Tarot Readings: A Brief History
Tarot divination is a practice stretching back to the 1700s. The use of the cards began as a simple parlor card game in Europe in the 1400s, and by the 17th century the symbols found on the cards began acquiring meaning. Some of the symbols found in the earlier tarot decks were tied to Egyptian occultism.
As the practice of tarot continued to flourish and expand, the first definitive guide to tarot was published in 1791 by Jean-Baptiste Alliette. Continuing to build on public interest and popularity, tarot started becoming more tied into Hermetic mythology, the Kabbalah, and the Book of Thoth- An ancient Egyptian text written by the Egyptian god of Wisdom. Soon members from occult orders like the Order of the Golden Dawn created decks that drew on various metaphors and mysticisms, including two of the most popular the Rider-Waite Tarot deck (with the lasting collectively relational art of Pamela Colman Smith) and Aleister Crowley’s Thoth deck (esoterically painted by Lady Frieda Harris).
Tarot and Our Subconscious Mind
The aspect that really led tarot to become the profound divination practice it is today is the way the metaphorical symbols speak so clearly to our subconscious mind. Like many symbols found in nature and dreams, the art of the tarot helps to bring our subconscious experiences into conscious light.
The subconscious mind communicates through feelings, symbols, and metaphors, making tarot a incredible outlet in portraying what it is our subconscious wants us to know by expressing it through the symbols found on the cards. Not only are they enjoyable to admire and share, each card further contains collectively unconscious metaphors that when viewed and related to in our personal lives can give us a gift of insight, relationship and acknowledgement of the parts deeper within us that may be driving us through our lives, thus giving us the ability to learn how to move forward in a particular situation, goal, or life circumstance.
The way I work with tarot is one that not only involves my intuitive impression of what the cards are portraying, but more importantly what they are describing to your subsconscious mind. This is your tarot reading after all.