The High Priestess
Tarot cards have been given many associations over the years. They were created by the Egyptians. NO! It was the Rom as they moved North in their travels! NO! It was the Golden Dawn Society. Wait! Wasn’t it the Hell Rake club of late Victorian nobility?
Actually, it was none of those. Tarot began as a card game among the aristocracy of the European Continent, primarily Italy. It is believed that at one time the great houses of the time competed with each other to have the most beautiful deck created for their Houses. The game was a card game of strategy and skill, played by numerous players and could provide a rainy afternoon’s entertainment at an Italian Villa! The oldest known deck in existence, the Visconti-Sforza deck, dates back to the 1500s.
Today the Tarot isn’t used much to play the card game anymore as much as it is used in Cartomancy. The Tarot has made several permutations over the years, but the archetypes they represent can call to all of us. Used primarily as a self-introspection device, the Tarot can be an extremely instructive tool. A caution here: I do not recommend that you read for yourself on important matters. It is extremely difficult to separate your emotions from the reading…and those emotions will change how you interpret the cards. Most professional readers don’t read for themselves…personally, I just don’t do it.
The Tarot works under a simple system. Cards are picked or placed in a certain order. Where the card lands in the spread (or in the order drawn) gives that card a specific purpose. The cards each have a variety of meanings. The position of the card combined with its meaning is what gives the message in the reading. What brings the real message is the interpretation done by the tarot reader. Through years of study and experience, a good reader is able to fill in the blanks, see correlations that are not obvious, and help you to see through to a clarity of the situation or issue.
Jungian archtypes are present in Tarot. While we may not want to admit it, we are more like one another than we are different. There are many stages of life or basic life experiences that we all share to a certain degree. This mutual experience across the lives of us all create a basic connection through that mutual sharing. That connection is part of the energy we call have which is how many who work with energy are able do know without knowing and see without seeing.
There’s a wide variety of decks based on differing religious belief systems, angles, dragons, and even movies or fiction books. On our website we use the Matt Myers Art Nouveau Tarot. Thanks to US Games Systems Inc. for the use of the images – if you decide to purchase your own deck, we strongly recommend US Games Systems Inc. as your outlet if you want something new! If used is okay with you, there’s almost always a deck on e-bay for a considerably reduced price.
Some say that you should never let another person touch your tarot deck. Some instruct you to sleep with the deck under your pillow. Some recommend cleansing your deck by waving it through smoke or the heat just about the flame of a candle. Some say you must keep your tarot cards in a silk bag, preferably placed in a sacred box. If you feel any of these would be helpful in your learning and connection with the Tarot, then by all means do so. We all find our own path to how we feel about and use the Tarot. What is most important to know about Tarot is that in and of itself it is not evil. Have evil people used the tarot for their own ends? Absolutely. But in and of themselves they are neither good nor bad. Like most inanimate objects they just…are. It is the reader behind the cards that imbues the reading with the energy.
Me? I’ve got about 40 or 50 decks and have a list of others that I want to get. People touch my cards all the time – when doing pubic shows the client always has the choice to pick his or her own card. I encourage people to pick up the different decks, look a little closer, etc. I’ve slept with them on the headboard of my bed but that was because it was a small trailer and that was the best/safest place for them. Rather than “cleanse” the cards, I tend to “cleanse” the area with positive energy – I started doing that because a lot of public venues do not allow any type of flame or smoke. My cards are normally kept somewhere easy to find and close to hand in the office. They don’t live in a special box…they take up most of the inside of the drop-front secretary desk.
We’ll look at the individual cards, discussing each in depth – the meanings, symbology, and more here on Tarot Thursdays! I hope you’ll join me on a tour through the tarot.
