Nikki Van De Car - The Junior Tarot Readers Handbook: A Kids Guide to Reading Cards

T arot cards are considered a tool for divinationor a way of seeing whats really going on or what might happen in the future. But they didnt start out that way. For hundreds of years, they were just playing cards, much like the ones we use today. So perhaps this history is a sign that we shouldnt take them too seriously. Tarot is an incredibly useful tool but there isnt actually anything magic about it. These cards are nothing but pieces of paper with pretty pictures on them, and the only meaning they have is what we have decided to give them. They cant tell you the future, and they cant tell you anything you dont already know.

You might be thinking, Um, if theyre just pieces of paper, then whats the point? The thing about tarot is that its at heart a sort of internal divination. Even if tarot cant tell us things outright, tarot can confirm feelings weve been uncertain about but know in our hearts are true and they can help us face some hard truths. Maybe theres a friend youve had for a long time, but now they feel less like a friend and more like someone you just happen to know. Tarot can help you understand and accept that.

Every single reading has something accurate to say. Sometimes theyre really obvious, and you roll your eyes at yourself for even needing a tarot reading to get that. But other times theyre a little puzzling and only make sense when you think about it for a while. Most often, youll feel relieved, knowing that what is worrying you isnt all in your head. Youll learn to trust your instincts and allow them to help you figure out what you really want.

So how did we go from playing Go Fish or whatever to using these playing cards for divination? In the late 1700s, Jean Baptiste Alliette, going by the name of Etteilla, published a revamped tarot deck, assigning meaning to each of the cards. He incorporated ideas about astronomy; the elements of fire, air, water, and earth; and his theories on the Egyptian Book of Thoth. (Thoth was the god of knowledge and wisdom.)

Those meanings have stayed with us since then sort of. In 1909, William Rider and A. E. Waite published the Rider-Waite deck (they werent very creative when it came to choosing names), with illustrations by Pamela Colman Smith. Today, this deck is considered the classic deck, and the illustrations tell an intricate story when you lay them all out in order. But some of these images and forms dont have as much meaning for us today as they did back in the 1700shonestly, who knows what a Hierophant is, anyway? The assigned meanings have changed over the years, shifting to match our modern experience, though the names of the cards have stayed the same. This book will provide you with an interpretation of those assigned meanings, which will give you some context and help you get started.

But the true meanings from your tarot cards will come from you from your own life, your own belief system, and your own intuition. You give your energy to the cards, and they reflect it back to youyou are the one with the power. The more you play with tarot, the more you will learn that its not about the cards, and its not about the books with the assigned meaningsits all about you.

You dont need any special training or to be any kind of an expert to do a tarot reading. It can feel like a lot of memorization, but as you get used to it, youll stop needing to look up the meanings of each card and begin relying on your knowledge and intuition to tell you what they mean. As you work with the cards, youll get to know your deck and how it speaks to you, so that over time each card will have a meaning that is slightly different from whats in the bookit will be honed, narrowed, and specific to you and your associations. As you develop your relationship with your deck and begin to assign your own meanings, you can create your own readings, too, with as much specificity or generality as you want. You can draw a card that you want to use as inspiration for your day, encouraging you to be as dynamic as the Queen of Wands or as full of curiosity as the Fool. Maybe when you know you have a big day or week ahead of you, you can pull the Strength card or the Knight of Pentacles to remind you to keep going.

When you read tarot, you are balancing your knowledge and your intuition, and the more you do it, the deeper and further youll be able to see.

Tarot is what you make it.