Jack Chanek - Tarot for Real Life: Use the Cards to Find Answers to Everyday Questions

v Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

vi Tarot for Real Life: Use the Cards to Find Answers to Everyday Questions 2022 by Jack Chanek.

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 2022

E-book ISBN: 9780738769714

Book design by Samantha Peterson

Cover art by Lucie Rice

Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

Rosetta Tarot 2011 on by M. M. Meleen, creator of Rosetta, Tabula Mundi, and Pharos Tarot

Tarot card illustrations are based on those contained in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite, published by William Rider & Son Ltd., London, 1911

Tarot of Marseille on used with permission of LoScarabeo, s.r.l.

Tarot spreads and image on by Llewellyn Art Department

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chanek, Jack, author.

Title: Tarot for real life : use the cards to find answers to everyday

questions / Jack Chanek.

Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn Publications,

2022. | Summary: This book is like a wise companion on your daily

adventures, showing you the possibilities awaiting in every tarot

card Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022002817 (print) | LCCN 2022002818 (ebook) | ISBN

9780738769479 | ISBN 9780738769714 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Tarot.

Classification: LCC BF1879.T2 C41355 2022 (print) | LCC BF1879.T2 (ebook)

| DDC 133.3/2424dc23/eng/20220208

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022002817

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022002818

Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publishers website for links to current author websites.

Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

vii

For my father.

Contents

: Practical

: Setting Yourself Up

: How Does Tarot Work?

: The Suit of Pentacles

: Intellectual

: Spreads and Card Layouts

: Reversed Cards

: The Suit of Swords

x : Emotional

: Intuition and Imagery

: Tarot as Storytelling

: The Suit of Cups

: Aspirational

: What to Do When Youre Wrong

: Tarot Ethics

: The Suit of Wands

: Personal

: The Importance of Objectivity

: Significator Cards

: The Court Cards

: The Big Picture

: Reading Dynamically

: The Fools Journey

: The Major Arcana

Cards

xi

xii

Acknowledgments xiii

I am extraordinarily grateful to the entire Llewellyn team for helping to put this book together. Thanks are due first and foremost to Barbara Moore, my wonderful acquisitions editor, who helped me turn the seed of a concept into a full book. Nicole Borneman, my production editor, helped to untangle my writing and make it readable for people who dont live inside my head. She is far more parsimonious with commas than I am, and the book benefited enormously from her critical eye. Lucie Rice designed the cover and did a beautiful job with the core concept I asked her to convey: that tarot is something anyone can do sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. Terry Lohmann handled the business side of things, and Heather Greene is perhaps responsible for me deciding to write this book in the first place. Finally, I offer my gratitude to all of the Llewellyn staff who worked on this book in its various stages, but with whom I never had the opportunity to interact directly.

M. M. Meleen graciously gave permission for me to use card images from the Rosetta Tarot , one of her stunning Thoth-inspired decks. If you like the card images displayed on page 14 or you are interested in exploring Thoth symbolism, I cannot recommend her work highly enough.

I am forever indebted to the authors, mentors, friends, and fellow readers who helped to shape me as a tarot reader. To all of the friends who whiled away the hours with me on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum, I am grateful for the insights you shared. To the members of the American Tarot Association, the xiv Free Tarot Network, and the Free Reading Network, thank you for the experience you provided and the opportunity to read for people I would never have encountered otherwise. Special thanks are due in particular to Benebell Wen, who has been a mentor and a friend. Benebell is the model of everything I aspire to be as a tarot reader, and it was at her encouragement that I began publicly writing about tarot so many years ago.

Finally, I could not have written this book without the support of my family, biological and otherwise. Thanks to my parents, who bought me my first tarot deck, and to my aunt Sarah, who promises that she is the most enthusiastic reader of my books. Thanks to the members of my coven, who are a source of continual laughter and loveand who let me read for them whenever the occasion arises. Deborah Lipp and I often find ourselves sucked into deep conversations about tarot symbolism and its application, and those conversations have opened my eyes to new perspectives on tarot that I might never have considered without Deborahs influence. Last but most certainly not least, Shane Mason is perhaps even more excited about this book than I am. Thank you for your unwavering love and support. My world is a thousand times brighter for having you in it.

Preface xv

I started reading tarot when I was eleven years old. I grew up watching James Bond movies with my parents, and one of Bonds adventures1973s Live and Let Die stars Jane Seymour as an enigmatic fortune-teller named Solitaire, who starts the movie in service of the villain before shes won over to Bonds side. As a child, I was captivated by her presence and her power. She uses tarot to predict Bonds movements throughout the film, to warn him about a double agent in his midst, and even to foretell her own love affair with Bond. Shes a mysterious, enthralling figure. From a very young age, I knew that I wanted to grow up to be like her.