Barbara Moore - Tarot for Beginners: A Practical Guide to Reading the Cards

About the Author

Tarot has been a part of Barbara Moores personal and professional lives for nearly twenty years. Right from the start, tarot intrigued her with its marvelous blending of mythology, psychology, art, history, mystery, and magic. She has studied under renowned tarot scholars such as Mary K. Greer and Rachel Pollack, and continues to work with some of the brightest lights in the tarot world. Currently, she consults for both Llewellyn Worldwide and Lo Scarabeo, is one of the founders of the Minnesota Area Tarot Symposium (http://minnesotatarot.com/), is an enthusiastic and active member of the Twin Cities Tarot Meetup group, performs readings at a local haunted house, and consults the cards every chance she gets. She teaches tarot locally, nationally, and internationally.

Her website can be found here:

http://www.practicaltarotreadings.com

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Tarot for Beginners: A Practical Guide to Reading the Cards 2010 by Barbara Moore.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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First e-book edition 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738729671

Book design and editing by Rebecca Zins

Cover design by Adrienne W. Zimiga

Illustrations from the Universal Waite Tarot Deck reproduced by permission of U. S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902 USA. Copyright 1990 by U. S. Games Systems, Inc. Further reproduction prohibited. The Universal Waite Tarot Deck is a registered
trademark of U. S. Games Systems, Inc.

Illustrations from Legacy of the Divine Tarot by Ciro Marchetti 2009 and Shadowscapes Tarot by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law 2010 reproduced by permission of Llewellyn Publications. Further reproduction prohibited.

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Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

: Basics

: The Card Meanings

: Finding More Meaning

: Adding Something Extra

: Developing Your Skills

: Spreads

: Sample Readings

: Suggested Reading

: Suggested Decks

: Significators

: Correspondences

Acknowledgments

Heartfelt thanks to all the tarot lovers who came before me, who traveled with me, and who are yet to come. Special thanks to Theresa Reed, who was there when I needed help finding my way, and to Catherine Chapman, who never failed to make me feel like a rock star. Becky, you have a magic touch with both words and design; thank you for making my work better than it was. And to Lynne Menturweck, your precise skill is, as always, much appreciated.

Everyone who reads the cards has a memory of the first time they saw a deck. My memory is vague and murky, but this is how I remember it: I was very young, maybe about six or eight years old. My mother took me to visit her great aunt. I dont remember why; we didnt have much to do with my mothers family, who had come to Detroit from Sicily by way of Louisiana. We drove from the suburbs into Detroit, a slightly frightening journey even back then. We went into this dark room, heavy with weird vibes and incense, where my aunt sat, cards nearby. There was strange talk that I didnt understand, and cards were shuffled, followed by whispered questions and answers. Although my mothers family was steeped in spiritualism, the occult arts, and eclectic voodoo, except for that one elusive memory, I did not have further contact with the cards for many years.

That next contact, however, sealed the deal. My college roommate and I threw a party, and during the course of that party, she pulled out a deck of cards. She didnt read with them but handed them around for people to look at. For me, it was love at first sight. Although I wasnt quite sure what each card meant or even what exactly one was supposed to do with them, I looked in the tiny paper booklet that came with the deck, shuffled the cards, carefully laid them out, and started reading with them.

After that, I purchased or borrowed every tarot book I could get my hands on and collected different decks. Even though I knew the cards were just pieces of paper with pictures on them, I knew that they (and what they represented) were much more. I knew that through the cards, secrets could be revealed, and I could discover entire worlds.

Twenty years later, I am happy to say that I was right. Even better, now I get to show you how to use the cards to unveil mysteries and uncover secrets. I started my tarot journey by jumping right in, which was exhilarating in its own way. But after that initial leap, I was glad to have good books to help me become a more skilled reader. And thats the goal of this book: to help you become a confident reader in the easiest, most efficient way possiblewhile having some fun too!

How will we do that, you wonder? Heres the plan. First, well take a peek into the background of the cards themselves. Where did these cards come from, anyhow? Is their history really shrouded in mystery? Next, well look at each card, one by one, and discover their meanings. Doing a tarot reading is a lot like reading a book. Before you can read a novel, you have to master your ABCs, and so it is with tarot: the cards are like your new alphabet.

Learning the cards is the first step, but you dont go right from singing the alphabet song directly to writing War and Peace . Being able to make words and create sentences comes next. So before we jump into doing full readings, well see how the cards work together to create more complex and precise meanings. Then well put it all together, shuffle the cards, lay them out, and see what amazing revelations are revealed.