The First Recorded Tarot Spread in History

The First Recorded Tarot Spread in History: The Comte de Mellet’s 1781 Reading

Every tarot reader has their favorite spread — a three-card pull for clarity, a Celtic Cross for depth, or a custom layout that feels uniquely yours. But have you ever wondered where tarot spreads actually came from? Who first looked at a deck of cards and decided they could be used to read the future?

To answer that, we need to travel back to 1781 France, when a curious nobleman named the Comte de Mellet took a deck of cards and created what’s now considered the first recorded tarot spread in history.

It was the moment tarot shifted from a game to a gateway — from entertainment to enlightenment.

Tarot Before Divination: When It Was Just a Game

For the first few hundred years of its existence, tarot wasn’t mystical at all.

The earliest decks appeared in 15th-century Italy, beautifully painted for noble families who used them for a card game called trionfi. The suits, trumps, and even the famous Major Arcana had no magical purpose — they were simply gameplay elements, like kings and queens in a deck of playing cards.

The tarot’s transformation into a spiritual tool didn’t happen until centuries later, when Enlightenment-era France rediscovered it. During this period, thinkers and mystics were obsessed with decoding the hidden wisdom of the ancient world — Egypt, the Kabbalah, and alchemy. They believed divine truths were scattered across time and disguised as symbols.

That’s when a French scholar named Antoine Court de Gébelin published his massive work Le Monde Primitif (“The Primitive World”), arguing that tarot was a “book of ancient Egyptian wisdom.”

And one of his contributors, the Comte de Mellet, would take that theory a step further — by actually using the cards to tell a story.

Who Was the Comte de Mellet?

The Comte de Mellet (possibly Louis-Raphaël-Lucrèce de Fayolle, Count of Mellet) was a French nobleman and intellectual. He wrote an essay for Court de Gébelin’s Le Monde Primitif titled “Recherches sur les Tarots, et sur la Divination par les Cartes des Tarots” — or “Research on the Tarot and Divination by Tarot Cards.”

That essay, written in 1781, marks the first time in history anyone described tarot as a system of divination.

Before the Comte, tarot was just a card game. After him, it became a spiritual language.

His writing introduced two radical ideas:

That the tarot contained hidden symbolic wisdom (he believed it came from ancient Egypt).
That the cards could be laid out and interpreted to reveal insight about life, fate, and the soul.

The First Known Tarot Spread: The Comte de Mellet Method

Within his essay, the Comte de Mellet outlined a way to draw and interpret tarot cards — effectively creating the first recorded tarot spread in history.

Although his exact phrasing is poetic and symbolic, historians and translators have reconstructed his layout into what we now call the Comte de Mellet Spread — a seven-card line representing the flow of time, influence, and destiny.

Here’s a modern interpretation of his method:

The Present – The seeker’s current situation or state of mind.
The Near Future – What’s beginning to emerge or shift.
Hidden Forces – Energies or influences not yet visible.
Guidance – What wisdom or action to embrace.
External Influence – How others or circumstances are shaping events.
Hopes and Fears – Inner projections, desires, and worries.
Outcome – The likely path ahead if nothing changes.

The spread reads left to right, like chapters in a story — a concept that feels natural to us today, but was revolutionary in 1781.

Until that point, no one had ever described laying out tarot cards to reveal meaning. The Comte de Mellet invented not only a spread — but an entirely new way of thinking about the cards.

The Beginning of Modern Tarot Reading

After 1781, the idea spread quickly. Inspired by de Mellet’s essay, a French occultist named Jean-Baptiste Alliette, better known as Etteilla, created the first tarot deck designed specifically for divination.

He expanded on de Mellet’s concept, assigning meanings to each card, including reversed positions — something we still use today.

By the 19th century, mystics like Eliphas Lévi and later the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (the group behind the Rider–Waite–Smith deck) blended these early French ideas with astrology, numerology, and Kabbalah — turning tarot into a complete esoteric system.

And all of it — every reading, every spread, every spiritual insight that followed — can be traced back to that single spark in 1781, when the Comte de Mellet first asked the cards a question.

How to Try the Comte de Mellet Spread

If you want to connect with the tarot’s historical roots, this seven-card layout is a beautiful way to do it.

Here’s how you can try it yourself:

Set Your Intention.
Ask something open and reflective like: What energy is guiding my path right now? or What influences are shaping my next step?
Shuffle Slowly.
Focus on your question while you shuffle. Let intuition, not logic, decide when to stop.
Lay Out Seven Cards in a Line.
Place them from left to right — each representing a stage of the story.
Read the Flow.
Start with the present, then trace how the energy unfolds. Look for repeating suits or elements, rising Major Arcana, or shifts in tone.
Reflect and Journal.
Because the spread moves in sequence, journaling helps you see how one energy transforms into another — the same rhythm the Comte de Mellet was describing nearly 250 years ago.

This spread feels timeless — it doesn’t rely on strict positional definitions but encourages you to read through the cards, like chapters in a living story.

The Egypt Theory: A Beautiful Myth with Symbolic Truth

The Comte de Mellet and Court de Gébelin both believed that tarot came from ancient Egypt, calling it “the Book of Thoth.” Historically, that isn’t true — tarot emerged in Renaissance Europe, not in pharaonic temples. But their myth carried a deeper truth: that tarot speaks the language of universal archetypes.

When you read tarot, you’re reading the timeless patterns of the human soul — symbols that would have felt just as relevant in ancient Alexandria as they do in your living room today.

So while their Egypt theory wasn’t factually correct, it beautifully captured the spirit of tarot as a bridge between human consciousness and divine mystery.

Why the First Tarot Spread Still Matters

Today, the Comte de Mellet’s spread is rarely used , but its influence is everywhere.

Every three-card draw, every elaborate ten-card layout, every intuitive flow of symbols descends from that original act: laying cards in a line and interpreting their story.

His contribution reminds us that tarot began as a creative experiment — not a rigid doctrine. It was born from curiosity,not control. The Comte de Mellet didn’t claim to be a prophet or a psychic. He was an explorer of meaning — and that’s exactly what tarot invites us to be, too.

A Legacy of Curiosity and Wonder

The next time you spread your cards across the table, remember this:

You’re part of a 240-year tradition that began with a single question asked in candlelight by a French nobleman who saw more than a game. His essay gave us our first tarot spread, our first recorded reading, and the very idea that the cards could speak.

And in that moment — long before Instagram readings and oracle decks — the tarot became something eternal: a conversation between the human heart and the mysterious universe it seeks to understand.

References:

Court de Gébelin, Antoine (1781). Le Monde Primitif, Vol. 8.
De Mellet, Comte (1781). Recherches sur les Tarots, et sur la Divination par les Cartes des Tarots.
Mary K. Greer, “The Oldest Spread: Comte de Mellet’s Method” (marykgreer.com, 2008).
Robert M. Place, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination (2005).
Michael Dummett, The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City (1980).