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Japanese The Bible never mentions tarot, which began as a card game in fifteenth-century Italy, but it forbids divination, and reading tarot cards for the future or for hidden knowledge is divination. Catholic and Orthodox teaching count it a sin for whoever reads the cards and whoever asks for a reading, and the Heidelberg Catechism forbids “sorcery, superstitious rites.”
Is tarot in the Bible, and where did it come from?
Tarot is not in the Bible. It did not exist until long after the last book of Scripture was written. The Morgan Library & Museum in New York, which held an exhibition on tarot’s history in 2026, says tarot’s beginnings “can be traced to three fifteenth-century decks” painted in the workshop of the court artist Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti and Sforza dukes of Milan. They were, in the museum’s words, “originally conceived to use in a card game.” A card from one Visconti deck, now at Yale, is dated 1441–42.
The picture cards, called trumps, drew on images that Renaissance viewers already knew: Justice with her sword and scales, Time as an old man leaning on a staff, the Emperor, the Pope and the Fool. The exhibition’s curator, Josh O’Driscoll, puts it plainly: “Rather than encoding hidden meanings, these cards reflect a shared cultural vocabulary.”
The idea of reading the cards came about three centuries later, in France. In 1781 the scholar Antoine Court de Gébelin argued in his encyclopedia that the cards were the remnants of an ancient Egyptian “book of magic” disguised as a deck, and in the same volume the Count of Mellet, according to the Morgan, was “among the first to suggest that the cards could be used for divination.” The museum sets the Egyptian story aside: tarot’s “origins lie not in mysticism but in the artistic and intellectual culture of the Italian Renaissance.” The occult reading spread to Britain, where the Rider-Waite-Smith deck was published in 1909; with that deck, the museum says, tarot “became firmly entrenched in the popular imagination.”
| When | What happened | What the cards were for |
|---|---|---|
| 1441–42 | A deck painted for the Visconti of Milan (now at Yale) | A card game |
| About 1456–58 | Bonifacio Bembo’s Visconti-Sforza deck | A card game |
| 1781 | Court de Gébelin’s Egyptian theory; Mellet’s method of reading | Divination proposed |
| 1909 | The Rider-Waite-Smith deck is published in Britain | Divination spreads |
| Today | The French Tarot Federation holds national championships | The game is still played |
What does the Bible say about divination?
It forbids it. The plainest text is in Deuteronomy:
There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
Deuteronomy 18:10–12 (King James Version)
Two verses later the passage gives its reason, and with it a promise: “For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken” (Deuteronomy 18:14–15). Israel was to listen to God’s prophet, not to diviners. In Acts, Peter preached that promise as fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Acts 3:20–22).
Tarot is missing from the list only because it had not been invented. A reading lays out cards drawn at random and interprets them as a message about a person’s future, feelings or hidden circumstances, which is the act Deuteronomy calls using divination. Another verse in the same book draws the line that divination crosses: “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
What do the churches teach about tarot?
Catholic and Orthodox teaching on divination covers tarot reading, though neither church’s formal texts name the cards. The Reformed and Lutheran catechisms speak more generally.
The Catholic Church
The Catechism of the Catholic Church deals with divination under the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Paragraph 2116 reads:
All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2116
Tarot is not named, but a reading is one of the “practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future,” and the paragraph begins with “all forms.” Horoscopes and astrology, named in the same sentence, have their own page: is astrology a sin?
The Orthodox Church
Orthodox canon law spoke to fortune-telling more than a thousand years before tarot was read. The Council in Trullo, held in Constantinople in 692, issued 102 canons, and the Orthodox Church in America explains that its rulings “are held by the Orthodox Church to be at the same level of authority as the canons passed by the first four Ecumenical Councils.” Canon 61 rules that “those who give themselves up to soothsayers … in order that they may learn from them what things they wish to have revealed to them” are to “be subjected to the canon of six years,” that is, a penance of six years. The same penalty applies to “those who tell fortunes and fates.”
An Orthodox parish answer names tarot directly. Archangel Michael Orthodox Church in Cleveland, a parish of the Orthodox Church in America, says on its website: “Playing with Ouija Boards, Tarot Cards, or going to fortune tellers and psychics – even if done simply in jest – is contrary to the teachings of the Orthodox Christian Faith and could prove harmful to your spiritual growth and well-being.”
Reformed and Lutheran churches
The Heidelberg Catechism of 1563, still a confession of the Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church in America, explains the first commandment this way: “That I, not wanting to endanger my own salvation, avoid and shun all idolatry, sorcery, superstitious rites, and prayer to saints or to other creatures.” For “sorcery” and “superstitious rites” it cites Leviticus 19:31 and Deuteronomy 18:9–12, the verses above. It was written more than two centuries before tarot was turned to fortune-telling in France, so it could not name tarot reading.
Luther’s explanation of the First Commandment in his Large Catechism does not mention fortune-telling, but it gives a test for every rival trust: “That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.”
Is it a sin to have your cards read?
Yes. In Catholic and Orthodox teaching, asking for a reading falls under the same prohibition as giving one. Scripture speaks to the one who goes looking as well as to the one who practises: “Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 19:31). When Israel was urged to consult such voices, Isaiah answered with a question: “should not a people seek unto their God?” (Isaiah 8:19). The Catechism names consulting and recourse, which is what a client does, and the canon of Trullo was written for people who went to soothsayers to learn “what things they wish to have revealed to them.” The Cleveland parish applies this to a reading given in fun as well: its warning holds “even if done simply in jest.”
How much guilt a person carries is a separate matter. Catholic teaching counts a sin as mortal only when its matter is grave and it is “committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent,” and it holds that “unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense.” It adds a limit on everyone who judges: “although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God” (Catechism 1857, 1860, 1861). Someone who sat for a reading without knowing what Scripture says stands in a different place from someone who knew and went anyway.
Are tarot cards evil or demonic?
The New Testament ties one case of divination to a spirit. In Acts, Paul and his companions met “a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination,” who “brought her masters much gain by soothsaying.” After she had followed them for many days, “Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour” (Acts 16:16–18). The Catechism speaks of the danger more quietly: divination conceals “a wish to conciliate hidden powers.”
Neither text says that a deck of cards has power of its own, and the oldest tarot decks were luxury objects painted for a court game. The concern of Scripture and the churches is the act of asking for what God has kept hidden.
Can a Christian play tarot as a game or use the cards for reflection?
Scripture, the catechisms and the Trullo canon forbid seeking hidden knowledge; none of them speaks against a card game. Tarot was made for play, and in France the game still has clubs, referees and national championships. A hand played for points asks the cards nothing. The Cleveland parish quoted above is more cautious and warns against playing with tarot cards even in jest.
Using the cards as prompts for self-reflection is harder to settle, and no church document quoted here addresses it directly. The Heidelberg Catechism gives a test that fits: idolatry, it says, is “having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God.” A picture that starts a thought is one thing; a draw that is trusted to say what will happen, or what someone else feels, is the divination Deuteronomy forbids.
What if you have already used tarot?
The promise that covers every other sin covers this one: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Believers at Ephesus confessed in the open: “Many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men” (Acts 19:18–19). Catholics and Orthodox bring it to confession, and anyone can bring it to God in prayer; these prayers after sinning give words for it.
The council that set the six-year penance also told confessors how to use such rules. In its last canon, quoted by the Orthodox Church in America, the pastor “must neither cast the sheep down into the depths of despair, nor loosen the bridle thus leading them to a dissolute way of life.”
What if someone you love reads tarot?
Peter’s counsel for every conversation about faith applies: “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15). Meekness leaves no room for mockery or scare stories. A conversation can start from what both people can check, such as the history above: the earliest known decks were made for a game at a Renaissance court, and their Egyptian past was a theory published in 1781. What Peter asks the Christian to give is the reason for their own hope.
Where can a Christian look for guidance instead?
The Catechism, just before its paragraph on divination, gives the other half of the teaching: “God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it” (Catechism 2115). Jesus said the same in fewer words: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself” (Matthew 6:34).
For a decision that has to be made now, Scripture gives a direct invitation: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5). To upbraid is to scold, and God does not scold the one who asks. These prayers for direction in life put that asking into words.
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