New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901
One of the joys of tarot is that there are so many ways to look at, think about, and compare the cards. This is also one of the reasons so many people stay interested in tarot for so long. Every way of organizing and dividing the deck leads to deeper and broader understanding of the cards. This complex web also helps us build our own personal philosophy of life. Separating the deck into suits is a common way of examining the deck. The Major Arcana are looked at as a linear spiritual journey, sometimes called the Fool’s Journey and loosely based on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. The four suits are read as a starting, beginning with the Aces and ending with the Tens. ...
"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."—Lewis Carroll Let's be frank. Most people use tarot cards to try and glimpse the future, right? Even when I'm using the cards to help make decisions, weigh the pros and cons of choices, find inspiration, or make a plan to achieve a goal, I usually always have a card representing a possible or probable future. I just want to know. Don't you? Most of us believe that while the future isn't set in stone, we do, to a large extent, shape our future with our actions and decisions. It makes sense then, to look at the past and present as we try to determine our future. Even the simplest three-card Past-Present-Future spread does this. ...
Most people have heard that tarot decks were originally used to play a trick-taking card game called tarrochi. While the game is still played, particularly in Europe, tarot cards are more often used for other purposes, primarily doing readings. Some readers and some people who have readings approach the experience with a sense of play and drama, with a kind of "for entertainment only" style, the way one might read a newspaper horoscope or a fortune cookie fortune. Those of us who take our tarot a bit more seriously know that it is more than entertainment. We understand the wisdom, advice, and guidance we can receive from the cards. We treat our cards with care, ask our questions with a ...
Tarot is constantly evolving, both the deck itself and the way we use the cards. Since the mid-1970s, readers started taking a psychological, New Age approach to the cards. Despite several decades of books, workshops, and "educating the public," most people think of tarot cards as a tool for predicting the future. That stereotype comes, as most stereotypes do, from a truth, however old and distorted. Lenormand cards, playing cards, and tarot cards, as well as crystal balls and tea leaves have had the grave responsibility of revealing our futures. It is easy to see how the trend shifted. People who were interested in tarot, scholars and teachers, authors and practitioners, shared in the ...
