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Which are the best tarot layouts? The decision can be pretty difficult for a beginner particularly since design ranges from very simple to highly elaborate; in fact tarot layouts can include one or two cards only or the entire deck. It all depends on the knowledge level of the reader. It is obvious that someone with little experience at card reading will choose simple tarot layouts. Practice shows that it is pretty difficult to focus both on the card placement or the layout and the meaning divination at the same time. For the beginner level the learning can start in two directions: either for the study of the meanings or for that of the tarot layouts.

Only when you know how to create good tarot layouts can you move on to learning card meanings and vice versa. Several personal aspects require attention in the choice of the best tarot layouts and they all gravitate around the end results. What exactly is it that you want to achieve with a certain reading? Whom does it concern or involve? What are your overall intentions for the issue in question? Time is the next element to consider under the circumstances too; just think of how long it will take to create some elaborate tarot layouts, and always choose the spread that suits the specificity of the moment.

Another tip here for good easy tarot layouts is the use of the Major Arcana only. The twenty two cards that make the Major Arcana represent the essential elements in one’s life, and therefore you’d be able to find the keys to the most important events without too complex tarot layouts that take both lots of time and intricate interpretations. Once you have decided what to stick to, it’s time to move on to the reading of the tarot layouts as such. Keep in mind the fact that cards are relevant only in the vicinity of the others.

Some tarot layouts are perfect for study; take for instance zodiac tarot. It only needs twelve cards in the spread, one for every sign of the zodiac; once you create the layout, the cards are read in context depending on every life area you are interested in. The cards are spread in a clockwise circle, in the places corresponding to clock numbers. Many tarot readers find this kind of tarot layouts pretty easy and fun; they use them with friends or on their own, usually for entertainment purposes.

People expect predictions and divination revelations from the tarot card reader without knowing that they influence the card interpretations themselves. Although tarot fans are encouraged not to take the card meanings too seriously and merely enjoy the pastime, lots of readers put a lot of energy and belief in the profession. It is actually said that the truthfulness of the reading results from how intensely the persons involved in the process focus on the question they need an answer for. It is therefore imperative that you know well what you are after before you turn to a tarot card reader for an occult answer. The way you process the results of the inquiry is up to you, but it should remain in accordance with the rules of common sense.

Tarot reading popularity has reached such an extent that there are even professional tarot card reader categories certified by a national commission according to various training levels. Presently, anyone can develop such a career if he/she has got the skills and would like to do this exclusively. The variety of teaching materials is incredible, from online courses to books and paper printed guides, but none of them can give the tarot card reader the subtle ingredient necessary for good card interpretations.

It is believed that a good tarot card reader should be well anchored in the spiritual realm with an understanding of the positive and negative energies existent in the visible and invisible world. Cards can only be understood in the vicinity of other symbols and representations, since only in combination they show relevance for life issues and concerns. If you ask for the services of a tarot card reader, ask the question seriously if you want an answer as closest to reality as possible. Even when you do so, the hazard chances remain incredibly high.

One further aspect Internet users should be aware of is that many of the tarot card reader services provided online are software generated. Thus, you draw six cards from the deck and you are given some random interpretations for each card without the implications of the human factor. Such automated web pages are designed for entertainment and they require no charge at all most of the time. The tarot reading is free and so is the information about tarot origins, tarot training courses, further in depth tarot interpretations and so on. Have a look around such sites and decide for yourself whether they are worth using or not!

The first description of tarot decks appeared as early as the beginning of the 15th century when Martiano da Tortona mentioned some card games that resembled a lot to tarot. The motifs on these early representations were Greek deities with the suits made of four different types of birds, which differed greatly from the regular Italian suits. These precursors of tarot decks counted only sixteen cards, and their popularity seemed to be quite impressive at the time. Later, during the same century other mentions of tarot decks are found in Italian documents. The ideology and the symbolism of the cards were very impressive even then with social, heraldic, poetical and philosophical implications.

As for the oldest tarot decks ever preserved, they date from the mid 15th century and they were made on the special order of the Visconti family. There are sixty-six cards in the deck and they are displayed at the Yale University Library of New Haven. Another famous deck was painted by Bonifacio Bembo at the request of Maria Visconti, they are preserved with the exception of two who were either lost or never existed. These latter tarot decks are known as Visconti-Sforza and their design is very popular nowadays too.

Lots of modern reproductions combine coins, cups, swords and batons with trump cards that represent a clear image of traditional iconography of the old times. The number of initial tarot decks must have been small given the amount of work involved in the making and the painting of these miniature works of art. Tarot decks have survived from Marseilles, Egypt or Switzerland and in time they came to be associated with magic and mysticism. Occultism and magic fans were the ones to embrace and widely use the cards for all sorts of symbolic interpretations that have survived to our modern world too.

Some analysts discovered all sorts of origins for the tarot decks with etymologists identifying the Egyptian meaning of the very word tarot: tar stands for royal while ro means road, tarot would thus mean the royal road. According to tradition, Gypsies seem to have been the first to use cards for divination, but the exact period when tarot decks started to serve for predictive purposes is not clear. As for the passage of tarot popularity to the English speaking world, Eliphas Levi was the one to make the transfer possible, and introduce tarot to aristocratic and middle classes too.

Tarot card meaning is what gives power to interpretations and predictions; each card has a significance and a peculiar symbolism attached to it. What we often fail to understand is that the full tarot card meaning comes from the spread or the combined explanations of the cards for the question of the life issue you expect to learn more about. In the Rider Waite tarot, there are seventy-eight cards, and the first step beginners have to take is to learn what each of them means. From the Fool to the Queen and the King, the tarot cards can be studied, analyzed and understood depending on the sensible nature of every user.

Tarot card reading has evolved over the years; for people who have a more profound knowledge of the Kabbalah or alchemy, the similarity of symbols could be pretty striking. Thus, all sorts of symbols have been added in time so that the present-day form of the decks is a very complex one. It is also common practice to complicate things even further by personalizing the cards and adding other subtle interpretations to the decks. Thus, many amateur philosophers choose to give their personal explanations to certain aspects from alchemy or the Kabbalah.

The tarot card meaning greatly varies depending on the interpretation; thus, a single card can be given different explanations based on the location of the card in the spread and the meaning of the other cards in its vicinity. Very often, based on the reader’s own common sense and judgment, a tarot card meaning can be discarded as irrelevant for the question that is under discussion. While in the Major Arcana, the figures have very distinct symbolism, in the Minor Arcana the emphasis is on the four alchemical elements to which the cards correspond. Thus, the pentagrams stand for earth, the wands for fire, the cups for water and the swords for air.

In general lines, the tarot card meaning gives one a clue about the way he/she goes through the personal journey: is one on the right path or has one strayed away? This tarot card meaning normally results from the spreads in the Major Arcana where each card matches a certain life aspect: the fool stands for the beginning of a journey, the magician indicates the path towards wisdom, the high priestess indicates the level of self-balance, the empress points to pleasure, wealth and love, while the emperor represents claimed power and authority, and so on and so forth.

The design of the tarot deck with the illustrations, suits and card types varies greatly. Some decks stick to a certain theme like fantasy, animals, occult symbols, nature, while others are personalized or unique in concept. The most popular tarot deck available in the United States is the Rider-Waite deck invented by A.E. Waite in 1909. His preoccupation with the occult and the fact that he was a member of a hermetic order represent the elements that led to the creation of this very popular tarot deck. Nevertheless, calling the Waite variant the standard tarot deck would be false as there is no definite rule to determine the number of cards and their imagery.

A tarot deck consists of the minor arcana and major arcana; the former has four suits with wands, swords, pentacles/circles and cups as the corresponding symbols for the regular suits of diamonds, clubs, hearts and spades. Depending on the life approach, the cards in the suits will be interpreted accordingly. The tarot deck spreads in the minor arcana usually aim at depicting the normal ups and downs in daily life. For the major arcana, suits are not necessary; only picture cards are used for these tarot decks and they stand for ideals, principles and concepts.

The big events and the long-term elements that can be analyzed with every tarot deck could change life perspectives and personal opinions but no one should trust such predictions one hundred percent or put all the eggs in one basket. Maybe tarot can help you understand there is something more to this world than just the immediate touchable reality around, but making decisions on such grounds could prove very wrong and even irresponsible. Tarot deck meanings and interpretations could very well be taken up as a hobby particularly when one has fun predicting one thing or another.

The criteria to find the right tarot deck for one person or another vary from individual to individual; some people prefer personalized decks, others are content with the standard look of many printable tarot cards, while others are more interested in the meaning of the cards than in their design. The good thing to know is that the richness of options allows for all sorts of choices, and that first and foremost such elements are a source of fun than of serious business. Don’t be too impressed if someone predicts some terrible event close in the future. Live your life the best way you can!

Little do people nowadays know that the initial original meaning of tarot cards was to hide the secrets of history in a figurative representation form. The other uses we are familiar with today have evolved over the years so that at present the most common meaning of tarot cards touches upon divination. Another tendency is to use the tarot decks for playing card games and even for gambling, and last but not least some even believe that tarot has a role to play in casting spells. The form and the style of the tarot cards have changed from the initial Rider Waite Tarot deck in the sense that we are confronted with a proliferation of styles recently spawned.

The main meaning of tarot cards is concentrated in the Major Arcana; the very word arcana, the plural for the Latin word arcanum means secret or closed. This only stresses out the very occult character of the mechanism behind tarot interpretations, and one often may wonder where all the energies present in the divination spheres come from. To get back to the Major Arcana, the twenty-two cards it includes represent the original form of the tarot deck; the remaining fifty six cards of a modern deck belong to the Minor Arcana.

Symbols contain the condensed meaning of tarot cards; however, symbolism can be interpreted and understood at two different levels. First there is the individual significance corresponding to a certain card, and then there come the collective implications that result from the symbolic meaning of one card related to the context in which it appears. In the reading of any spread, the valuable part is the collective meaning or what the entire layout indicates in answer to a question, dilemma or personal quest. Hence, it is precisely the allegoric nature of this art of divination that separates it from clear-cut real life facts.

The meaning of tarot cards can often be altered when the cards appear reversed; lots of readers actually abandon the reading under such circumstances, while others insist on the resistance problem areas that reversed cards seem to point to. All sorts of situations can appear when creating and reading a spread and sometimes the answers or interpretations one gets are pretty non-satisfactory. This is probably the reason why trusting tarot readings too much could be disappointing, particularly since there is nothing exact in the nature of the prediction.

Who can one learn tarot from? Some turn to online courses, others to independent tarot teachers, while books and other materials come next on preference lists. The learning methods are also highly debatable; you could memorize the meaning of the cards, identify it in context or understand it by smart associations. The choice of the deck is very important for those who want to learn tarot easily and without too many challenges along the way. Simple illustrations as close to the symbolism of the cards as possible: this is what you need at the beginner’s level, anything more complicate could ruin the whole learning process.

The design of the cards is incredibly relevant for the speed with which you are capable to process the information. Vivid colors, clear representations and anything logical in the realm of the visual facilitate the learning process; the subject often becomes apparent only by a close look at the picture or the graphics. This is actually the great trick behind the easy ways to learn tarot; there is not one single method, but dozens, and each can be particularized according to the person interested in the study. Thus, the Rider Waite Tarot deserves in many users’ opinion the title of the best illustrated decks for beginner and advanced purposes.

Some people start to learn tarot by taking a simple basic tarot course. Some such materials are free of charge and actually aim at giving you the tools and meanings to understand cards and layouts. There are things that nobody can teach no matter how determined to learn tarot you may be and this is the way the cards interact in the personal spread according to the various aspects of one’s life. The characters, the symbols and the events thus alternate greatly from one reader to another. Hence, counseling and competence in further tarot reading are only the merit of some very skilled people.

Depending who you choose to learn tarot from, all sorts of interpretation tricks will be revealed to you. Thus, you can come to identify and remember the meanings of only thirty-nine of the fifty-six possible interpretations. In fact, knowing and remembering the meaning of every card is the very basis of tarot learning, and you can often refer to books, guides and Internet informative pages to study just as you did in the school days. Shortcuts are present everywhere, and if you find someone willing to share a secret learning method with you, don’t hesitate to accept an advantageous invitation!

Tarot card readings can be performed by using the Major Arcana only, the Minor Arcana only or the entire deck. The third variant is considered the most difficult and complex of all since it provides more in-depth meaning to the so-called divination process. The whole interpretation known as tarot card readings consists in the ability to associate images, cards and symbols. While the meaning of certain cards is obvious, other get most of the significance in combination with the others. Also known as the obscure cards in the Minor Arcana, such examples are not sufficiently explained in the descriptions available in books and courses.

Tarot card readings also get their meaningful substance from numerology, and this is one aspect on which any first level apprentice should focus. Investigate a bit about the significance of numbers in tarot interpretations and get at least some rudimentary knowledge for the matter. Otherwise, it is very possible for some details to remain hidden, and thus make the prediction incomplete. The next aspect that needs great attention for the success of tarot card readings is the proper way of asking the questions you search answers to. Keep in mind the fact that tarot does not give yes and no replies as it is rather about subtle hints than about direct implications.

The position of the cards in relation with the reader is very important; it is imperative that they all face you appropriately for good tarot card readings. Reversed cards change their meanings when in the wrong position or get less relevant for the interpretation. Furthermore, the decks should be chosen depending on the skills of the reader since at the beginner’s level the illustrations have to make reading easier. The dragon decks are very popular for instance, but there are other sets with pictures of human activities. Once the proficiency level gets higher, you may choose from other more attractive and complex designs.

A basic question about tarot card readings is whether they work at all. And if they do, how and why? Although far from considering tarot card readings in the realm of the supernatural, one cannot explain the working mechanism behind the divination processes in very easy terms. Sometimes the answers you can get from the cards can puzzle you by their true essence, while some other times they can seem too foggy to make sense. Whichever be the real explanation behind tarot card readings, they definitely seem to trigger some inner psychic thrill in most people.

Deep symbolism and strange tarot card meanings make the elements for which tarot is one of the most well know arts of the occult. If in the old times people believed them to be very accurate in predicting death, political changes, love affairs, incredible wealth and personal ruin, things are not very much different nowadays, although the symbols are taken a lot more lightly. Tarot card meanings have become epitomes, but when analyzed in context they simply make a combination of elements that could or could not refer to your life or influence it. Although prediction was the initial purpose, entertainment is definitely the main role of this future telling art.

The most striking tarot card meanings and symbols are revealed and interpreted in the cards of the Major Arcana; they also carry the name of trumps. Figures like the emperor, the empress, the magician, the fool, the high priestess, the hierophant, the hanged man, the devil, the hermit and so on, stand for major elements in the spiritual and physical realm. In the Minor Arcana the tarot card meanings are in fact the elements or the instances that relate to common daily life events, and these actually represent the ancestors of modern playing cards.

The four elements of the alchemy stand behind the four suits in the Minor Arcana, and they are just as important as the complex figures designed in the Major Arcana. The cups are designated under the influence of the water element, the wands reflect the passion and courage of fire, the swords get represented by air and the pentacles stay firmly on the ground, tributary to the earth element. Thus, if some tarot card meanings relate to emotional affairs as it is the case with the fire element, the air keeps the interpretation in the realm of logic thinking and the earth brings material reality closer.

Tarot card meanings are often so very stirring and striking because of the evocative nature of pictures and symbols. Images have always been able to convey feelings, emotions and ideas, and we all have a huge picture repository in our subconscious. This is one of the main explanations for the effect tarot card readings have on people; a person who has never seen a tarot deck will be utterly impressed about the prints, the design, the figures and the symbols combined in a very intricate structure. In alternatives, the visual representations become even more striking and the tarot card meanings are all the more important.

A web page specialized in free tarot readings, Lotus Tarot is a great place to start learning about this art of divination. There are two possible choices: you either learn how to do the readings yourself or you have someone else interpret things for you, in this case the Lotus Tarot expert is Alison Dayid. The site provides a wide range of resources for you to choose the approach to tarot study. In case you go for the training option, then someone from the company will guide you through the secrets of tarot readings in private sessions. All the personnel members at the Lotus Tarot are qualified and considered professional.

Lotus Tarot does not rely on software or flash players for their readings, and the user is actually shown the cards for which the interpretations are given. It is very good if you already know the meanings of the cards so that you can better understand the way the interpretations work and are made in the first place. Once you enter the Lotus Tarot site, go for private readings and then email the page coordinators for tarot readings. In case things are not moving fast enough for you, go for the free reading. Such options are not the only kind of service provided by Lotus Tarot: there are plenty of books and info on regarding tarot techniques in general.

Moreover, Lotus Tarot also organizes a twelve week course to teach you have to do tarot readings. All the course steps are approached online with interactive options. Thus, anyone interested can learn the secrets of tarot from the comfort of the home. The details of the training sessions and the lessons will be passed to you on the email. Before subscribing to the course, make sure the content is what you are after: besides the history of tarot, you’ll learn about the meanings of cards and most important their interpretations.

The personal details such as the emails are part of the confidentiality policy of Lotus Tarot, so you do not have to worry about their being disclosed to third parties. Part of the free service they provide is the weekly newsletter, yet, this is not spam and you can stop the emails any time you want. Moreover, the disclaimer also warns users about the subjective and relative truth of the tarot readings. The interpretations are not to be taken literally and the whole purpose of the site is entertainment. Hence, use your own judgment and common sense to decide what’s good for you.