What Is The Tarot?

The origins of the Tarot deck are shrouded in mystery. The time, place and circumstances of its very creation are a matter of speculation and intrigue. Some people believe the tarot dates back to early Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations, where these ancients used it to symbolise the secret teachings of their own mysterious religions.
The popular belief is that Tarot cards were brought to Europe by fortunetelling gypsies coming either from Egypt or India. However they came the cards were widespread in Italy and Germany by the late 14th century.
The tarot consists of 78 cards, 56 Minor Arcana cards and 22 Major Arcana cards.
The Minor Arcana is very much like an ordinary deck of playing cards. There are four suits, each numbered from Ace to King. The Jack in traditional cards is represented in the Tarot by the page. In addition the Tarot deck includes four knights which were dropped from the modern deck of playing cards.
The four suits in the Tarot deck are Swords, Cups, Rods and Pentacles. In a deck of playing cards, Swords relates to Spades, Cups to Hearts, Rods to Clubs and Pentacles to Diamonds. Swords relates to intellectual matters, discord, struggle and strife. Cps corresponds to emotions, affairs of the heart. Rods (some decks call wands) relate to enterprise, creativity and energy. Pentacles (some decks call discs) relates to money and business affairs.
The Major Arcana begins with the fool and ends with the world. Of the 22 Major Arcana cards, only the fool in the form of the Joker has survived in the present day playing cards. These cards symbolise the growth end evolution of consciousness and spiritual awareness. Their meanings are individual, deep and refer to all psychological and spiritual levels. To read them properly you must understand the deep meanings that relate to everyday events in life.
When reading Tarot cards the meanings of the upright cards are one thing and the reversed cards represent a different meaning. The reversed meaning is not always the opposite of the upright meaning. Sometimes the reversal meaning is “too much of a good thing” for example, The Empress means things in abundance, but when reversed it means laziness and extravagance.
Usually, when the upright meaning involves a difficult situation or problem the reversed card is better and shows the problem has been overcome. For example take the Fire of Pentacles, means unemployment and financial insecurity, reversed it means returning to work and financial security coming back.
Learning the Tarot is like learning a foreign language. The individual cards are the words provided by the personal and collective unconscious. A Tarot reader needs to learn how to translate these unconscious words so the meanings can be understood and the Tarots magical accuracy can be conveyed.
In the language of the tarot our words are the upright and reversed meaning that we give to each card. We must give clear, non-ambiguous meanings to each and every card.
Then when a card appears in a spread, we can understand the message it is trying to communicate. We don’t want to employ a dead language like Latin, with words that relate only to a bygone age but no words that relate to computers and out modern lives.
Choose a Tarot deck that is fairly traditional avoid choosing a deck without the original symbols, as a beginner this will only cause confusion. Be sure to choose a deck with all the Major and Minor Arcana’s, pictures help you to remember and associate the meanings of the cards.

Watch this space to learn more about the Tarot