Hello, tarot reading? help?

Question

hello im really interested as a hobby in learning how to use tarot cards and learn their meanings etc, so im going to invest in some cards but i dont know how many in a complete set there should be or how to work out how to use them and where can i find extensive ,detailed information on the meanings of the cards?

any advice would be welcomed

thank you!

Answer 1

Hello

Join the forum below - lots of us tarot folk there - some new like you - others veterans!

A deck has 78 cards, two decks placed together. The Major Arcana/22cards & the Minor Arcana/78 cards.

Go for a deck that you feel drawn to!

Sadhara

Answer 2

Well, the story of tarot goes back about five and a half centuries in Milan where they were created for the Duke's court as a card game.

The number of cards and even some of the subject on the trumps showed some variation during the early years (there is one theory that the original pack consisted of 5 suits of 14 cards each).

An early pack, that is thought to at least be a pre-cursor to tarot, if not an early example, consists of the regular four suits and a suit of 16 trumps featuring the Greek gods. One of the old Visconti packs has eighty cards, with a number of extra courts.

The cards we are most familiar with as tarot consist of 78 cards. There are four regular suits of cups, coins, swords, and batons (these were the first playing card suits in Europe and are still used in many countries), each suit has four court cards, a King, a Queen, a Cavalier, and a Page. It is the Queen who is the extra court here, not the Cavalier who was one of the original court cards and is still found in Italian and Spanish playing cards.

Then there is a fifth suit of 21 extra cards, which took as their theme a traditional triumph procession. Hence they were called trionfi, meaning triumphs, and from which we get the word trump - tarot marked the invention of trumps in card games. There is then an extra card known as the Fool, that functioned very differently to the trumps.

There are some notable deviations from the standard pattern. The first worth noting is the minchiate, a Florentine pack of 97 cards made by adding some extra trumps. This game became very popular and is recorded as being played as far away as New Orleans in the 19th century.

Another deviation is the Tarocco Bolognese made up of 62 cards - a pack reduced by subtracting some of the pip cards. There are important differences in the trumps however, where the Empress, Popess, Emperor, and Pope are replaced by four equally ranking cards called the four moors. This pack, also known as the Tarocchino, is not much seen outside of Bologna, where it is used to play an excellent family of games which include the great Ottocento.

Next, there is the Tarocco Siciliano, a small pack (about the size of a patience pack) of 64 cards, and has unusual trumps, including an unnumbered card, the beggar, which ranks below the 1 of trumps.

While the Italian suits and trumps are still used for games in Italy, Sicily, and Switzerland, in the rest of Europe the cards are split into two families. Those that use the Italian titles tend, though not always exclusively, to be used for fortune telling, while the games are played with French suited packs whose trumps are double sided and feature very different images from those you would recognize as being tarot.

France, Switzerland, and Denmark use full 78 card French suited packs for games, while the largest family of games uses a French suited pack reduced to just 54 cards by removing pips.

Well, that's the story of how many cards there are in the pack - sorry it was so long!

The cards didn't become linked to the occult or divination until the very end of the 18th century.

The meanings of the cards for fortune telling vary greatly. There are three broad traditions for card designs and meanings, those using the old Marseilles pattern (originally created for game play, so the pip cards are not illustrated in the way the trumps are) drawing meaning from the French 19th century occultists. Then there are those from the pack designed by Arthur Edward Waite and created by the artist Pamela Coleman Smith. Finally, there are those designed by Alastair Crowley, painted by Lady Frieda Harris.

However, these days, the choice of designs are less based upon occult systems and the meanings will vary according to the many, many designs that are to be found. The truth is, you probably won't find two books that will give you exactly the same meanings for divination. In fact, there are many fortune tellers who don't use them at all, instead they read intuitively, finding a story in the images of the cards.

Answer 3

First, there aren't 52 or 72 cards in a mainstream tarot deck -- there are 78.  (four suits, 14 cards per suit (there's an extra face card), plus 22 Trump cards = 78 cards.)

Decks will come with a Little White Book (also known as the LWB) -- it's a brief pamphlet that you shouldn't spend too much time with.  Instead, visit a bookstore (used is good -- so is Amazon) and look for a good introductory Tarot book.  My favorite is "78 Degrees of Wisdom" by Rachel Pollack.  Don't by anything by A.E. Waite or (and it pains me to say this) Eden Gray.  Gray is a pioneer and trailblazer for modern tarot -- but her books aren't much better than the LWB's that come with the decks.

Next, I agree 100% with the Rider-Waite-Smith suggestion.  Many -- likely more than half -- tarot decks (there are 100's)  follow this convention of having "scenes" on the Ace through 10 cards.  These scenes offer visual cues that help you delve into the deeper meanings of the card -- makes it much easier to remember or figure out what the card means to you at a specific time in relation to the other cards in the spread.

Finally, begin by drawing a two cards spread every day -- try to make them form a "sentence" or a "thought for the day" by reading them as 1st card = "subject", 2nd card = "verb".  You can add a third card as the "object" if you feel up to it.  KEEP A JOURNAL (uppercase intended!) -- write down your impressions and interpretations of the cards and the reading.  Doesn't have to be long -- but does have to be enough to force you to think about the cards and how they interplay.

As you continue with your journal, you'll become more familiar with the cards and their meanings, plus you'll become better at linking cards together to form "readings".  Before too long, you won't need to keep the books nearby to help you with the interpretations -- you'll see how the imagery brings out the interpretations for you.

Answer 4

when you buy your tarot cards there will be a book in with the pack contaning all the imformation you need and there are 54 cards in a pack of tarot if you eant any more imformation on it google it and it should come up with all the imformation your after hope ive helped

Answer 5

Hi...

If you would like to learn tarot my advice would be to:

-buy the rider-waite tarot deck to start. (You can buy them off of amazon.com or at most book stores like barnes and noble)

Most beginner classes and books use the rider-waite deck, so you will prolly need to buy this deck anyway.

-I strongly suggest that you try to find a class on tarot in your area.  You can call a new aged bookstore and they may be able to tell you where some classes are.

-Whether you can find a class or not buy as many tarot books as you can.  You can buy used books off amazon.com for cheap.  I look for books that have high star ratings and good reviews.  (You cannot go by the book that you get w/your deck)

-Normally there are 78 (the others are right) cards in the deck, but this varies from deck to deck.

-As far as learning the cards that is something that will take sometime.  Practice is really the best way to learn tarot.

If you would like some help or have more questions I would be happy to help you if you would like to e-mail me :)

Good Luck

Answer 6

For the meanings of each Tarot card along with Tarot spread, Tarot layouts and tips for beginners, try http://www.discover-the-meaning-of-tarot...

Many decks will come with an information booklet but some are much more detailed than others.