Mystical Angels

What are tarot cards and how are they used?

Please only serious and informed answers, whether or not you believe in the qualities of tarot cards or not. I am only curious myself. What are tarot cards exactly, and how are they used? Is it easy to learn, and are tarot cards 'universal', or are there many different types? Do they have connotations with evil, like the Ouija board, or are they seen as being purely benign? How much does a set cost- is it a cheap undertaking to learn tarot? Any help welcome. Thanks.

Public Comments

1. http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/ They can be used for divination or as a psychological tool. They aren't "evil". Learning tarot is more costly in terms of your time than cost. I would recommend purchasing the book that accompanies the deck as it will help break down the symbolic meanings of the pictures on the cards. For the cards & book the cost runs approximately $40.
2. Hello Tarot are a wonderful tool for psychic development, personal growth, meditation, guidance & insight. Tarot are tarot, but there are many different decks all with different themes. Some folk see them as evil, but like the Ouija they are tools, & evil lies within the hearts & minds of mankind. I have studied for over 20 years, they are not mastered over night. I run a Tarot course http://www.holisticpathstowisdom.co.uk/courses.htm as well as have an online community with lots of tarot folk http://www.holisticpathstowisdom.co.uk/forum Sadhara.
3. Tarot cards are a method of holding a person's attention while you guess about them. They are best used as chic candy- which is their other name and best use, women love psychic crap.
4. Never tried to buy any so I don't know about the cost but I believe you can buy books about it try Amazon. They just another bit of nonsense that charlatans use to try and convince people they can foretell the future or whatever. It is all nonsense of course but some people are very good at it.
5. they are cheaper on ebay but can start from 10.00 generally tarot cards are basically cards with pictures which allow you insight into a current situation past or future there are a lot of misconceptions with them e.g. they cant tell you that you are going to die you can learn the meanings from a book but there are so many meanings i often use my book to do readings for myself they are not evil they are just misunderstood most fortune telling things are considered evil becasue of the way christianity and other people have described them they are safe and simply to use really they dont tell you that you are going to die they just give you insights into your life the death card means the end of a situation not death itself after all death was never supposse to be looked on as evil
6. Well, let's look at what tarot cards are and where they came from first. Playing cards arrived in Europe via the Islamic world in the mid 14th century. These early cards, known as the Malmuk cards had the same structure as our regular playing cards today, that is, four regular suits, each with 10 pip cards and three court cards. The original suit signs were cups, coins, swords, and polo sticks. Polo was an unknown game in Europe at the time, so these became batons. These suits are now known as the Latin suits and all Europe used them - though they are now only used by Latin countries. The court cards were a King, a Rider, and a Footman. All male court cards are still used in Latin suits, as well as the German and Swiss packs. The Queen makes her first appearance in a Milanese pack that features six courts in each suit, a male and a female of each rank. Two of the extra courts were dropped and for a time the 56 card pack was standard in the region. It was to this pack that an extra suit of picture cards was added in the mid 15th century. They were commissioned by Duke Filipo Visconti as part of the celebrations for his daughter, Bianca Visconti's marraige into the Sforza family. They took as their theme a traditional Christian triumph procession. Hence they were called trionfi, meaning triumphs, and from which we get our word trump - it was the invention of tarot that marked the invention of trumps in card games! The game later took the name Tarocchi, from the old Italian Tarocus, meaning to play the fool. This name became Tarock in other countries with only France dropping the gutteral at the end to make Tarot. The game of tarot quickly spread and diversified and was at one time the most popular form of card game throughout continental Europe! In the early 18th century, German playing card makers began to produce French suited packs with new trumps featuring arbitrary trump designs. The French suits were much cheaper to produce, requiring only stencils rather than carved wood block and the new trumps allowed card makers to show off their skills in a time of great competition. These cards are now used for most of the games, with France being the last to adopt them in the early 20th century. Toward the end of the 18th century, occultist and resident of Paris, Antoine Court de Gabelin wrote an article on tarot cards for his Encyclopaedia, The Primitive World. He declared that the cards were the codified wisdom of ancient Egyptian priests, essentially a series of hieroglyphs that were much in vogue at the time. He offered no evidence for his theory but it became a popular myth. For about a century, the occult tarot and divination with the cards was only known in France, it was not until members of the Golden Dawn, who based much of their occult beliefs on the cards, began to import them, publish translations of the French texts, and redesign them specifically for occult practice, that the myth reached the English speaking world. Today, English speakers continue to know the cards for their occult myths and, of course, the fortune telling. However, Europe continues to play an impressive range of card games with them. France, Austria, and Hungary maintain particularly strong tarot game tradition as does Bologna in Italy, where they play a particular good form of the game called Ottocento. The games are largely what we call point-trick games. That means that like whist, bridge, and spades, players win cards in tricks. Unlike those games, different cards carry different point values, so that it is not the number of tricks you take that wins the game but the number of card points you win in them. Tarot has no occult origin, the church never took offence at the cards because they were recognised as Christian. Looked at with modern eyes some of the old designs look mysterious, even heretical - but examined in context of when they were created we get a different picture. For example, the Female Pope raises a lot of questions and yet in the 15th century she was a common figure in Christian art, symbolising things like the New Covenent and the virtue of Faith. The Hanged Man also has received attention, suspended by one foot! Yet it Italy, this card was called The Traitor - and that's how they killed traitors, hung by one foot and left to die slowly and publically. No mystery at all - just a very good family of card games!