Pick a card any card....

In last night's blog I briefly mentioned forms of divination that require you to look outside yourself for answers. One famous form of this is the reading of tarot cards. A deck of tarot cards contains 78 cards; 22 major arcana, such as the fool, the devil, temperance, and the hanged man and 66 minor arcana which includes the lords, ladies, knights, and knaves. These cards are divided into four suits cups (for emotion and water), wands (intellect and air), coins (money duh lol and earth), and swords (justice and fire). There are numerous different decks. The one that is the most popular and most suitable for beginners is the Rider-Waite deck (see picture above on the left). Some more famous ones include the Allister Crowley deck and the Mason deck, but there are uncountable others. There are decks with fairy pictures, decks with dolphins, decks with wolves....you get the picture. The reader shuffles the cards he or she has chosen to use then draws a set number of cards and lays them out in a certain pattern, both of these things depend on the type of layout you are using. The types of layouts available are almost as numerous as the types of decks. Two of the more popular ones are the Celtic Cross spread and the Eliphas Levi Wheel spread. Once you have mastered the cards you can even begin to design your own layouts. Interpretation of the cards is based not only on the symbols found on the card's face, but also on the cards position in referance to the rest of the layout. Using the cards you can predict someone's overall future or you can focus on answering a specific question. More forms of divination to come tomorrow....see ya then :)