What are Tarot cards?
The tarot is a set of 78 cards with pictures that can be read in many different ways. There are two parts to the deck: the major arcana and the minor arcana.
The 21 trump cards are in the major arcana. The minor arcana is made up of the numbers 1-10, an ace, and four court cards for each of the four suits (wands, pentacles, cups, and swords) (the Page, Knight, Queen and King).
How the Tarot came to be
The oldest known tarot cards came from Italy in the 1500s. The tarot seems to have started out as a card game. At first, only the wealthy upper classes could get the cards, but after the printing press was invented, more people could get them.
Even though there doesn't seem to be much proof, some writers have said that the images on the tarot cards point to a more ancient origin. They have linked the tarot to the ancient Egyptians and the mysterious Hebrew Kabbalah.
Later Developments
Not until the 18th century did people start to use the cards for occult and mystical things, which is how they are often known today. This started in 1781, when the freemason Antoine Court de Gebelin wrote in his book "Le Monde Primatif" that tarot cards had hidden meanings that could be used for divination. He said that these meanings had to do with the ancient Egyptians.
Since then, other magical and mystical groups, like the Order of the Golden Dawn, have said that the tarot has ancient roots and hidden wisdom to share with people who want to learn more about life. In the 19th century, these groups were especially fond of the tarot.
The Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, which came out in 1910, made the tarot more well-known. Arthur Edwards Waite was a member of the Golden Dawn, and Pamela Colman Smith, the artist who made this new deck, put occult symbols on both the number cards and the trump cards. This deck was very popular, and it still is today. Since then, hundreds or even thousands of different new decks have come out, and many fans have made their own.
How to use the Tarot
There are many different ways to use the tarot, such as:
- Games
This is how it was first used, and some European countries still use it for games.
- Psychology
Carl Jung was the first mainstream psychologist to give the tarot cards meaning when he linked them to the basic archetypes he thought lived in the human collective unconscious. This understanding has led to the creation of a number of tarot-based therapies.
- Inspiration
The tarot has been a source of inspiration for a lot of artists and writers.
- Divination
The tarot is probably most often used for telling the future. The pictures on the cards may help the person getting the reading tap into their own subconscious knowledge. Some people think that the cards themselves have some kind of psychic power that a skilled person can use to read. Because of this, most people don't like it when you play with someone else's cards.
occult circles, because their energy could get messed up.
Reading a Book
There is no one way to do a tarot reading for fortune-telling. But there are a number of popular layouts, or "spreads," with the Celtic cross being one of the most well-known. This is usually the first method that people learn, even though it's not the easiest. A lot of the time, tarot readers with a lot of experience will make up their own spreads and ways to read them.
After the person getting the reading chooses the cards, the reader lays them out in a spread and looks at them, taking into account where they are in relation to each other, what each card means, and where it is in the spread (upright or reversed).
What the Cards Mean
There is no one way that everyone agrees the tarot cards should be read. All of them have images that vary in how complicated they are, and the fact that there are so many different decks makes things even harder. Still, there are a lot of books about the symbolism of the tarot. At the most basic level, the 22 major arcana cards are thought to show the Fool's journey from ignorance to knowledge.
Also, each of the cards in the minor arcana has its own meaning. The numbers have to do with numerology, and the suits have to do with the four elements: swords are air, cups are water, wands are fire, and pentacles are earth. People have also made connections between the tarot and other mysterious and occult systems, like the I Ching, astrology, and the Kabbalah.
How to Choose a Tarot Deck
You can choose from a huge number of tarot decks. The Rider-Waite deck, which is full of symbols, is still very popular, as is Crowley's Thoth deck. Gebelin used the early Marseille deck to illustrate "Le Monde Primitif." This is another important deck. There are also many decks that don't follow the rules.
Some people interested in Paganism might like the Witches deck or the DruidCraft tarot. Feminists might like the Motherpeace Tarot, which has round cards and only images of women. You can find Tarot decks with pictures of animals, as well as sports, nature, and other themes.
other everyday things. In fact, there is a tarot pack for everyone, and most of them can be bought online, in bookstores, new age shops, and other places.
How to begin?
If you want to learn more about the tarot, you should check out some of the many good tarot-related websites on the Internet, as well as book stores and new age stores online and in your area. One thing is certain: there is a lot of information out there!
