The Fool
The Fool is the first card of the Tarot's Major Arcana, traditionally numbered 0. In many historical decks it is the only card without a fixed number, fueling centuries of debate over its place in the order — before the Magician, or outside any sequence at all.
Last reviewed: 2026-07-21
Historical fact
Tarot originated in 15th-century Italy as a card game called trionfi, played in the courts of Milan, Ferrara and Bologna. The oldest surviving examples are the Visconti-Sforza decks, hand-painted around 1440-1450. In these early decks, the Fool (Il Matto) depicted a vagrant or court jester in tattered clothes, with no esoteric association. For more than three centuries, Tarot was used exclusively as a card game.
Interpretation — Rider-Waite-Smith / Golden Dawn
In Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith's tradition (1909), the Fool shows a young man at a cliff's edge, carrying a small bundle, holding a white rose, with a dog at his feet. It represents the start of a journey, a leap of faith, innocence, and unlimited potential before any choice is made. Reversed, it's commonly read as recklessness that ignores real risk.
Interpretation — Thoth (Aleister Crowley)
In the Thoth deck (1938-1943), the Fool is tied to the element Air and the Hebrew letter Aleph. It represents the divine spark before form — pure, chaotic energy at the moment prior to creation, a more metaphysical reading than the Rider-Waite 'start of a journey' narrative.
Curiosities
- The Joker in a standard 52-card deck is historically descended from the Fool of the French Tarot, where the card was called 'L'Excuse' ('the excuse') and let a player opt out of following suit — a game mechanic, not an esoteric symbol.
- The idea of the 'Fool's Journey' — reading the 22 Major Arcana as sequential stages of a spiritual journey undertaken by the Fool — is a concept popularized by authors such as Eden Gray starting in the 1970s, not a doctrine documented in Tarot's early centuries.
- The dog at the Fool's feet in the Rider-Waite-Smith version doesn't appear in older Italian decks; it's an addition by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909, often read as instinct or nature trying to warn the figure about the cliff.
For researchers
Historian Michael Dummett, in 'The Game of Tarot' (1980), is the central academic reference for dismantling the narrative of an ancient Egyptian or Kabbalistic origin for Tarot — a claim popularized by Antoine Court de Gébelin in 1781 with no documentary basis, but which spread widely through French and later English esoteric culture. Dummett demonstrates, from court inventories, commission records, and surviving game rules, that Tarot circulated for more than three centuries exclusively as a trick-taking card game (trionfi) before any divinatory reinterpretation — a point historians of occultism now consider well established, though rarely mentioned in popular materials on the subject.
This section presents one tradition's interpretation, not a verifiable fact.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the Fool card 0 or card 22 of the Tarot?
- It depends on the tradition. Older Italian and Central European decks often left the Fool unnumbered or placed it between Judgement and the World. Numbering it 0 at the start became standard mainly through 19th- and 20th-century esoteric systems.
- Was Tarot created for divination?
- No. Tarot began as a 15th-century card game. Divinatory use only appears starting in 1781, with Antoine Court de Gébelin, who claimed — without historical evidence — an ancient Egyptian origin.
- Does the Joker in standard playing cards come from Tarot's Fool?
- Yes, historically. In French Tarot, the card corresponding to the Fool was called 'L'Excuse' and served a specific game function — letting a player skip following suit. That card is the direct ancestor of the Joker used in today's standard 52-card decks.
Sources
- Michael Dummett. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City (1980).
- Arthur Edward Waite. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910).
- Aleister Crowley. The Book of Thoth (1944).
- Stuart R. Kaplan. The Encyclopedia of Tarot (1978).