Tarot Basics

A Tarot card deck typically consists of 78 colorful cards
imprinted with what many deem fascinating and curious images.
The cards, each filled with a particular meaning and portent,
most often come somewhat larger than ordinary playing cards and
make an impressive display when ritually laid out. This deck of
special cards can be used by a trained reader for glimpsing
into his or her own future or that of another person for whom
the cards are read. The Tarot deck, divided into Major Arcana
and Minor Arcana, contains 22 symbolic cards and 56 suit cards
wands, swords, cups, and pentacles interestingly also called
pip cards.

Many types and styles of Tarot cards exist, and a breakdown of
even the more common Tarot card deck reads like a mysterious
journey into the occult and perhaps it is!

The Major Arcana
includes the magician, high priestess, empress, emperor,
hierophant (a sage or wise man), lovers, chariot, strength,
hermit, wheel, justice, hanged man, death, temperance, devil,
tower, star, moon, sun, judgment, world. The Minor Arcana (the
suits) consists of the aces, twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes,
sevens, eights, nines, tens, court cards, pages, knights,
queens, and kings all in the above-mentioned suits.

The key to successfully reading the Tarot deck, however, does
not lie only in what the cards mean, but in how to interpret
them. A gifted Tarot reader can sometimes create a huge
following by accurately predicting the futures of friends,
family even strangers who call on him or her for a reading.

Tarot comes from the Italian word “Tarocchi, a French card
game originally termed carte da trionfi cards with trumps.
It has been theorized that the name was shortened from
Tarocchi to Taro and thus evolved over time into Tarot by
the French. The definition of Tarot goes hand in hand with the
origin of the name because Tarot is considered to be a tool of
divination by believers, and the roots of the name explain, in
part, how this came to be so, though we may never know the
complete story, since its complete origins have been lost in the
passage of time.

The origins of Tarot vary almost as widely as there are people
exploiting the powers of these fascinating cards. Some maintain
the cards have roots beginning in the ancient mysteries of
Egypt, the mythical city of doomed Atlantis, or from the
magic-filled background of the European gypsies. But
etymologically speaking, that is, considering Tarot from the
history of the word itself, this mysterious deck of
future-foretelling cards probably came into being in the
northern Italian courts of nobility during the mid-15th century.

Whatever and whenever the source of Tarot, this remarkable deck
of cards remains an entertaining and intriguing journey into the
unknown, the inexplicable, and the sometimes mystifying realms
of life. Perhaps the roots of Tarot lie shrouded in doubt for a
reason. Perhaps Tarot is meant to mystify as well as to reveal.
Perhapsonly the Tarot cards know for sure!