Welcome to Tarot Card Meanings Online.
Whatever your reason for finding your way here, you’re welcome!
This site began as a straight-forward tarot blog at http://tarotcardmeanings.qarf.com (and thanks to all the great comments posted about the old site), but we ran out of space quite rapidly and decided there was a lot more we wanted to do with the site. So we’ve set up a number of different tabs – subjects people search for with regard to tarot – and have been moving the articles into those sections. The articles are cross-referenced, so you may find you’re re-reading entries; but I’ll try and rationalise them as far as possible so there’s not much duplication.
I am still working on interpretations of the full deck – I think I got as far as The Lovers – and then got sidetracked into numerology. I’ll be back to the interpretations as soon as I’ve finished the face cards. I’m also planning reviews of decks and books – at present I’m wading through Origins of the Tarot by Dai Leon, a 2″ tome which will keep me busy for a while. And I’ll review the 100th Anniversary Rider Waite when I can get hold of one!
Meanwhile, I thought I’d begin with tackling some of the more popular myths one hears about the Tarot…
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There are a number of misconceptions about the tarot, usually held by people who have heard some garbled story from a third party. They will never have had a reading but are happy to air their views to anyone who will listen (and quite a few who don’t want to but can’t avoid it). There’s no use trying to reason with such people, so these comments are for those who are a sceptical (perhaps), but open-minded, and would like to know more.
1) The Tarot is evil.
Wrong. The Tarot is powerful, yes. It speaks directly to your unconscious, and the imagery is archetypal and certainly sometimes disturbing – but essentially the Tarot is a mirror: it reflects what is inside you. Thus anyone who considers it evil is merely projecting evil from themselves onto the cards.
Like any powerful tool, you can abuse the Tarot – by becoming addicted to it or obsessively repeating the same question (in which case you may well find that it can get really tetchy). If, however, you treat it with respect, study and use the cards for self-awareness, you will soon discover that the Tarot represents a profound and transformational spiritual journey.
2) You have to be psychic to read the Tarot.
Wrong. All you have to be is intelligent and able to understand pictures (an integral gift for all humanity: we dream in pictures, so – while our schools work hard to make us forget how to do it – you probably will find it easier than you think).
3) You should always be given a Tarot deck: you should never buy one for yourself.
Unless you’ve told the person exactly what tarot to buy, a tarot gift pack is usually one that sits unused in a drawer. The best way to find a deck you can actually use is to go to a good esoteric shop which has samples, and look at every card. The pack that speaks to you, that you love, is the one you need to buy.
4) The Tarot tells you the future
The cards can and do foretell the future. However, we can also change our lives by the way we think, by the decisions we take, and outside circumstances over which we have little control. So it is best to consider the cards as suggesting possibilities, of indications of what you need to be aware of, and sometimes, old patterns of thought we need to alter.
5) The Tarot came from Ancient Egypt
No-one knows where the Tarot originated. There are scores of different theories; unfortunately the truth is lost in time. It is unlikely to have come from Ancient Egypt (though it’s a nice story); one of my favourite ideas linked them with the remnants of the Templars, though that’s also unlikely as the knights had been killed and scattered some two centuries before. The Major Arcana might have been designed as part of the Mystery Plays (which had huge floats decorated with archetypal figures such as The Devil, The Pope, and the Emperor, Justice, Prudence, Temperance, etc). Prominent artists such as Leonardo da Vinci are known to have designed complex floats for these plays.
However, no-one knows where the Minors – which are like ordinary playing cards – came from. The latter are first mentioned in 1377, the Majors in 1415. The two sets were first amalgamated around the 1500s. The first decks we know of were beautifully illuminated – the Visconti Tarot is a good example.
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