For those of you who don't know, the origins of Tarot are basically unknown. Some say it was based on cards from the Middle East brought home by travellers. Some people say the Tarot came out of Egypt. If you Google tarot history, you will find a lot of information.
Most are agreed that the cards were originally used to play a game called Tarocchi, or Taroch, touted to be an early form of Bridge. The images on the trumps of the Visconti Sforza deck, one of the earliest near-intact decks use images on the Trumps of religious figures used in festivals.
Tarocchi stayed around as a game in Europe for decades. The cards may also have been used for fortune telling, but such things waxed and waned with the opinions of the religious leaders in power.
Game or no game, the cards were around for a long time. Fortune tellers of all types used them, mostly for profit. In the mid 1800's a priest discovered peasants playing with a tarocchi deck, and Eliphas Levi (his nom de plum) spun a fantasy that the cards had been sent to us by the gods. Well, basically.
30 years later, a group called the Golden Dawn formed. Kind of a modern-day magical society.
Members of that group were required to make their own tarot deck as part of their initiation to the highest level of the order. So began modern tarot.
Tarot came and went as a fad, probably popular during times when spiritualism was "in" and not so popular when it was out.
In the 1960's, the young generation was looking for something new, something that didn't smack of their parents spirituality. A man named Stuart Kaplan found a copy of a Tarot deck at a toy fair, and brought it home as a gift to his kids. If you Google him, there are lots of articles with his story.
So, what does all this have to do with me?
I read a lot as a kid. I especially liked books with ghosts, psychic powers, mysterious happenings. I remember reading a "true" story about a destitute young man who was told by a card-reading fortune teller that he would become a duke someday. He ended up being French royalty. I was fascinated with the idea that it might be possible to use cards to to tell fortunes. I didn't necessarily believe the story, but that it was cool.
Also in my world, I watched the TV soap opera Dark Shadows (I was just a little kid - I can remember when it finally was in COLOR, LOL.) There were tarot cards there, too.
I started reading some adult books when I was eight or nine. My dad was also a voracious reader, and he would pass along books that he thought I would like. Along the way, one of the books he passed on to me was Roger Zelazney's Nine Princes in Amber series. Now, THERE were some cool and awesome tarot cards.
I knew I wanted cards for a few years before I got them. But all the cards I saw in stores were Marseilles decks, which had no appeal for me as a kid. All those decks seemed impenetrable for me.
Enter David Palladini's Aquarian Tarot.
One day, in the local bookstore we went to every Saturday, there was a new recently released Tarot deck in the locked cabinet. I was stunned. It was the deck I was looking for - modern, not old fashioned, with more than four colors, and up to date artwork.
If angel choruses ever sang, they would have sang for me that day in the bookstore.
It was 12.95, which was quite a sum in 1972, especially for an 11 year old. Approximately 59.00 in modern money.
My parents always encouraged my various interests, including my interest in tarot - so my dad made me a deal - if I could come up with half the money he'd split the cost with me.
I mowed lawns, I did extra chores, and slowly my money grew. Finally I had enough. The woman in the bookstore cautioned me that this was a serious thing I was getting into.
I knew.
I read my sisters fortune a lot. Oddly, I never read for my parents, or my brother - but as I got older I read for some friends. I didn't make a big deal of the fact I did tarot when I was a kid, and a teenager, but I didn't hide it, either.
When I met TS, he knew pretty much from the beginning. I would never have married anyone who disapproved of my tarot deck. Just like I would never have married someone religious, who didn't like animals.
What do I really think? Can I tell the future?
No. The future isn't fixed.
Do I think I'm psychic? Psychic is a strange word.
Some people think it means extra powers. Me, I think everyone has the power. That hunch you get to buy a lottery ticket, and you win ten bucks. Or having the urge to call a loved one all day, only to find out they've been taken ill.
I don't know where it comes from, or how it works. I'll leave that to the quantum physicists, who probably will figure it out someday. After they figure out how a proton can be in two or three places at the same time.
I do think sometimes we can tap into that extra sense.
I think that it could run stronger in some families, like red hair, or a crooked little finger.
If tarot cards help someone tap into that, excellent. But even if someone is as practical as dirt, tarot can still be useful. They are a way to examine things a little more closely. Ideas, ways of thinking about situations. The cards are archetypal - they represent symbols common to many humans.
Jung was a tarot reader, as were a couple of Catholic popes.
Some people feel they are evil - and that is their prerogative.
Make your own blog.
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