What is a Tarot Reading

Free or Private Tarot Reading

You can get a free tarot reading on a daily basis at Lotus Tarot, which we believe is the best Tarot Reading site found on the internet today. Be sure also to check out Private Readings available which are also available.

A tarot reading by Lotus Tarot’s Alison Day offers in-depth insight into concerns and problems as they arise in your life. She gives you the best kind of guidance through her unique intuitive interpretations using the tarot cards. Her style is that of a counseling tarot reader, recognizing influences and lessons from an individual’s past and showing future possibilities.

What is a Tarot Reading

Tarot readings are at least five centuries old. The fascination with tarot cards lies in their use as a tool for divination – seeing what the future holds. Using tarot cards to gain some knowledge about what is going to happen in the future was of great interest in ancient just as it is today. The use of a tarot card reading as a method of dealing with what is going on and resolving problems has hardly ever been more popular than it is today.

A deck of tarot cards consists of 78 picture cards with the faces symbolizing the meanings/actions associated with each card. Choosing a skillful reader to interpret your cards is the most important decision you can make if you intend to get a true and accurate tarot reading.

Why Get A Tarot Card Reading

You will be pleasantly surprised at the way you can release your tensions, and bring your problems into perspective with a tarot reading, which you can get now for without cost. Be sure to get your free online tarot readings and lots of other tarot related information, including a free course to learn tarot, articles, card interpretations and a discussion forum.

Interested in learning how to read Tarot cards? If so, one of your first decisions will be “What style of the deck should I use”.

Although there are now hundreds of brands of Tarot decks, most fall into one of three general styles — Marseilles, Rider-Waite-Smith (also called Rider-Waite, or just RWS), and Thoth.

There are 78 cards in a Tarot deck — 13 cards in each of four different suits, plus an extra 22 cards called the “Trump” cards. These 22 trump cards are known as the Major Arcana, the remaining 56 cards are called the Minor Arcana. It’s the treatment of the Major and Minor Arcana that determines which general style your deck follows.

The first style — Marseilles — follows the traditional, old-school style found in early Tarot decks. The artwork on the Major Arcana tends to be simple and limited to only a few colors. The Minor Arcana looks much like ordinary playing cards — there are four face cards (King, Queen, Knight, Page) and 10 “pip” cards (Ace through Ten). Again, the artwork on the face cards tends to be simple. The pip cards don’t have artwork other than a “pip” count. For instance, a Five of Swords will have five swords depicted on the card.

The Marseilles style looks so much like playing cards because Tarot decks were originally used to play a card game! It wasn’t until later that mystics began to use these decks for divinatory purposes.

The second style of the deck – RWS (After Rider, the publisher, Waite, the designer, and Smith, the artist) — was published in the early 1900’s. It was designed from the very beginning for magickal use.

Because of this, the artwork is much more complex and symbolic. The Major Arcana and the face cards are much more colorful, lifelike, and detailed. It’s the Minor Arcana, though, where you’ll find the main difference.

Rather than use simple counts, the artist (Pamela Coleman Smith — who also illustrates children’s adventure stories) decided to draw vignettes of people engaged in some phase of everyday life. Because of this, the pip cards are highly enriched and yield many thoughtful perspectives — what are the people thinking, what are their motivations, what are their fears, etc — to enrich Tarot readings.

The final deck style is the Thoth style — named after a deck designed by Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Freida Harris. The Thoth deck was intended for magickal use from the very beginning. The paintings are surrealistic and highly symbolic. Thoth adds a new technique to the mix, though. Each non-face card of the Minor Arcana has a subheading describing some motivation or aspect — things like Happiness, Luxury, Virtue, Oppression, etc. Because of this, some readers find it easy to read with Thoth decks. Thoth decks also make it easy to draw from other esoteric disciplines — astrology, for example — in order to create inspired Tarot readings.

Most decks you’ll find in a bookstore will follow one of these three basic styles. Marseilles styles will use pip counts, RWS styles will use pip scenes, and Thoth styles tend to be surrealistic but label the Minor Arcana with additional descriptions.

Getting the most from a Tarot card reading relies on the reader’s ability to perceive not only the symbolic meaning from the spread but also the mystical significance. Although every card of both the Major and the Minor Arcana possesses its own individual symbolism within the representative images on the cards, it is the deeper, spiritual enlightenment of the cards that leads to a greater understanding. Attaining this type of perception is the key to making Tarot a truly valid part of life.

The 76 cards of a Tarot deck each have a specific, external meaning. These are specified by the positive and negative characteristics governing the chief aspects of our lives (Major Arcana), as well as the day-to-day import reflected in the suits and by each card within the suits (Minor Arcana).

The representative images, however, go much deeper than what they portray at first glance. These images address the part of the psyche beyond our ability to control. They touch our inner selves, our subconscious, that part of ourselves that encompasses our innermost core. And this core provides the basis for all the influences that affect our character, that send both positive and negative energy, that govern the directional path in which our lives proceed – or stall.

With the Seven of Cups, for example, the surface meaning implies material wealth. However, when the theme of the card, which includes delusional thoughts of acquiring wealth, becomes known to the reader, the Seven of Cups represents something else altogether. If the asker wants to know, for instance, when he or she will when the lottery, this card – by itself – shows the futility of such a pursuit. However, depending upon the position of the card in the spread, other cards surrounding that Seven of Cups, the events that have previously occurred in the questioner’s life, and the very deepest driving forces within that person, the card could very well imply tremendous riches on the horizon.

The mystical and symbolic meanings of Tarot cards become intertwined as the practitioner of this “secret and closed” art becomes more adept at his or her readings. With experience and the earnest searching for the deeper meanings found in the spread of a Tarot deck, the reader eventually comes to understand how and why this art has persevered over the centuries as an indicator of the human condition – past, present, and with skill and patience, the future.

Our psyches reach out to instruct, warn, comfort, and console us in many ways. Throughout the history of mankind, people have striven to understand their deeper selves, and Tarot remains, after hundreds of years, as one more tool to do so. So whether one is just beginning the journey toward understanding or has been a voyager on the path for many years, the Tarot persists because it calls to searchers of enlightenment. Tarot beckons like a siren’s song to teach the secret things of the universe. Will you be one who answers that call?