20 years of Tarot Museum Belgium

Guido Gillabel Tarot Museum Belgium
40 years of tarot experience,
20 years of Tarot Museum Belgium

Avant Museum

It was never my intention to start a tarot museum. Call it chance, the hand of the Universe, fate, but starting a tarot museum was the last thing on my mind. In the eighties and nineties I gave lectures and courses in Flanders. To show the students different angles I started collecting different tarot decks. I would call this period the “avant-museum”. I had a limited space in which to store these decks and anyone interested was welcome.

The Start of the Museum

Somewhere around 1997 I was able to purchase (and completely renovate) an adjacent building where I could display my collection in a decent way and where I could continue my courses: the tarotHuis (tarotHouse). At the time, my international contacts were in English (pre-computer age!) and the name tarotHaven was born, both in Dutch (my native language) and in English, the name covered the load: a port is a place from which you depart to explore to go, but where you always return with your discovery.The advent of the computer age changed everything. The collection that kept growing and the worldwide interest. Museum is a name that can be understood in almost all languages and therefore ... Tarot Museum Belgium, a living museum.

In the last 20 years I received visitors from Peru, Mexico, the USA, the UK, Indonesia, Ukraine, Russia, Denmark, The Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Brazil, and other countries. In 2018-2019, the museum was significantly enlarged and renovated into what it is today. Sharing your knowledge (knowing and not knowing) is a great good. The Tarot Museum Belgium wants to be a place where this is possible. Everyone who has a little (or a lot) interest in the tarot is welcome. Various artistic, philosophical or esoteric tendencies have found an ally in the tarot. All are welcome in respect of each other. I myself am very influenced by the difference thinkin; as taught by my friend and teacher Hans Wesseling. But more on that later.