When you hear the word tarot, you almost readily associate it with fortune telling. However, that’s not really what Tarot cards are about. The Tarot cards are not even really meant to tell your fortune or future, although that is one of the things traditionally associated with it. According to The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, “The most powerful sources of information come from within; the Tarot aids in coming in contact with one’s Higher Self.”
The Tarot cards are commonly used to measure potential outcomes and examine influences surrounding a person, an
issue, or an event that the subject might not even be aware of before the reading. Tarot reading is technically known as taromancy or “divination through the use of tarot cards”. Tarot reading gives the subject with additional information that he or she could use to make more informed choices. It is an excellent way of gaining insights on your life, or on a past event in your life that you have been dwelling for so long. It gives you a new perspective on past emotional problems, and highlight the aspect of your life or personality that you are neglecting, so that you can act more effectively in the future. Tarot reading, in a sense, is like a thorough analysis of your life to get a clear, detached view of what your situation is in the present, and where you are headed in the future.
How Do Tarot Cards Work?
Major and Minor Arcana
The standard deck of Tarots contain two types of cards: The Major and the Minor Arcana. The Minor Arcana are like a deck of regular playing cards, they are divided into four suits. However, rather than spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs, the suits of the Minor Arcana cards are “wands”, “swords”, “cups”, and “circles or pentacles”, with one through ten cards for each suit, and then face cards referred to as the page, knight, queen and king.
The Major Arcana, on the other hand, are standalone cards that are not associated with any of the suits in the Minor Arcana cards. They have their own unique meanings, and each picture cards represent principles, concepts and ideals. These include cards like “the Devil”, “Strength”, “Temperance”, “the Hanged Man”, “the Fool”, and “Death”. The Major Arcana cards are numbered one through 21, with the 22nd card (the “Fool”) marked as zero. The Major Arcana are viewed to represent strong, long-term energy or big events in some area of life.
Spreads
There are so many variations on how to deal out tarot cards and then read them. You can go to a psychic shop and have a tarot reading face-to-face with an advisor, or you can also do tarot card reading online and chat with psychics. Before a tarot advisor perform a reading, the cards are first shuffled by the person receiving the reading. It is believed that this way the energy of the person looking to receive a reading is transferred to the deck. Once the cards are shuffled, the advisor will cut the deck and lay out the cards in a pattern known as spread. The spread is the arrangement of cards that were dealt in a reading. Every position in a spread represents a different aspect of the question asked by the subject. The two most common spread pattern are the Three Fates and the “Celtic Cross”, but there are many more spreads for Tarot card reading, and readers can even make up their own.
Three cards consist the “Three Fates”. The first card represents the past, the second card represents the present, and the third card represents the future. While the “Celtic Cross” is composed of ten cards that may represents varieties of things including not limited to past and future influences, conflicting influences and future hopes.
Types of Readings
There are two types of Tarot card reading, the “question readings” and the “open readings”.
In a question readings, the subject is usually trying to address a specific question. However, Tarot readings are not intended to provide answers to a specific yes or no question. The reading must not be used to make decisions, but instead it should be used as a guide to help the person receiving the reading make an informed decision. That is why the way a question is asked is a very important consideration.
In contrast, Open readings address the larger scope or aspect in your life rather than a specific question or issue. Open reading is usually sought when a person is about to enter a new stage or phase of his life, like for example if you are getting married, graduating from school, or beginning a new family. In this type of reading you can somewhat lead it to a general area that you want to cover, such as your health, or career.