Tarot
Tarot is a deck of 78 picture cards, 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana, used for reflection and guidance. A reader shuffles, lays cards in a spread and interprets their images and positions in the light of a question.
Also known as: tarot cards
A tarot deck has two parts. The Major Arcana are 22 named cards, from The Fool to The World, that speak of life’s big themes. The Minor Arcana are 56 cards in four suits, Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles, that describe everyday events, feelings and choices.
Tarot began as a card game in fifteenth-century Italy and was taken up for divination in eighteenth-century France. The most influential modern deck, the Rider–Waite–Smith, was devised by A. E. Waite, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith and published in London in 1909. Most decks and card meanings today follow it.
In a reading you hold a question in mind, shuffle and draw cards into a spread. Each position has a meaning, such as past, present or challenge, and each card is read for its image, its number, its suit and whether it is upright or reversed.
Despite a popular story, tarot did not come from ancient Egypt; that idea dates from 1781 and has no evidence behind it. And tarot works best as a mirror, not a fixed forecast: the cards describe the energy around a question and leave the choices with you.