Credits
Copyright Notice
TAROT MADE SIMPLE
by
Michael Ambazac
Copyright ©2013 Shelfless Ltd
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Introduction To Tarot
Why Learn Tarot
THERE ARE AS many reasons to learn tarot as there are people in the world. Everyone who uses it gets something unique from the experience. That said, there are of course some common reasons for reading the cards. In writing this book I quizzed lots of people about their use of tarot. Here are some of the reasons they gave for learning it:
I had just gone through a divorce and I decided to learn to read the tarot in order to find some direction to my life. Tarot has the uncanny ability to give people hope, when they feel there is no hope.
- Katherine
I've always been drawn to the artistic representations of the cards. My first tarot reading was so accurate that it piqued my interest in it much further.
- Joy
I started reading the tarot cards more than forty years ago so that I could make sense of things that were happening in my life and others. I gave thousands of readings or guidance over the years to help people know what direction to go with in their lives, relationships, health, spiritual issues and other insights from the unseen world that were revealed in the spreads. My experience of the readings that I have both done and been given is a source of validation, guidance and often comfort - that it won't get worse sometimes.
- Suzanne
My girlfriend thought a tarot reading might be interesting. She had a private reading, then I had one. I was told that I was going to go into business with a partner and that we'd hit it big. My girlfriend was told that she was going to be the mother of three. I didn't realise that the reading was valid until about eight years later when my (now wife) had our third child, and the business that I formed as a temporary income source started paying me very well. The business is now twenty two years old.
- Bob
I was always fascinated with the art. I used to go to a metaphysical/spiritual church in San Francisco where they read cards after the service. I was hooked. I started reading, studying, and taking classes on everything to do with spirit and the tarot.
- Micheline
Tarot is a means to speak with deeper aspects of your mind to get additional information to guide decision-making and give the big picture of what is going on. It gives me an intuitive perspective to augment my rational decision-making processes, which has helped expand my perspective to take in factors that I might not otherwise consider.
- George
For some, tarot is a very personal thing, used to bring clarity and guidance to day to day life. For others, it’s a big gun, brought out only when there is a major problem or obstacle to be overcome. Some people see tarot as their calling, a way to help others by giving advice, lighting a path to a better way. And for some, tarot is a business, a service they can charge for, like unblocking a drain or fixing a car.
Whatever your motivation for learning the tarot, I think you’ll find it brings you personal benefits beyond anything you might already hope for. Once you discover the true power held by a little deck of illustrated cards, you never stop finding ways to harness it, to use it for good.
What's In This Book
Before we get stuck into how to read tarot, I want to give you an overview of what we’re going to learn. Our journey together will make more sense if we know where it is we are headed.
To start us off we’ll take a top level look at the tarot, both the main concepts as well as some of the terminology used. The rest of the book will make much more sense if you understand the terms I’m using. Then we’ll take an in depth look at the major arcana cards, the twenty two cards at the very heart of the tarot deck. After that we will explore the minor arcana, cards which are minor in name only! With a good understanding of the cards under our belt we’ll be able to look at how to read them through the use of spreads. We’ll round off by looking at how you can take your tarot reading further, making your own personalised spreads, and even charging money to read for other people should you so desire.
A Brief History of Tarot
Tarot, as far as we know, first appeared in Italy in the fifteenth century. It is likely that it was around long before then, but that’s where we find the first real solid evidence of its existence in the form of tarot card decks. It is surely no coincidence that the fifteenth century saw the invention of the printing press, making the creation and distribution of cards far easier and more cost effective than could ever have been possible before.
Back then the cards weren’t used primarily for divination (although it seems there were already some occult connections being formed) they were simply a card game, just like a regular 52 card deck is used purely for gaming nowadays. Indeed as we’ll see, today’s 52 card pack is a direct descendant of the tarot deck.
Tarot next pops up in history around the eighteenth and nineteenth century when scholars began to connect the rich imagery in the cards with a number of mythologies. Those early connections are at the root of current tarot methods.
How Does Tarot Work?
Tarot cards are a tool for getting answers to questions, but where do those answers come from? There are two schools of thought on this subject. One is pretty indisputable, the other a little more controversial. The first theory says that the answers come from infinite intelligence, or the universe, or - if you are religious - an all powerful all knowing deity (although to be fair, most people keep tarot and religion very separate, and I don't intend to raise the subject again). There are a number of theories about how infinite intelligence works. One suggests that all knowledge past and present is in some way bound up in the fabric of the universe, and that tools like the tarot can somehow connect to that information and display it to us. Others believe that all living things are connected, perhaps through morphic fields or some other as yet undiscovered subatomic energy network. In this scenario we are accessing a kind of hive mind. Somewhere somewhere knows the answer, and tarot is a way of getting at it, a bit like Googling the internet. I'm not going to argue either way about infinite intelligence, it's entirely up to you to believe what you want about such matters. There is not really any proof of it, but lack of proof is not proof of lack of existence.
The second school of thought on how tarot works is that it is simply a means of tapping your intuition, your subconscious mind. In other words you yourself already have all the answers within you, the cards are simply a way to draw them out. The human brain is an incredible thing. At any one time it is processing lots of different tasks, from managing the systems of your body to maintaining awareness of your surroundings, all while focussing on whatever you happen to be doing. It is constantly being bombarded with information, far more than it can reasonably deal with. If it tried to make sense of every input available to it all of the time, we would go mad within seconds, suffering an information meltdown. Instead, a series of filters block out most of this incoming data, only letting through what appears to be pertinent at the time. It’s like a vast network of security cameras, constantly watching what is happening all around. When anything interesting or out of the ordinary occurs, the network alerts a controller who takes a closer look. In the case of your brain, the controller is your conscious mind. Here's the thing though, the rest of that data isn't lost, it has to be examined at some level in order to actually be filtered. It's all there, somewhere, we just can't get to it. At least, not consciously. Instead, it's stored away in the vast unending archives of the subconscious, just like the cameras store all the images they capture on banks of recording machines. Recent estimates by neuroscientists suggest that between 95% and 99% of our brainpower is devoted to the subconscious, organising, processing, collating, and examining information. Imagine that! You have almost
