What Is Tarot? Let’s Talk about Basic Facts of Tarot

If you are reading this article, I am sure you are interested in tarot or at least you have heard of tarot.

Maybe you want to know about tarot just out of curiosity. Or maybe you are trying to become a professional tarot reader and want to learn seriously about tarot.

Whatever is your reason, first, you need to learn basic facts about tarot. It’s the same as getting to know a human friend.

OK! Just dive into the fundamental of tarot and make friends with tarot, then!

 

If you are interested in learning tarot, you can book a tarot training session with me.

What is tarot?

If you ask me what tarot is, I would say, tarot is a set of cards which have pictures on them that serves as a medium to receive messages from the Universe or God or Spirit Guides or whatever higher self you believe in.

If you ask someone who is not very familiar with tarot what tarot is, they might say different things like, “Ah! Tarot! You mean the cards with strange images on them.” Or something like, “Of course I know what tarot is, they are the cards witches and magicians use.”

On the other hand, if you ask a tarot expert to define the meaning of tarot, it’s another story.

Tarot expert Amber Jayanti defined tarot as “A set of pictures, acting as oracles, speakers, or messengers from the gods, goddesses, or godhead, that communicate a body of divine knowledge and purpose, eternal truths, and natural law that are a royal road or "way" to higher consciousness, also known as enlightenment.”

You see, different people answer that question differently. So, let me know how you define tarot in the comment section.  

“A picture is worth 10,000 words.”

How do we interpret tarot?

There is a Chinese proverb that says, “A picture is worth 10,000 words.”

In tarot, we interpret what we see based on the pictures on the cards. Because everyone’s background such as experience, culture, environment, and belief system are different, no two people will interpret the meaning of the cards exactly the same.

But I don’t think one person’s interpretation of the cards is totally opposite of another person’s interpretation if we know the basic meaning of tarot cards.

That’s why most tarot decks come with a guide book. I will talk about the basic meaning of each tarot card in future articles.

Related post: How does manifestation work?

What includes in a tarot deck?

Now, talking about tarot deck, a typical tarot deck consists of 78 cards – 22 major arcana and 56 minor arcana.

Minor arcana is made up of 4 suits which are wands, swords, cups and pentacles. Out of 56, 40 minor arcana cards are numbered from ace through ten for each suit.

The remaining 16 cards are called royal or court cards because they depict kings, queens, knights, and pages.

I will share more about these major arcana and minor arcana in upcoming articles.  

Related post: Sidereal Astrology vs Tropical Astrology

 

What’s the origin of tarot?

You might want to know the origin of tarot.

There are a ton of myths around the history of tarot but as far as I have researched, the earliest tarot decks were discovered in Italy during the 1400s. They were hand-painted at that time.

In the 1500s, more people could get access to tarot decks due to the mass printing.

But the popularity of tarot started in the 1700s when a man named Jean Baptiste Alliete published one of the first books on tarot as a tool for divination.

And the popularity soared when Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith created the Rider-Waite-Smith deck in the 1900s.

By the way, if you still do not own your first tarot deck, Rider Waite tarot deck is a good choice to start your tarot journey.

The deck is beginner friendly; the cards in the deck are colorful and include a lot of symbols to interpret.

 

What’s the use of tarot?

Like I mentioned in the definitions, tarot is a divination tool to receive messages from other dimensions, or guidance from the higher power, or read someone’s current energy.

Tarot can be used for every area of everyone’s life; be it finance, relationship, career, education, or spirituality.

We do not need to have a supernatural power to use tarot. Everyone can learn how to use tarot but of course you need to put some effort to do it. The details for how to use it will be covered in another article.

Conclusion

Well, we have covered

• ·         the definition of tarot
• ·         how people interpret tarot
• ·         what includes in a tarot deck
• ·         origin of tarot and
• ·         the use of tarot

We will expand the knowledge about tarot in the future articles. So, stay tuned.