Inner Shift

The tarot (also known as tarocchi, tarock or similar names) is typically a set of seventy-eight cards, composed of twenty-one trump cards, one Fool, and four suits of fourteen cards each—ten pip and four face cards (one more face card per suit than in Anglo-American playing cards).

Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play Tarot card games such as Italian Tarocchini and French Tarot. In English-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards are utilized primarily for divinatory purposes, with the trump cards plus the Fool card making up the twenty-two major arcana cards and the pip and four face cards the fifty-six minor arcana. The terms Major Arcana and Minor Arcana are used in occult tarot and are seldom used by card players. The divinatory meanings of the cards are derived mostly from the Kabbalah of Jewish mysticism and from Medieval Alchemy.

Occult tarot and divination

Tarot reading revolves around the belief that the cards can be used to gain insight into the current and possible future situations of the subject (or querent), i.e. cartomancy. Some believe they are guided by a spiritual force, such as Gaia, while others believe the cards help them tap into a collective unconscious or their own creative, brainstorming subconscious.

Common card interpretations

Each card has a variety of symbolic meanings that have evolved over the years. The many of the interpretations bear striking similarity to philosophy found in the Kabbalah or in Alchemy. Custom or themed tarot decks exist which have even more specific symbolism, although these are more prevalent in the English-speaking world. These are frequently created by amateur philologists who believe that they have a new insight into the proper analysis of the texts of Kabbalah and Alchemy. The literature specifies elements which must be present in each card for the deck to be proper Tarot. Artists are free to represent these elements in any they choose, and they usually try to draw the picture in such a way as to reveal a new truth. One example of how detailed they can get is the Major Arcana card The Moon. This card has several elements including a crawfish (or lobster), which is usually drawn very small, but is rarely omitted. Each card has several meanings, and the reader determines which meaning to apply based on the card’s location in the spread and which cards are turned up around it. Common sense is also used to discard meanings which have no relevance to the question asked.

Minor Arcana

The Minor Arcana closely match Anglo-American playing cards, having Ace-through-Ten and four face cards. The face cards are Page, Knight, Queen, and King. Each suit of the Minors corresponds to one of the four Alchemical Elements. Pentagrams corresponds with Earth, Swords with Air, Wands with Fire and Cups with water. The Face cards also correspond to the Elements. The Page is Earth, the Knight is Air, the Queen is Water, and the King is Fire. This makes the Page of Pentagrams, the Knight of Swords, the Queen of Cups and the King of wands very strong cards.

Major Arcana

The Major Arcana are a set of twenty-two cards, numbered zero to twenty-one, with no suit. There are usually many more elements in the images specified by the literature for this set of cards. These cards are often interpreted as describing the normal progression of a truly holy life, and often tell where a person is along their journey, or if they have strayed. Such an interpretation is called the “Fool’s Journey” and it originated with Eden Gray.

Source: Wikipedia

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