Tarot Card Reading Explained

The Tarot has entered an unprecedented boom period, with more than 300 tarot decks now in the market such as Rider –Waite (known as the traditional Tarot Cards), Waite-Smith clone - Universal Waite, Albano Waite, Golden Rider, Morgan Greer, Hanson Roberts, The Aquarian Tarot etc. Through these magical Tarot cards we can get direct answers to the questions most people ask about their daily lives, work, romance, finance, health, spirituality etc.

Any divination tool like astrology, I Ching, Runes, Medicine cards, sticks and bones etc. is best used with the understanding that nothing is inscribed in stone. Your free will endows you with the power to write the scripts that you live, to change from what you don’t like, to create what you like. You set the course of your life – not the tool, not the reader, not the destiny.

The spreads are the heart of tarot and they create the stories the cards tell and depict reoccurring that are visible and invisible, obvious and hidden. When the cards are drawn, you can get a clear picture of how your life exists in the present moment and how it is most likely to evolve based on your present pattern changes which in turn end up with different cards. In this way tarot and other divination systems are a way to track what is going on inside yourself or the persons for whom you are reading.

The beauty of the tarot however is its visual language which is a major difference from other divination systems. The artwork on the deck speaks directly to that part of us that lives and breathes in an archetypal world. Tarot is therefore an internal made manifest.

To get systematic knowledge in tarot reading the best cards to use are the Rider-Waite tarot deck that has 78 cards which are divided into the major arcane (22) and the minor arcane (56). Think of the majors as Archetypal events, Big issues that concern character and destiny whereas Minors are concerned with circumstances and behavior and illustrate how the energy of the majors manifests in your daily life.

The majors, numbered from 0 to 21 are ports in the journey that begins with the wildly innocent enthusiasm of the Fool and ends with the sophistication and knowledge of the World. These are the most powerful cards in the Deck. Sometimes the majors tell you all you need to know to understand the dynamics in a person’s life.

The Minors arcane are divided into four suits viz; Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles. They correspond to the 4 elements or the four personality types as well as the four seasons. The suits are the DNA of the minor arcane - the building blocks. Each suit is numbered from 1 to 10. The pips or numbered cards represent the patterns which the archetypes weave into our lives. The Court cards usually represent the people or behavior patterns.

The archetypes often manifest through startling co-incidences, which we called synchronicities (ref: The Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung). For when we toss the coins of I-Ching or lay out spreads of the cards, they form a pattern intrinsic to that moment. The pattern, as Jung points out, is meaningful only if you are able to read and verify the interpretation through your knowledge of the subjective and objective situations, as well as the unfolding of subsequent events.

Most of us experience synchronicities that we tend to shrug them off as meaningless until we understand their importance in the overall schemes of things. However as physicist David Bohm suggests, all things are connected at the quantum level, then we did better pay attention to these apparent coincidences as they alert us to a certain pattern that are operating in our lives. The word “fortune-telling” has a bad rep. I feel forecasting is a much respectable word. The truth is that regardless of which term you prefer we are all curious about what tomorrow may bring to us.

There are certain cards you will detest and dread like “Tower Card" and “Death Card” and on the other hand there are certain cards u will love and welcome like “The Magician” and “The Sun”. The fact is we need to accept and appreciate both type of cards with due sincerity and optimism. The cards are attracted to a person’s current thoughts and beliefs which create the future. The cards provide insight into the direction of relationship, careers, finances, health and other areas. When the cards are not indicating future in the desired direction one can change the future by taking the first step into self –awareness and empowerment. The more conscious we are the more clearly we perceive how we can reach our full potential. The clearer something appears to us, the better we are equipped to change the behaviors and patterns that block the attainment of what we want.

The Rider – Waite cards have certain sharp cards that can depict events according to your life pattern and behavior whereas Angel cards have no frightening cards. The Angels are Guardians of Virtue and are the loving and nurturing ones. The Romance Angel card gives us a microscopic view focused on matters related to love matters. Anyone can invoke and call upon their Angelic presence and ask for guidance and help for upliftment of their life in general.

Please remember that in life, even a blade of grass has its own Guardian Angels that encourage it to grow, grow and grow further. They give you clear and accurate guidance, they also give you information on how to overcome your behavior that makes you attract certain unhealthy events and pattern in your life.

 I feel tarot is a tool through which we experience visual depiction of the synchronicity in its purest form. It is you turned inside out and therefore we need to use it wisely as it is merely a tool among many that allows us to travel through the labyrinth of what makes us human.

It is a special tool that helps us to simplify the complexities of our life and future. It is our curiosity to know more that makes us human and Tarot answers them to symbolic reflections.

The Angels are Guardians of Virtue; however please note that people with instability and imbalance of mind should not touch tarots for seeking answers for others as it will not give an accurate account as it will reflect the mind of the tarot reader.

Always with you on your journey to be a healer.

Shilpa Savant Inamdar