Tarot Cards An Overview
Today, many people seek the help of tarot card readers to know how the future will unfold. Before predicting future plans, Tarot card readers use a set of tarot cards to study the history and present situation of a person.
They ask the person to draw out a few cards from a deck, analyze the patterns of the cards drawn, and predict the future accordingly. You might have heard about all of these earlier. However, what exactly are tarot cards, and what do these cards signify? Keep reading to know more about the same.
History of tarot cards
Tarot card is part of cartomancy, which is the art of fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. The people who practice this art are card readers, tarot card readers, cartomancers, or readers. Regardless of the name they are called by, the job of these practitioners is to tell the fortunes of a person based on the cards he has chosen.
The history of tarot cards can be traced back to as early as 1450, when a Dominican preacher used them to fight against the evils. However, it was almost two hundred years later, in the 1780s, when tarot card reading began to be practiced professionally.
What is Tarot Reading in Modern Times, Read 《Tarot Reading in Modern Times》
Application of divinatory meanings to tarot cards
It was during 1783 that a French cartomancer, Jean-Baptiste Alliette assigned divinatory meanings to tarot cards. He created tarot cards and a new dictionary to tell others the meanings of tarot cards and how they could be applied to draw the real meaning of life. He strongly believed that tarot cards were the world's first healing methodologies, as they spoke nothing but the truth.
Types of tarot cards
For the purposes of reading, professionals used a deck containing 78 cards. These are split into two divisions – Major Arcana (22 cards) and Minor Arcana (56 cards). Here are the details of these two groups:
Major Arcana
All the trump cards (the most important ones) form the Major Arcana group. There are 22 such cards in every deck, and they represent a particular character. These are numbered from 0 to 21, and they represent the following:
Ø 0 – Fool
Ø 1 – Magician
Ø 2 – High Priestess
Ø 3 - Empress
Ø 4 – Emperor
Ø 5 – Hierophant
Ø 6 – Lovers
Ø 7 – Chariot
Ø 8 – Justice, also denotes Strength
Ø 9 – Hermit
Ø 10 – Wheel of Fortune
Ø 11 – Strength, also denotes Justice, sometimes
Ø 12 – Hanged Man
Ø 13 – Death
Ø 14 – Temperature
Ø 15 – Devil
Ø 16 – Tower
Ø 17 – Star
Ø 18 – Moon
Ø 19 – Sun
Ø 20 – Judgment
Ø 21 - World
In the world of tarot reading, these Major Arcana cards are always regarded as permanent trump cards. The mystical and divine meanings of these cards started to evolve and develop over the years. Today, regardless of the suit style of deck used, these are always considered trumps that represent life's karmic and spiritual elements.
Minor Arcana
Also known as Lesser Arcana in some countries, these cards can further be divided into pip cards and court cards. The pip cards are named from one to 10, one being the Ace card. There are 10 cards in each suit, with the total being 40 cards. The court cards contain the faces or illustrations of different elements they represent. There are 16 such personality cards in the tarot deck. Today, tarot card readers use the Major Arcana cards along with the Minor Arcana cards to ask questions to the people, and collect more details about the day-to-day events.
In the French suit of clubs, commonly used these days, these minor Arcana cards are divided into four main categories, representing the different natural elements. These categories are Clubs (representing Fire), Diamonds (representing Earth), Hearts (representing Water) and Spades (representing Air). The four main suits of Minor Arcana cards are the following:
Ø Wands – Denotes passion, energy and creativity
Ø Cups – Denotes feelings, intuitions and emotions
Ø Swords – Denotes people's words and actions
Ø Pentacles – Denotes career and financial growth & overall prosperity
How do they work?
As we told you earlier, tarot cards are used for fortune-telling by accessing your thoughts and inner feelings. The cards that you draw out from the deck, reflect the thoughts of your subconscious mind. The tarot card readers can understand more about your goals and tell you about your future by realizing the potential of your inner wisdom.
The pictures and numbers reflected on the cards that you draw help you manifest the future, and motivate you towards achieving your goal. The information of these cards instantly forms a relationship with the thoughts in our subconscious mind. We can use this relation to create conscious awareness, and act towards our goals.
Reading tarot cards – What to know
Whether you plan to do a tarot card reading for yourself or your friend, here are some basic rules you need to follow:
Ø You should ask a broad-ended question to the tarot card deck to get to know what you want. Please don't ask specific questions about your work, career, finances, etc. Keep the questions as broad and generic as possible.
Ø Once you have the question is ready, you have to shuffle the cards properly in a way that is comfortable for you. While the overhand shuffle is a traditional way of shuffling, you can also try other new techniques to get the answers you require.
Ø Now, pull a card randomly from the shuffled deck. You can also choose to pull several cards at a time to get an in-depth analysis of the question you have in mind. Analyze the words and illustrations on the cards that you have drawn.
Ø Have a reference book handy, to interpret the meaning of these words and illustrations. However, please remember to stay 100% focused during this analysis, for the cards to access your intuitions and the feelings of your subconscious mind.
For best results, it is always better to get trained on tarot card reading and interpreting them, before you proceed to read them for yourself or a friend.