Starting Tarot Part I - What is Tarot?
As the second decade of the 21st century draws to a close, interest in mysticism and the occult seems to grow exponentially.Ā
Iāve an article devoted to beginner resources for those wishing to begin a journey into witchcraft. With this surge of interest in the magic comes an equally-strong wave of new diviners. As always, Tarot is a perennially-popular method of divination.Ā
This article inaugurates a short series Iāll be posting, all about taking the first steps into Tarot!Ā
So, lets begin with a simple questionā¦
What is Tarot? What makes a Tarot deck what it is?
All Tarot decks have a certain basic structure. In the distant past, when the Tarot developed, decks often had a more fluid structure. Nowadays, though, the Tarot tends to almost always follow this structure. You can divide the deck into five basic sections or āsuits.āĀ
First, we have the Major Arcana. These consist of twenty-two evocatively-named cards. They include such famous ones as The Tower, The Lovers, and The Fool. These are the most well-known and recognizable Tarot cards in the popular mind.Ā
Some readers tend to give more āweightā to the Major Arcana in a reading. I generally agree with this perspective. After all, the Major Arcana cards all represent momentous ideas, events, and people.
Each Major Arcana card corresponds to many different occult concepts. For example, card I - The Magician, corresponds to the element of Air as well as the planet Mercury. It also has myriad other associations that you can read about in various books.Ā
These correspondences create a link between Tarot and other occult systems. These include astrology, Hermeticism, and other systems. Iāll discuss this in more depth later on, in another article.Ā
Trust me, though - it is perfectly possible to read Tarot without that sort of knowledge. If it interests you, though, it is worth a look and may well make things easier!
After the Major Arcana, thereās the Minor Arcana. These are a set of four suits, each featuring ten numbered cards and four ācourtā or face cards (such as King of Wands).Ā
These suits correspond to the four classical elements. They embody the gamut of the elementsā expression in the universe. If youāre not familiar with the four elements, Iāve got some articles on that here.Ā In short, though, the suits of the Minor Arcana are:
The Suit of Wands, usually associated with the element of Fire, the human Will and creative spark.
The Suit of Swords, corresponding to the element of Air, the intellect, and communication.
The Suit of Cups, associated with the element of Water, emotions, the heart, and romance.
The Suit of Pentacles, corresponding to the element of Earth, physicality, embodiment, health, and prosperity.
Some decks swap the elemental correspondences for Wands and Swords. The ubiquitous Waite-Smith deck uses the above associations, though. Some diviners have strong personal preference for one or the other. If that is the case, choose a deck that reflects that, even if not traditional!
Beyond these elemental associations, each Minor Arcana card has an astrological association, too! For example, the Six of Swords corresponds to the planet Mercury in the constellation of Aquarius.
As I noted above, you donāt have to know astrology or any similar system like that to read the cards. It can be helpful for some readers, but not all! I do recommend all Tarot newbies learn the basics of the four elements, though. Understanding them does make reading the cards much easier in the long run!
Some folks refer to the Minor Arcana as āpipā cards, but that doesnāt make them unimportant! While they tend to represent more transient matters than the Major Arcana, they still have a lot to tell us!Ā
Some decks (particularly pre-Waite-Smith decks) feature āunillustratedā pips. These cards only feature images of the suit symbols (ie, ten swords on the Ten of Swords).Ā
Some readers find such decks less evocative and difficult to read. Others feel that unillustrated pip cards allow deeper engagement with the cardsā numerology. If you think youāve a preference for one or the other, be sure to look for a deck with that feature.
Many decks used for divination do not have this structure, and thus are not Tarot decks. Some good examples of non-Tarot decks include the Lenormand deck, the Minchiate, and various modern oracle decks.
This doesnāt make them less meaningful or somehow invalid. It simply means that they operate outside of the Tarot paradigm. A lot of those decks are great in their own way, but distinct from Tarot.
You can find this and all other articles in this series ghost-tagged as #startingtarot on my blog - click here for that!
Expect several more installments in this series (I think five?), each building on the previous, to give you a general introduction to Tarot and becoming a diviner!
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
dededos
2087
izzy806
yousharknotpass
