Sarah Bartlett - Key to Tarot: From Suits to Symbolism: Advice and Exercises to Unlock your Mystical Potential

The tarots powerful symbolism awakens our sixth sense.

I first became curious about the tarot in my early twenties when I went to a village fete and the vicars wife, draped in velvet scarves, bangles clinking around her arms, took on the role of fortune-teller. She had a deck of cards, the Marseille deck if I remember, and I thought, I want to know my future! The reading was like many others, at a time when the tarot was still considered a gypsy scam: You will meet a tall dark stranger, but you must avoid him. The blonde man who comes into your life will be with you forever. Warnings and judgmental statements are not part of the tarot, they are part of the people who read the tarot! Of course, we take heed, we listen, we absorb the fortune-tellers words unconsciously, and we often twist the words to fit our life story depending on our perception of what we want to happen.

A few weeks after the village fete, a chance encounter with a friend led me to Paris, where I fell in love with a tall, dark stranger, an artist and poet. In fact, he seemed like the perfect man for me, and he gave me a beautiful deck of tarot cards and taught me all he knew about the tarot. I spent six months living the life of a bohemian artist with him in a garret on the Rue de Rivoli. Although we had to part, my tarot journey really began then, like the Fool setting off to discover more. Not stepping off the edge of the cliff, but stepping across the ravine to another pathway, where all would become clear. The tall dark stranger was actually a gift, not someone to be avoided. It was then that I wanted to know more and to find out why the vicars wife had read the cards the way she did.

This book is about the keys you will need to get through the doorways of knowledge, skill, and self-awareness to lead you on your own true tarot path. We are all Fools, all curious, but some of us are ready to find out more than others. With The Key to Tarot, you can access the truth about yourself and others and also get in touch with your mystical connection to the Universe.

The best way to use the tarot is to read it, not to guess or make judgments like the vicars wife. Enjoy unlocking the keys to your own tarot journey, and be true to your own mystical potential.

Fortune-telling is really a means to understanding the decisions you make.

CHAPTER ONE

THE KEY to the BASICS

The tarot is a mystical pathway to hidden knowledge

Sacred numbers connect us to cosmic energy

Learn how to care for and use your cards

Understand card positions and the focus card

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TAROT

T he tarot is usually made up of a deck of seventy-eight cards, although some early decks have a different number. Each card has a name, number, and specific image, which work together to create the cards meaning. The tarot is quite simply a universal language spoken through the use of archetypal symbols.

THE ORIGINS OF TAROT

No one is really sure of the true origin of the tarot, but for the last three hundred years or so, occultists, writers, and historians have all had a good shot at proving its source, colored by their own personal view of the tarot. But most believe that the tarot originated several thousand years BCE in ancient Egypt, when places such as Giza and Abydos were centers for mystical practice and the worship of gods. Certain symbols were created to produce a secret language only known to initiates of these mysteries, and these were probably inscribed onto tablets, and later written onto scrolls.