Saturday, February 28, 2009

How To Choose Tarot

By Anne Durrel

The derivation of Tarot cards is unclear plus unexplained! Single version of the " real" history of the tarot connects the cards to Egyptian mysteries, Hermetic philosophy, the Kabbalah, alchemy and almost every other mystical system recognized to mankind! What we do know for sure is that cards first appeared in Italy and France in the late fourteenth century and that by the fifteenth century wealthy Italian patrons made to order lovely decks to be used in a accepted card game. Tarot cards finally became related with the esoteric sometime in the 18th century.

Tarot is most commonly used for divination. It is believed that the cards can be used to gain insight into the current problems and possible future's of the subject.

Some tarot readers believe the cards help them tap into a collective unconscious or into their own creative, subconscious while others feel that with tarot they can commune with the Divine.

Typically, a tarot reading involves a 'seeker', who shuffles the cards and cuts the deck and a 'reader', who lays out the chosen cards in a pattern called a spread. Each position in the spread has a meaning, and each card has a variety of symbolic meanings as well. The reader knows how to interpret these cards and combines these two meanings to shed light on the seeker's questions.

Recent tarot decks comprise 78 cards, of which 22 have pictures representing powers, characters, goodness, and badness. The residual cards are disparted into four 'suits' of 14 cards each. Each suit has 10 numbered cards and four court cards (king, queen, knight, and page). The court cards can signify different persons in a tarot reading , with every suit's "nature" providing hints about that individual's physical and emotional characteristics.

These days' recent playing cards all changed from the suit cards. - 16036

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