Читать книгу Your Tarot Predictions for 2015 - Karmel Nair - Страница 10

Tarot is a set of 78 cards which is believed to have predictive powers. Tarot cards form a set of cards which in contact with the reader’s psychic powers becomes a tool that can reveal your past and present and predict your future. In the olden days Tarot was not used as a tool to foretell one’s destiny; it got its occult value much later.

Tarot has a strange history, full of speculations regarding its present form and use. To the average onlooker it may appear to be a deck of normal playing cards, which it was in the past. It was only around 1520 A.D that the French and the Italians invested these cards with their occult value. Before this time, these cards were used like all other playing decks, for games and entertainment. Many people believe that Tarot travelled to Europe first from Egypt. It’s also believed that during the great fire in Egypt, which burned down most of the ancient libraries, these cards were the only ones to survive as part of the ancient Egyptian culture and history. It then travelled to Europe where it was used as playing cards. There are various speculations about the history of Tarot, some believable, some not, some exciting and some sceptical. I’ll tell you about some that sound credible to me. I leave it to you to form your derivative of Tarot’s history from what you read here.

Tarot cards became popularly used as play cards somewhere in the 14^th century in China. The Chinese used these cards merely to play or even to gamble. Tarot was also believed to be used as a source of money to bet on other types of card games. Around this time these cards were just the normal 56 cards with pictorial representation and used for playing card games. The 22 major Arcanas (main cards that predict the distant future) were added much later. From here it travelled down to the Islamic countries and is believed to have moved from here to Europe where, somewhere around the 15^th century, it got its full form of 78 cards as well as its occult bearing. No one knows how these 22 major Arcanas came into being, who made them or when they made their first appearance.

In Europe, according to speculation, the Duke of Italy once wrote to a respected statesman asking about the trump cards of tarot. These trump cards are the court cards like the King, Queen and the Knight, along with the 22 major Arcanas. This is the only evidence in history which confirms the existence of the entire 78 cards as one deck. By this time the deck was formed and was still used for playing purposes. As the cards reached Italy, they started using local Latin suits of swords, cups, batons and coins. However, in other places, this deck still comprised of the normal suits of spades, hearts, diamond and clubs. Italy is the place where Tarot went through its major transformation and also received its occult value. Until then, the cards were being used to play a game called Triumph, known today as Bridge.

The history of Tarot and its occult value raises many questions and much speculation. This deck gained huge popularity across Europe and its use was widespread, but still used only as playing cards. No one knows how it got its occult symbolism; there is a lot of speculation around it, but it is generally accepted that in time the Italians discovered its magical powers and called it the Tarocchi, later translated into French as Tarot. This deck had a royal bearing as the duchess and dukes exchanged letters referring to the Tarot deck for entertainment and play.

It is also believed that somewhere around the 17^th Century, Tarot found its occult value in France and England. Here the followers of occult discovered in Tarot a medium to predict the future. They developed divinatory meanings for the pictorial representation of tarot cards and thus invested it with occult significance. These cards were used by occult writers and thus it became part of the occult philosophy. As time passed, Tarot graduated from being used as playing cards to being used for occult purposes. As of today, Tarot is used by the occult, the pagan, Wicca and the common man as a tool to predict the future, know the unknown, and help achieve a certain change or balance needed in life to arrive at the desired outcome.