Deals On Discount Tarot Cards

The Tarot - Where Do You Begin?
By Rebecca Brents

Rebecca Brents writes on a wide variety of spiritual and new age subjects, including astrology, tarot, feng shui, alternative health, metaphysics, and self-improvement.

First of all, the Tarot is broken into two (or arguably three) different sections.

The Major Arcana of the Tarot contains the archetypal symbols (vast transpersonal and spiritual patterns that underlie and support human growth, behavior, perspectives and experience) that are found in the lore and religious underpinnings of every known culture.

The Major Arcana tells the story of the Fool's Journey ... or the Hero's Journey ... from his moment of embarking on life's grand adventure through the stages of initiation and evolution that will lead him finally to a pinnacle of success and wisdom ... from which he may begin the process again at a more sophistical level of knowledge and with more complex challenges on the path he travels.

The Fool's Journey is, in many ways, like the rendering of a cosmic computer game where there is automatically a new level of skill and play awaiting a candidate who has mastered the simpler stages and is ready for more complicated adventures.

Major Arcana cards depict vast, transcendent themes of human spiritual development, and in their symbolism (and appearance in a reading!) the work of Karma, Fate, and personal evolution leading to transformation, deeper understanding, greater meaning, the capacity to handle more daunting challenge, and the arrival of a more sophisticated plane of education are often readily apparent.

The Minor Arcana of the Tarot contains elemental descriptions of human events, involving self-definition and awareness, emotional involvement and creativity, intellectual development and the use of one's conscious mind, and practical achievement and the establishment of structures in the material world of physical reality. The cards of the Minor Arcana deal with the stuff of daily life and human commerce. But often in terms of "what's happening ... or perhaps more intriguingly what will happen, their properties, powers, and symbols can be stunning.

The Minor Arcana of the Tarot also contains the Court Cards -- sixteen distinct "personality types" found in the human beings all around us. Centuries later, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, based on the work of the great Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung, has become a standard fixture in contemporary psychology -- and also depicts sixteen personality types, remarkably similar to those described in the Court Cards of the Tarot.

Court Cards can depict actual human beings, the composite effect of a group of human beings, prevailing attitudes found in a situation being investigated, or experiences that derive from people and attitudes. They can even depict all of these things simultaneously. Thus, Court Cards are clearly multi-dimensional, intricate, and versatile symbols that often require a fair amount of skill and patience to interpret fully.

Furthermore, the cards of the Minor Arcana are divided into four suits ... close enough in symbolism to be familiar to users of ordinary playing cards. These are Rods, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles, that correspond respectively to clubs, hearts, spades, and diamonds.

This article is a chapter in our free Tarot EBook, "Tell Me About the Tarot" available on our website.

(c) 2007 Rebecca Brents, All rights reserved.

Rebecca Brents writes on spiritual and new age subjects, including astrology, tarot, feng shui, alternative health, metaphysics, and self-improvement. She publishes the online new age Ezine, The Enchanted Sprite on her website, Enchanted Spirit: http://www.enchantedspirit.org/, and offers online new age lectures and classes. She provides astrology readings, tarot readings, and personal consultations through The Enchanted Spirit Metaphysical Source Shop: http://www.enchantedspirit.com/. Stop in and get your copy of our free Tarot EBook, Tell Me About the Tarot: http://www.enchantedspirit.org/Classes/Books_and_CDs/Tell-Me-About-the-Tarot.php.

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