Hi Lovelies and welcome to Wicca Now. As you may already know Wicca Now is a site where Amaria and I write all about witchcraft, magick and Wicca. Recently we’ve been writing about kitchen witchery, we’ve compiled a list of our 10 favourite books for beginner witches and we’ve discussed moon magick and water magick.
Today I wanted to write about something that I practice on a daily basis: Tarot. You probably wouldn’t be reading this article if you weren’t already curious about tarot. You might be at a crossroads in your life and seeking guidance, you might have a relationship or career-related issue that you can’t quite seem to solve or maybe your curious about how tarot can be incorporated within your magickal witchy practice?
Whatever the reason you’re here, let’s dive right in a discuss some of the most important aspects of tarot so that you too can start exploring this wonderful divination tool.
A Brief History Of Tarot
Tarot can be traced back to the 15th century where the cards where first used throughout Europe in the form of common playing cards. During this time it appears that tarot was simply a parlour game and had little to do with fortune-telling or divination. Although the internet abounds with claims linking the tarot to ancient Egypt, the I Ching or the Kaballah little to no scholarly evidence appears to support this claim.
During the 18th century, tarot became increasingly popular as a method of fortune-telling and divination. It was during this time that the first custom decks were designed and the concept of tarot began to seriously diverge from its origins as a parlour game.
What Is A Tarot Deck?
A tarot deck usually consists of 78 cards. These 78 cards are divided into the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana is thought to represent greater secrets, the Minor Arcana smaller secrets.
The tarot deck functions as an oracle, allowing its user to predict aspects of the future that would otherwise remain obscured. The idea is that the cards provide access to hidden sources of knowledge, higher states of consciousness and divine inspiration. Just like other forms of divination such as runes, palmistry or working with a pendulum, the tarot essentially functions as a link between the conscious and the superconscious mind, between the material and the immaterial worlds and between the rational and the intuitive modes of thought.
If you’ve flipped a coin and hoped for an answer, felt uplifted by a pattern in the clouds, watched a birds path of flight to determine whether you should say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or opened a book and placed your finger on a paragraph in order to find an answer to a question, you’ve already worked with an oracle. Oracles exist all around us and many of us already work with oracles on a subconscious level.
The tarot is simply (in my opinion) a more effective and elegant form of an oracle. The gifts and insights that the tarot can offer us are available to all, right now at this moment and in all moments going forth. All we need to do is learn how to read the cards.
Common Tarot Decks
The most commonly used tarot decks are:
- The Tarot of Marseille
- The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck
- And the Thoth tarot deck
The Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck
Developed by Edward Arthur Waite, a noted 18th-century occultist, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck continues to be a hugely popular choice for many tarot enthusiasts. Both Waite and the artist who collaborated with Waite on the artwork for the deck were members of a mysterious Hermetic Order (The Golden Dawn) of which Waite became the Grand Master. Because of this, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck contains many magickal references to the Golden Dawn, something that adds to its esoteric appeal.
The cool thing about Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck is that the cards contain an element of story-telling. This allows the meaning of the cards to be depicted pictorially meaning the user can intuitively ‘sense’ what the cards are about. Being able to work with the tarot deck on a more intuitive level without having to constantly refer to a manual has made this deck incredibly popular.
The Thoth Tarot
This tarot deck is kinda controversial with people either loving it or hating it. Created under the direction of the English occultist and ‘bad boy’ Aleister Crowley, the Thoth tarot deck is vibrantly coloured and draws on a wide range of esoteric and mystical symbols and imagery. Aleister Crowley also changed the names of some of the cards which some people find confusing.
The Tarot Of Marseilles
The Tarot of Marseilles is the oldest and most traditional tarot deck available. Thought to have evolved directly from the tarot decks of the 1500s, the tarot of Marseilles has strongly influenced the modern styles of tarot including the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and the…
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