Rachel Saxon

Differing Tarot Decks

The number of tarot decks that are available in varieties so numerous as to run into thousands of kinds. Most psychics cut their teeth on a deck of tarot cards and usually start with the Ryder Waite deck. It has been said if you understand this deck you can read almost any other decks.

The number of tarot decks that are available in varieties so numerous as to run into thousands of kinds. Most psychics cut their teeth on a deck of tarot cards and usually start with the Ryder Waite deck. It has been said if you understand this deck you can read almost any other deck.

During the years around 1425 Martiano da Tortona wrote the basic rules about the use of tarot. At this time tarot was used for card games rather than for “fortune telling”. The interesting fact is that tarot was originally a deck for playing games with and had not involved with the business of mysticism or psychics at all. This was particularly true in Italy and France. It was more in France than in Italy although the one game that survive in Italy was that o Tarocco Bolognese. On France they had a game that was passed on to all regions of central Europe.  This was known by several names buy mainly as Tarok. Tarot as we know it really started after it was brought to the fore by Antoine Court de Gébelin. He asserted that it was of the mysteries of Thoth and Isis. Although he was later proved incorrect this has lingered until today psychic are still rather frowned upon.

A set of tarot cards is made of seventy eight cards which are basically 4 sets or suits of cards each of which has fourteen minor and then the major arcana. Tarot decks range from Disney to erotic. They are been used through the centuries by psychics, Egyptians and gypsies as well as Josephine. One deck that was used by a lady you used to draw cards was made for her and Mlle.Maria Lenormand made several different beautiful decks but unlike the normal tarot deck this has only 36 cards with no major arcana. Here the full deck is used and the reading is very intensive. Mlle.Maria Lenormand the psychic of that era made herself very rich by reading for the elite of France during the late 1700’s. Tarot decks tend to be themed to a particular interest. If you can think of something there is probably a tarot deck made to suit people with that interest.  The interesting thing was that tarot as the game was virtually unknown in the various English speaking countries for some weird reason. They only came to the fore here as cards for divination.

Normal playing cards such as we use today for playing poker, bridge or any of those cards games came into use during the year prior  to 1367 as they were referred to in documents which actually banned their use in Switzerland in that year. These cards are still used today by psychics for Cartomancy which is an excellent way of reading cards. Most of the really decorative card sets of those days were hand painted for the elite and not reproduced in any way as the printing press had not yet been invented.

Article Tags: Tarot Decks

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