Adams Media - How to Read Tarot: A Practical Guide

For centuries, the Tarot has been used to see into the future and to gain advice on practical matters, such as a job, a marriage, or economic issues. Even today, these are perhaps its most common uses. But the Tarot can also serve as a tool to deepen your understanding of yourself, to enrich your relationships with other people, and to strengthen your connection with your Higher Self. Before you can begin your journey into reading Tarot cards it is important to know the history of the Tarot and also the practical matters of handling and caring for the special cards that you will use to stimulate your intuition and uncover the answers to the questions you have been pondering.

Many theories abound about the Tarots beginnings. One is that the great library of Alexandria in Egypt, whose female librarian Hypatia was world-renowned for her wisdom and learning, housed scrolls containing all the knowledge of the ancient world. Among these scrolls was the legendary Book of Thoth, derived from the mystery schools of ancient Egypt. The allegorical illustrations on Tarot cards are said to contain these secret teachings, which in the Major Arcana represent a course in personal and spiritual development. The Minor Arcana, which was added to the Tarot at a later date, may have derived from an Italian card game known as tarrochi. Our present-day poker decks closely resemble the Minor Arcana of the Tarot.

The oldest surviving Tarot cards are from fifteen incomplete decks painted in the fifteenth century for the Visconti-Sforza family. These incomplete sets are referred to collectively as the Visconti-Sforza Tarot. No complete deck has survived, some sets have a few face cards, and some consist of only one card. The decks were all commissioned by the Duke of Milan, Filippo Visconti, and then later his son-in-law and successor Francesco Sforza.

Tarot images are inextricably linked to ancient beliefs, mythologies, and religious systems such as the Hebrew Kabbalah. The cards numerological associations have been tied to the Greek mathematician Pythagoras, who taught that letters and numbers contain divine essence and extraordinary powers unrealized by the uninitiated.

Gypsies may have carried the cards to Europe. (The term gypsy is considered to be a corrupt form of the word Egyptian.) The Catholic Church, however, believed the Tarot was the devils picture book, and the cards were quickly condemned as heretical. To possess them was dangerous. Thus, during the Middle Ages, the Tarot went underground, along with astrology and many other forms of occult knowledge. (Occult simply means hidden.) Yet, despite persecution, the ancient knowledge contained in the Tarot continued to be passed down in secret, until interest in the cards surfaced again during the Renaissance.

Though we may never know their true history, we can still use Tarot cards to advise and guide us, to show us what lies ahead in the future, and to help us gain access to our inner knowing and the Divine. The amazing insights contained in the Tarot and the decks inherent flexibility make it just as relevant to contemporary Westerners as it was to the ancients.

No one knows exactly where or when the Tarot deck originated. Evidence suggests that seventy-eight-card Tarot decks, much like the ones were familiar with today, may have been used in Italy and France during the Renaissance for telling fortunes. During this period, the nobility in Milan used the Tarot for gaming and gambling.

Its believed that the first Tarot decks contained only the Major Arcana; the Minor Arcana were added later. Early packs portrayed people solely on the Major Arcana and Court cards. The numbered or pip cards showed only the suits symbolCups, Swords, Wands, or Pentaclesin the corresponding quantity (One through Ten). Some decks didnt even include labels on the Major Arcana cardsperhaps because novices were discouraged from doing readings and adepts would recognize the symbolism without needing labels.