When you speak of tarot cards, the first thing that usually come to mind is fortune telling.

I have a solid belief in the use of Tarot cards if the user is sensitive and is really connected to the astral world. I do not believe that anyone can pick up a deck of Tarot cards and read someones future. That being sad I decided to add this article to my site to promote and educate the masses on the use of Tarot cards.

Interested in learning how to read Tarot cards? If so, one of your first decisions will be “What style of 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 treatement 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 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 childrens 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.

About the Author

Joey Robichaux rides the weekly consultant road warrior circuit. He uses Tarot to find perspectives on business problems and also maintains dozens of web sites, including one of the oldest sheet music websites on the internet — Free Sheet Music at http://www.freesheetmusic.net — and also the Woodsong Tarot site at http://www.woodsongtarot.com

So you want to read tarot cards? Then, the first step is to clear your mind. Deep breathing is a good way to do this. This essential if you want free psychic answers. The cards can “speak to you” better if you are clear-headed.

With that always in mind, you can choose the type of tarot cards that suit you best. Most tarot card decks have color pictures, which vary widely in terms of their look. The style of the cards doesn’t really matter, but if it makes you feel more of an affinity with the deck, that’s great.

When you’ve chosen the tarot card design that suits you, you’ll need to get to know the individual card meanings. For this, a book written by an expert is helpful. Many beginners seem to get a lot out of the book, Learning The Tarot, by Joan Bunning. This book or one in a similar vein will get you started. Regardless of the book you choose, the best approach is to read it thoroughly and then cast it aside when you begin working with the cards.

Your intuition – not book knowledge – will be the ultimate key to your success at reading tarot cards. You’ll need to develop your own interpretations of the cards to really use them effectively. Oddly, many times the interpretations people arrive at are very close to those found in beginner tarot books.

Tarot readings aren’t like free psychic guidance or developing psychic abilities. When you’re finally ready to do a reading, a few different approaches can be used. The simplest way to begin is to begin by choosing a card a day. This method requires that one card is chosen each day, which represents how the day will turn out. A constellation is another method that can be used. To create a constellation,you would look at the cards of various suits that have the same prime number (numbers one through nine). Array all the cards for one number in front of you. See which cards attract or repel you. Do this with each set of numbered cards. Getting to know the cards like this will help your readings go more smoothly.