Tarot cards have been around for centuries. People use them for many reasons, from advice on life choices they need to make to reading their future and even understanding someone’s character.
The first historical recordings of tarot cards in the modern world are in Northern Italy between 1430-1450. They were initially used as games by wealthy families, not for fortune-telling.
The first use of tarot as a fortune-telling device was not until the mid-18th century by a French occultist; lots of the designs on the cards have been credited to Renaissance carnivals.
Tarot cards have evolved because it is all up to interpretation by the reader. A card could have millions of different meanings depending on the spread or the placement in said spread.
The Rider-Waite deck is the most widely used. There are major and minor arcana cards. The major cards are like the face cards of the deck while the minor cards are more like the number cards. This is unlike the earlier named “Pip” cards for the minor arcana.
The Rider-Waite deck gave some insight with illustrations on the cards of what each of the minor arcana meant. There are four categories to the Rider-Waite deck: Cups, Swords, Wands and Pentacles. Within these four different groups, there are one to 10 cards, and then pages, knights, queens and kings.
The minor arcana are cards that have more interpretation room when drawn from the deck in a certain spread. The different suites symbolize different sections of life. Swords are understood to stand for thoughts or also given the element of air. Cups are emotions and given water. Pentacles stand for material aspects of life or earth. Wands stand for actions of oneself or the world around them, or fire.
Also in the deck are the major arcana. These cards are more blunt about what they mean in a certain spread.
There are 22 major arcana cards ranging from cards like Death to the Hermit. These 22 cards stand for the fundamental archetypes of a human. Most human actions can be traced to a certain major arcana card; the major arcana show the stages of growth and transformation. They can also tell what challenges might arise in the situation the reader is concerned about.
Say the fool is drawn as the action to take into a situation, and the world card is put as the outcome. The fool can be interpreted that someone will take a big leap of faith that many see as foolish, but this will lead to a fulfilling outcome.
Many spreads can be used to tell a multitude of outcomes. They can tell about challenges and how those will resolve, a person’s actions or attitude or even clarity and guidance on what to do. There are about four main spreads used when first starting tarot. There are the Three Card spread, Five Card Relationship cross and Celtic Cross spread. These are the most basic and easy to read when early into reading tarot. This was just a short look into tarot when there is so much more to it.
Everyone’s version of spirituality can come in different ways. For some it is tarot, energy and crystals. For some it is the Bible, Quran, or the Torah. It is always important to look into every option. There are some links that have been attached to get started on a tarot journey if wanted.