In this article, I will talk about “how-to” for tarot. This article will act as a rigorous introduction to the discipline.
Through my interpretation, we will look at how tarot cards work, how to read the cards, how it can help you, and how it has changed my life. So how do tarot cards work?
The bluntest answer for this is that tarot cards are a fortune-telling device. In previous times tarot cards were a game with their elements of divinity hidden in plain sight. A game like French Tarot (jeu de tarot) is an example of this.
Someone seeking guidance from the cards can ask a question, shuffle the deck, and create an answer using the imagery of the cards.
How Tarot Cards are Read
Each tarot card has a particular meaning. The card’s meaning can change based on what other cards are around it.
Some decks use reversed meanings. This is when the card appears upside down. The cards meaning usually becomes the literal reversal. Read the reversed card in the context of the other cards.
When reading the tarot cards you would use a card spread. This a predetermined pattern of how you will lay out the cards and how it reads in a sequence. Choosing a tarot spread to answer your question is like choosing the best tool for the job. Some fit the role better than others.
Archetypes
There are 78 cards in a tarot deck with 22 being a part of what’s called major arcana. The remaining 56 make up the minor arcana.
The major arcana represents archetypes in various forms. Archetypes are the original form of something, and in the case of tarot, they are the original form of behavior patterns embedded as imagery.
To make the understanding of archetypes clear think about the words “hero” and “jester.” You have heard these words many times before and can infer the attributes of each. The hero is strong, determined, and can persevere in the face of an enemy. The jester is a social figure, it wants to make you laugh and enjoy yourself. The Hero and The Jester are archetypal figures.
The minor arcana contains archetypal situations that represent the human condition. We could consider the minor arcana to be real-world situations that represent the struggle of life and creation.
The minor arcana takes the form of what we know as playing cards. Pip cards ace to ten, with face cards. In the case of tarot, there are four face cards (court cards) in four suites pentacles, swords, wands, and cups. Depending on the deck’s tradition and use of imagery, each card in the minor arcana represents an archetypal image.
Cards like the five of pentacles represent poverty and the ten of swords of means ruin. These images show fundamental life situations. When read together they form a dialog that seems to answer whatever question you pose.
Tarot Card Traditions
Each tarot has a tradition or a theme that it fits into. It may seem like a subtle difference, but not all decks are the same.
The Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) themed decks are notable for employing the use of reversed cards in readings. This creates complexity without making the reader do much work. This is valuable for ease of use.
RWS decks also use imagery on all their minor arcana cards while a deck like Aleister Crowley’s Thoth deck does not. Crowley’s Thoth imagery for the minor aracana uses imagery based around sacred geometry and symbols. There are no humanistic images in the minor arcana accept on the court cards. Thoth and RWS are both very different decks.
Use the links in the text above to see them for your self. This takes you Aeclectic Tarot, a great learning resource. The site not only shows you pictures of the decks, but it tells you more about the deck’s tradition.
Another deck that does not use reversed meanings is the Golden Dawn Magical Tarot Chic and Sandra Cicero. The deck is similar to Aleister Crowley’s Thoth deck in that the only symbols are used in the minor arcana ace to ten.
A deck like Golden Dawn Magical Tarot wants you to read it with specific methods. The reading method from the Golden Dawn tradition is more rigorous and creates layers of complexity in ways that reversed cards do not. The opening the key is one such method to use with a Golden Dawn or Thoth deck. You can learn the method from the handbook along with the Golden Dawn Magical Tarot.
Identifying Traditions
A good rule of thumb is that if the cards resemble the RWS style, you could use reversed meanings. If the cards resemble the Golden Dawn or Aleister Crowley’s Thoth deck then you would want to read the cards upright and use the suggested reading methods.
Additionally, you could use the elemental dignities of the suites to create more complex readings. The Golden Dawn cards have that information written on the cards. They want you to consider the elements. You can learn more about elemental dignities here.
The easiest way to identify the tradition of the deck is to look at the minor arcana. The Thoth and Golden Dawn decks use sacred geometry to create patterns with the pentacles, swords, wands, and cups. The RWS cards have literal imagery on the cards that describe the archetypal situation.
There are many other fundamentals found in tarot decks. To make it easy to learn tarot, the RWS and Thoth (Golden Dawn) decks are the fundamental traditions for tarot card imagery. Knowing both will give you the best foundation for understanding other Tarot decks.
Use a website like Aeclectic Tarot to learn more about tradition and theme classification.
How Tarot Helps
I am reminded of the joke “tarot is a poor person psychiatrist.” Tarot allows one to dive into their subconscious and understand themselves from the inside out. Faced with challenging life problems can make it hard to talk with friends or family. This is where tarot can be useful.
The cards themselves tap into our subconscious through universal archetypes. Working with the primal behavior patterns of the human condition allows one to have unbiased look at themselves.
Once you have figured out how to help yourself, you can help others. Tarot is a great way to help people and connect with others on a deep level. Tarot and fortune-telling was a practice that brought families and friends together in previous times. Tarot is still used in the same way. It brings people together.
How Tarot Changed My Life
For me, Tarot has changed the way I look at the world. When I use the cards I know that I am tapping into universal energy. No matter how much I try to shuffle the cards into random order I always come up with some intelligible answer to my question. This could be due to our consciousness creating order from disorder. It never seems to fails at doing so.
The true power of the Tarot cards is the series of archetypal images they pose. Image with me for a moment the possible combinations of all 78 cards. It’s staggering.
Multiply 78 * 77 * 76 and you get 456,456 possible combinations of three cards. What would be the combination of all 78 cards then? That’s a big number.
That number only speaks to the combination of all the cards in a whole series. Tarot usually isn’t read with all the cards. Using a three-card spread tells you the past, present, future situations one can deal with.
Imagine the level of possibility of making new tarot spreads. Combine that with the possible card combinations of tarot and you have an even bigger number! Yes, Tarot is very deep.
Tarot has changed my life by providing me a discipline that I can attempt to master throughout my whole life.
Want to learn what are the best resources to start with? Read more here.