Only naming them brings to mind mystery and divination, the magic aura of the unknown surrounds them: but are tarot cards really that difficult to decipher? They may be - for those who believe in such things - at least when it comes to reading the future, but their history is not at all unclear, and it has strong Italian roots. 

This may come as a mild surprise to some, as the most popular tarots in the US and in the anglophone world, the Rider-Waite deck, was the brainchild of esoterism expert and Golden Dawn member Arthur Edward Waite and of illustrator and occultist Pamela Colman Smith.