Tarot is a set of seventy eight cards, each
featuring different symbolic pictures. A standard
Tarot deck is made up of twenty two cards called
the Major arcana or trumps. Four
suits of fourteen cards are called the Minor
arcana. Tarot cards could be used for
creative visualization, meditation, practical
problem solving, self-improvement, as a tool of
understanding, for divination and fortune telling.
A Tarot deck is based on the seventy eight cards
structure of fifty six minor cards
and twenty two major cards. An
oracle deck is any other deck of cards used for
similar purposes to a deck of Tarot cards, and
may also be called a divination deck or cart mantic
deck.
The History
Historical evidence proves its beginning in
Italy, in the fifteenth century. The cards had
been used in Italy in the fifteenth century as
a popular card game. Wealthy patrons commissioned
beautiful decks, some of which have survived.
The Visconti-Sforza created in 1450 or shortly
thereafter, is one of the earliest and most complete.
Later in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
the cards had been discovered by a number of influential
scholars of the occult. These people were intrigued
by the tarot and recognized that the images on
the cards were more powerful than a simple game.
They revealed the "true" history of
the tarot by connecting the cards to Egyptian
mysteries, the Kabbalah, alchemy, and other mystical
systems. These pursuits continued into the early
part of the twentieth century when the tarot was
incorporated into the practices of several secret
societies.
How Tarot works
We do not know the full range and
power of the unconscious mind, but there are ways
to explore its landscape. Many techniques were
developed for this purpose, visualization and
meditation dream interpretation. The tarot is
another such aide. When we do a tarot reading,
we select certain cards by shuffling, cutting
and dealing the deck. Although this process seems
random, we still assume the cards we pick are
special. This is the point of a tarot reading
after all to choose the cards we are meant to
see. Now, common sense tells us that cards chosen
by chance can not hold any special meaning, or
can it be? The other feature of a random event
is that it has no inherent meaning. If we roll
a dice and get a six, but there is no purpose
to this result. We can just easily roll a two,
and the meaning would be the same or not? Do we
really know these two out comes are equal? Perhaps
there is meaning and purpose in every event, great
or small, but we do not always recognize it. We
are meant by nature to rely on the wisdom of our
Inner Guide, but somehow we have forgotten how
to access it. We trust our conscious minds instead,
and forget to look deeper. But unfortunately,
they just don't have the full awareness we need
to make appropriate choices day by day. When we
are operating from our conscious minds, we often
feel as if events are forced upon us by chance.
Life seems to have little purpose, and we suffer
because we do not really understand who we are
and what we want. When we know how to access our
Inner Guide, we experience life differently.
Major Arcana
Major Arcana have twenty two cards, depict major
symbols or archetypes. Among them are the Fool,
the Lovers, Death, and the World, all of them
signifying major ideas, phases or forces of life?
The term "Major Arcana" actually means
the "Greater Mysteries."
It is believed that the progression of the cards
in the Major Arcana actually tell the story of
a soul's progression through Karma, or a seeker's
path through his or her life. The word "Arcana"
had been originated Latin for "life secrets."
The deck begins with the Fool, an enthusiastic
and a person eager to set out on his life path,
regardless of what lies ahead, and ends with the
World, which represents a perfect attainment of
completion, or Nirvana. They are the most powerful
cards in the deck. These cards are used alone
when reading for divination since they are the
archetypal symbols of human existence and mark
stages of self-discovery and self-awareness. When
a Major Arcana card is drawn, special attention
should be paid to its position.
Minor Arcana
The Minor Arcana is made up of four suits; cups,
wands, swords and pentacles. In fact, the modern
deck is evolved from the Minor Arcana, and if
you feel comfortable reading the jack as both
the page and knight and doing without pictorial
cards. You can read a playing deck. Each suit
consists of sixteen cards and four court cards.
The four Court cards of each suit make up the
Court Arcana. These cards tell of the lesser events
in our everyday lives. Like the Major Arcana,
each suit tells a story as you progress from the
Ace to the King, but each suit tells a slightly
different story, depending upon which facet of
life the suit reflects. Not only does each suit
represent a different area of life (i.e. love,
money, work) but they are each connected with
an element, a direction on the compass and some
of the court cards are associated with zodiac
signs as well. In the past they had significance
- suit was connected with a different social class:
clergy, peasant, noble and merchant.
Colors
of Tarot
Colors and their significant
meanings
• Magenta
:
Sense of higher cognition
• Red
:
Survival, instincts, action and security
• Orange
:
Liveliness and happy memories
• Yellow
:
Intellect
• Turquoise
:
Deep compassion and inner healin
• Green
:
Healing and well being
• Pink
:
Love, compassion and femininity
• Blue
:
Friendship, communication
• Purple
:
Insight and wisdom
• Indigo
:
Knowledge we need to progress along our
path
• Lavender
:
Calming, meditation
• White
:
Truth, knowledge, illumination
• Gray
:
Balance must be achieved
• Brown
:
Conventional
• Black
:
Thwarted ambition
Swords
Ace
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Page
Knight
Queen
King
Cups
Ace
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Page
Knight
Queen
King
Wands/Staves
Ace
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Page
Knight
Queen
King
Pentacles/Coins
Ace
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Page
Knight
Queen
King
The
Major Arcana (The Minor arcane) for above tables :
