Do you want to practise witchcraft but don't know where to start? Do you find it all too confusing? Maybe you've been practising for a while and want to go back to basics. Or perhaps you're a seasoned witch and want to explore more ways of practisin...
The Tarot is probably one of the most popular forms of divination after a witch's own intuition or instinct.
Tarot can be used to find out how a spell will turn out, determine how one should direct their energies day to day, and communicate with guides, ancestors, angels, or spirits, among other things. Some people just collect them. There are loads of videos on YouTube with people going through their 100+ decks they've collected!
I used to be terrified of tarot, which is unfortunately quite common amongst those brought up within the context of organised religion like Christianity. But let me tell you; the tarot is nothing to be scared of. After all, it's just an inert deck of cards at the end of the day. You can very well make the same readings using poker cards or music playlists - there is nothing about tarot cards themselves that makes them powerful (or "evil"), the power comes from the reader (you!).
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Some people are scared of the Death card, but it rarely ever means literal death. It most often indicates change or transformation, a good change usually, or where an event comes to an end. Western society puts a lot of focus on death being a taboo subject that should be avoided at all costs. And when the inevitable does happen, it's treated as a solemn event. But that is only a small part of death. In reality, without death, the earth would be a barren wasteland. It is crucial for all lifeforms to eventually return to the soil so that they can be broken down and their nutrients used to build new life once more. So the Death card is not always a bad omen; just an indicator that new things arise from endings.
What is the Tarot?
A tarot deck is a deck of cards comprised of precisely 78 cards (any deck that doesn't have 78 cards is by definition an Oracle deck and not a Tarot deck). The cards are divided into two groups; the major arcana and the minor arcana.
The major arcana is a group of 22 cards, numbered 0 to 21. The minor arcana is similar to a regular pack of playing cards, comprised of 4 suits with each numbered 1 (ace) to 10, and court cards; Page (jack), Knight, Queen and King. Traditionally, the 4 suits are named Pentacles, Cups, Wands, and Swords.
In unconventional decks, you may find the suits are called Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, or symbols/animals representing these elements. They correspond to the traditional suits respectively, although you can find some decks that use Wands to represent Air and Swords to represent Fire.
The Four Suits: 🌍 Pentacles - AKA Coins, representing earth 🌊 Cups - AKA Chalices, representing water 🔥 Wands - AKA Staves, representing fire (occasionally air) 🌬️ Swords - AKA Daggers, representing air (occasionally fire)
Where did Tarot come from?
There are various theories that attempt to solve the mystery of the origin of tarot, but the truth is that we only have a handful of facts. Some occultists believe that the cards have esoteric links to ancient Egypt, Iran, the Kabbalah, Indian Tantra, or the I Ching, though scholarly research has demonstrated that this is false. Historians believe that tarot cards were invented in northern Italy in the 15th century, but there is no historical evidence of their use for divination until the late 18th century. Their earliest mention can be traced back to card games in the 14th century, but the 78 card deck as it appears today was not standardised for divinatory purposes until 1789 by Etteilla.
