Maybe you’ve noticed a recent increase in people who practice tarot. Maybe you’re one of them. But, most likely, you are someone who’s skeptical about it all.
I mean, a deck of cards with nice artwork telling you about your future? Sounds unbelievable.
Do the cards hold any merit? Is the universe really trying to guide you based on the cards you pull?
Well, whether or not you think tarot is real, it works.
The History
Tarot cards weren’t always used for divination like they are today. In fact, the earliest known forms of these cards date back to 1400s Italy, where they were used for card games among the , opens a new windownobility.
Their association with divination and the occult began in the late 1700s, opens a new window. Tarot cards were not, however, the first cards to gain this association. Cartomancy, opens a new window, the use of cards for divination purposes, originally used playing cards we’d be more familiar with: the kind used for games of Go Fish and Poker.
The association between tarot and the occult truly took off in the early 1900s with the creation and publication of the Rider Waite-Smith Deck. Arthur Waite and Pamela Smith met through a secret society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was dedicated to researching and practicing the occult and other forms of mysticism.
The deck combines Waite’s concepts and understandings of what each card means with Smith’s art. The deck became iconic, with both the meanings and art style going on to inspire other tarot decks. Often, when someone thinks of tarot, the first image that comes to them will be a card designed by Smith.
A Common Misconception
A common misconception about tarot, also influenced by Smith’s artwork drawing on religious symbolism, is that it’s Satanic. While tarot is used more for spiritual means than entertainment in the modern era, there is little to no evidence (the article linked is an opinion piece, but I do still think it's a worthy read) of Satanic uses.
As someone who does readings for reflective purposes, I've never come across any interpretation books telling me to start worshipping Satan.
Cards like Death, opens a new window and the Devil, opens a new window, despite looking admittedly Satanic, are deeply misunderstood even by some tarot practitioners. The Death card more often symbolizes an inevitable change, the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new one. This is not a physical death. The Devil, meanwhile, can represent entanglement or addiction to bad habits. Its appearance often advises reflecting on your habits because one of them might be causing you more harm than good.
The Practice
When used as a tool for introspection and reflection, tarot works far better than you might imagine. The nature of the practice is that you don’t get direct answers. The cards are always representative---you need to decide and parse for yourself what real-life applications the cards might allude to.
Cards are split into two main categories: the major arcana and the minor. Major Arcana cards (the ones with numbers like The Fool, The Tower, The High Priestess, and The World) should be considered as a universal message. They are telling you something about your life as a whole. Minor Arcana cards (ones based on the four suits: Cups, Pentacles, Swords, and Wands) allude to smaller details, the daily happenings of your life.
Cards can offer encouragement or warning, but it all depends on how you interpret their meaning in relation to any situation. For example, The Sun, opens a new window is generally considered a positive card. You could take this to mean your life is great right now, that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel if you’re facing a hardship, or that you’re missing some positive aspect of a situation that’s staring you straight in the face.
None of these readings are absolute, and they all hinge on your view of any given situation. If you’re someone who tends to view every situation the same, tarot can be an effective way of considering other angles. Reading the meanings of cards forces your brain to think about your situation through the lens of the card.
A card is never going to tell you what choice to make, but it can encourage you to reflect on the repercussions of a decision you haven’t made yet. Each individual card and how they relate to each other offer new ways of examining a situation that you probably hadn’t considered before.
For example, let’s say you’re going through a rough patch. Everything feels like it’s crumbling around you, and you aren’t sure how this happened or where to go. You do a reading and pull The Tower, opens a new window from the Major Arcana.
The Tower often represents situations that were built on bad foundations in the first place. A rotten foundation was left standing for too long, and it inevitably results in utter destruction because the structure can’t hold.
All of that sounds depressing, but the meaning doesn’t stop there. Effectively, you’ll have a clean slate by the end of this rough patch. You’ll also have the experience to recognize patchy foundations in the future to, hopefully, avoid another cataclysmic collapse.
You could walk away from this reading taking solace in knowing that a collapse was inevitable or feeling hopeful about the clean slate in your future. Even if you don’t believe in the mystical or spiritual aspect of tarot reading, you’ve still gained something from it
This is what I mean when I say tarot works. Believing in the universe guiding the cards is difficult, but pulling cards and reading about their meanings does help get you out of your head. It works for people who want a different perspective but don't have anyone they feel comfortable talking to.
Further Reading
If this blog has convinced you to look into tarot, or if you were just curious from the start, here are a few books from the HCPL collection to get you started!
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