| Whether we admit or not, most of us have quaint | | | | strengths, and hopes. By stringing them together into |
| notions of what tarot cards are. | | | | a tale, we are able to retell and uncover the past as |
| On the surface, they are merely a deck of illustrated | | | | we would have liked it unfold, as well as get a sense |
| cards used in predictions, while the tarot card reader | | | | of a manageable future we can feel safe with. |
| is an eccentric person dressed in robes seated behind | | | | A radical and inevitable shift indeed for tarot cards |
| the fortune-telling booth in the town fair. This image | | | | from a simple game to life-changing therapy. |
| of tarot cards is, of course, clichéd, and yet we'd | | | | Carl Jung, a world renowned psychologist has always |
| rather feel comfortable with its familiarity than dig | | | | considered tarot as an alternative psychotherapy. By |
| deeper. We resort to the more convenient | | | | utilising the rich imagery encapsulated in every tarot |
| explanation rather than actually investigate the | | | | card, we are able to voice out our concerns, look |
| sometimes unpleasant yet gratifying truth of tarot | | | | into our past, and prepare for the future. In some |
| cards. | | | | cases, children who don't yet know how to speak |
| Perhaps, the most famous among the tarot cards is | | | | can use the images and characters in the tarot deck |
| the Death Card, a card quite unfairly invested with | | | | to piece together their thoughts and tell their story. |
| too much negative meanings and energies behind it, | | | | Tarot cards then offer an alternative language |
| so much so that we usually think of tarot cards as | | | | system through which we can bring our Unconscious |
| tools of the occult, vehicles of evil even. While we | | | | up to the light. |
| can't deny the fact that indeed tarot can be used for | | | | Jung explains that tarot cards represent different |
| such purposes, tarot cards can also be perfectly | | | | archetypes of human personality and situations. The |
| well-intentioned and can be actually used for good | | | | Death Card then is not just simplistically a dreary card |
| causes. | | | | foretelling iretractable death to the querent (person |
| As a matter of fact, the earliest use of tarot cards in | | | | who asks questions in a tarot card reading). Rather, |
| fifteenth century Italy was as a game, much like a | | | | the death card can be seen as the death, an end of |
| deck of regular playing cards but with the addition of | | | | something inside us: a vice, long standing pain, bad |
| trump cards. It wasn't until late 17th or 18th century | | | | habits, sorrow, signaling rebirth. |
| that tarot cards began to take on a more serious | | | | We do not just blindly pick out cards from the tarot |
| role in divination. | | | | deck. Every moment of our lives we are armed with |
| Over the years, the pictures in the tarot cards, their | | | | choices, choices that spell out and define our fate. It's |
| rich symbolisms, procedures, purposes, and meanings | | | | not just what you keep out from your life that |
| evolved in such a way that the characters portrayed | | | | matters; it's also what you allow to make a |
| in them have come to mirror all our follies, fears, | | | | difference. Even if they're just a deck of tarot cards. |