Tarot Reading - History, Cards & Predictions

You must have visited an exhibition at least once in your life. And you would have definitely come across a tent where an old lady with a wrinkly face would be sitting on a chair, with a crystal ball over her table. Also, you would have noticed a lady shuffling and laying down cards and foretelling the future of a person across her from the table.

At first, you might think it is funny that a person believes in a pack of cards. But, in reality, those cards can really predict your current life and your future. Those cards are called Tarot Cards. The person reading the cards is called Tarot Reader, while the person who wants to know something about his life is called Seeker or Querent. Usually, the Reader works with the collective unconscious or his/her own personal brainstorming unconscious while using the tarot technique.

Whenever you feel that you have hit a dead-end or feel stuck in relationship at workplace, you can consult the Tarot cards and get to know what brought you into the problem and from where and how you might get the solution. Tarot reading helps us to find how the problem started, how we got stuck in it and what would be our future. We can also find what caused the problem and what would be the total outcome. Let us take a look at the history of tarot cards and then about the tarot cards itself.

Tarot started as a card game in 15^th century Italy. But the game declined and by the end of 18^th century, it had turned into a method of Divination. Fortune tellers started using tarot to explain the current situation of the person and also of his past and future. Various styles of tarot were derived, but Tarot de Marseille evolved as the standard pattern. At present, RWS Cards are the most popular and universally used tarot cards. It was illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909, under the direction of Arthur Edward Waite, who wrote the ‘Key to Tarot’ and cards were published by Rider Company. The cards were popularized as Rider-Waite-Smith cards, abbreviated commonly as RWS cards.

A RWS Tarot card pack consists of seventy-eight cards, of which fifty-six cards look similar to the cards men usually play. These fifty-six cards, called as Minor Arcana, are again grouped into four classes, each depicting one of the four Elements. There are fourteen cards of Wands, which stands for the Element Fire; fourteen cards of Pentacles which denotes the Element Earth; fourteen cards of Cups, which represents the Element Water and the rest fourteen Swords cards stands for the Element Air. Each set of fourteen cards has an ace, nine cards from two to ten and a page, knight, queen and king.

For example, if a person gets Ace of Wands while his tarot is being read, it denotes beginning of something good or something that the person may create. If that person gets seven of Swords, it denotes something the person is doing in secrecy and that might not be a positive one. Minor Arcana denote minor happenings in a person life, while Major Arcana houses the trump cards which predicts or underlines a major event in the person’s history.

To know more about the cards in the Major Arcana:  Tarot Cards Of The Major Arcana