I agree. Mostly. Yes about the Olympics. No about Egyptian tarot.
Playing cards from China made their way to Egypt before being adapted.
There is no evidence these cards were used to divine.
The decks from Egypt made their way to Europe in the late 1300s.
The Italians added Major Arcana, adding religious significance to them, like images of the pope, etc.... but these still were not used to divine.
The first written use of the cards being used to divine was from Spain in the 1400s.
Dividing with cards became a European folk hit for several hundred years before the French first developed a manual on divinatiry messages and created the first tarot deck. This was in the 1700s.
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The French added Egyptian symbology as a nod to their mysticism, but they knew so little about it that is was mostly intended to grab the attention of other europeans who loved it.
Sounds right. The Egyptians did have divination, though idk what it looked like. The Hebrews did also. I think prohibitions against divination is about people turning it into a kind of idol, in the sense that you believe in it with certainty and fail to put the effort into changing outcomes or situations, which is basically to say that their use as a model for the world may be useful but it still gets you no closer to actually understanding the world. Same with astrology - I see people saying things with certainty based on charts, but that certainty entails a giving up of personal agency. So I agree with both sides, the people using these things and the people saying don't use them. Idk how I got onto prohibitions, I think it was just a run away thought...
Finally, the modern tarot from France was adapted by members of the Golden Dawn to align more closely with Hebrew mysticism.
This culminated in the rider-waite decks. The most popular ever created.
The Chinese divined as well... long before tarot. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the cards were used for anything other than games and gambling.
