both scholars and occultists. Though playing-card historians still do not have a satisfactory explanation of the sequence of subjects, many of the occultist theories have been discredited. For instance, the tarot pack was known in Europe in the early 15th century, before the arrival of the gypsies. This rules out the proposed connection with Egypt first put forward in 1781, which forms the foundation for much of the later occult speculation. The earliest known use of Tarot packs for fortune telling was in Bologna, around 1750, using an entirely different system of meanings, and the use of ordinary packs of playing-cards for cartomancy does not date from much earlier than this. Unfortunately, some occultists and cartomanciers continue to ignore these facts."

The media and universities can do a better job educating by informing us of the original and continuing tradition of tarot game playing.

Just to clarify, this is a quote I've submitted from David Parlett, an author on card games. If you read the whole quote it says that tarot games ARE STILL played today in continental Europe. If we are really in favor of knowledge, learning and open-mindedness, then the program board should inform students of the game playing uses of tarot cards instead of having students believe they are only used in divination.

I would like to leave a reply to David Parlett's minimizing the role of the Tarot Card and other methods of divination. Other ancient texts reference the imagery on each of the Tarot Cards--especially the Major Arcana as a method chosen by the Illuminati to ensure that the wisdom and ancient knowledge would be continued on through the ages because the one thing that could be counted on was that men liked to play games--especially card games. The Program Board, in my opinion, (and I am biased in favor of knowledge and learning and open-mindedness), should be commended for its presentation year after year, of something that the students enjoy, hopefully are enlightened and motivated by, and regardless of Mr. Parlett's position that the Cards were made for gaming--I submit, the cards were USED for gaming, but CREATED to protect and prolong the secrets of the ages for future generations to discover.

Rev. Ann M. Maid
International Psychic

From The Penguin Encyclopedia of Card Games, by David Parlett
"People are often suprised to learn that Tarot cards were originally invented for playing games, that such games are still widespread and popular in continental Europe, and that the employment of tarots for divination and fortune-telling is a relatively recent perversion of their proper use, dating only from the eighteenth century." Central Michigan University Program Board should educate students that tarot cards were really made for a type of card game and that tarot games are still played in countries like France and Italy. The program board should be ashamed of this one sided presentation of tarot cards which distorts and stereotypes the culture of people.