The Book of Shadows of a Broom Closet Dweller *EDITING*

The Tarot

Introduction

The Tarot is probably the most common or popular form of divination after a witch's own intuition or instinct. I don't really know any experienced practitioners who don't own, or have never owned, a tarot deck.

I used to be terrified of the tarot, which is unfortunately quite common amongst those brought up in highly religious families. But let me tell you; the tarot is nothing to be scared of. After all, it's just a deck of cards at the end of the day.

The Devil card used to scare me the most, but when it comes up in a reading it can actually indicate good things, or important issues to focus on. 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.

I mostly use my decks for divination; to find out if a spell I wish to perform is in my best interests. I can also use them to determine how I should direct my energies from day to day.

Others use the tarot to communicate with guides, ancestors, angels, or spirits. And some people just collect them. There are loads of videos on YouTube with people going through their 100 or so decks they've collected!

At present, I have 3 decks. The original Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the Thelema tarot and the Healing Light tarot. I use Thelema the most. I don't use the Rider-Waite at all, but it was my first deck. I just don't connect with it, and that's okay. Not everyone connects with every deck, even the most popular decks.

That's why it is important you know how to choose a deck, which will be discussed later in this part.

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 split into 2 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 like a regular pack of cards, comprised of 4 suits with each numbered 1 (ace) to 10, and a Page (jack), Knight, Queen and King. Traditionally, the 4 suits are named pentacles (sometimes coins), cups (sometimes chalices), wands (sometimes staves), and swords (occasionally daggers).

In other, non-conventional 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 in the order I listed them, 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)

If you are one of those witches that considers swords to represent fire (as I do), I have found that the cards adapt accordingly if you have a strong connection to them. I've found that if a person I know comes up in a reading who has a fire sign as their zodiac (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius), the corresponding sword card will appear (i.e. if it's a young person, a Page will come up).

History of the Tarot

For the Tarot's history I'm going to quote Donald Kraig's Modern Magick:

There are many stories as to where the Tarot cards may have come. Some versions say that the Tarot was brought out of Egypt by the Gypsies. Note that the word "Gypsy" is derived from the word "Egyptian." Other stories, which do have a bit of possibility to them, have the Tarot developing out of gaming or fortune-telling systems from India or China. There is, however, no proof that any of these stories are true.