General Info

Tarot cards are a key tool in the intuitive readers collection. Find out what to expect from a reading with Groupons introduction. Instead of wondering how tarot-card readings tell the future, a more appropriate question might be how tarot cards help us see the possibilities for the futureand make better decisions with that information. For many non-mediums, reading tarot is more an exercise in generating new understandings of ones life situation than in fortunetelling. It begins with the questioner. After he or she has set a goal for the sessionand has perhaps shuffled the deck of cards while thinking of a questionthe reader lays the cards out in one of many patterns, or spreads, and interprets the cards that come up. A standard deck contains 78 cards comprising 22 major arcana cards and 56 minor arcana cards, the latter being grouped, like playing cards, into suitsfor instance, cups relate to emotions, whereas pentacles hold sway over the physical world. In fact, its thought that the modern tarot deck first served in a game similar to bridge in 15th-century Italy; what are now the major arcana then functioned as a sort of fifth suit of trumps. Appropriately enough given this history, the major arcana take precedence over the minor arcana during a reading. These cards, bearing symbols such as The Fool, The Lovers, or Death, represent universal concepts and big life changes, though their meanings are not always as straightforward as their names may seem. The artists illustrations of these symbols can vary widely between decks, in a long tradition that stretches from decks custom-made for ruling families of the Renaissance to todays profusion of cards decorated with steampunk-style drawings or Lord of the Rings characters. In any case, the same card can mean different things depending on its position in the spread, as when a sworda symbol of conflictturns up in the present versus the future slot.