| Tarot readings are arrangements of cards drawn from a shuffled deck. The layout of the cards is known as a spread, and determines what each card refers to. For example, the Two Paths spread is used to understand an upcoming decision, and hence it uses cards to represent the different options and their outcomes.
Decks: Tarot decks consist of 78 cards. 22 of the cards are major arcana (trumps), such as The Lovers, The Fool, The Pope, and The World. The remaining 56 cards are minor arcana divided into 4 suites of 14 cards each. The suites are Swords, Cups, Wands (sometimes called Rods or Staves), and Pentacles (sometimes called Coins or Discs). Although the traditional meanings of the cards are the same regardless of the specific deck used, the imagery and language associated with each deck tends to make it particularly useful for some types of readings. For example, many of our visitors find the Renaissance Tarot particularly good at questions of passion, mastery, and reason.
Reversals: About half of the cards in a reading are drawn reversed (upside down), which either negates or inverts their meaning. For example, Death upright means "change", but Death reversed means "stagnation". |
 | How To Read Tarot
A wonderful value for the money, this is probably the quickest way to begin understanding readings. |
 | Sacred Circle Tarot
Considered by many to be the most beautiful of Tarot decks, this is the deck of choice for modern pagans. The imagery is very crisp and makes use of locales that exist in the real world. |
 | New Palladini Tarot
A project that was 25 years in the making, David Palladini created this deck to "bridge the ancient and the future". Using elements of Medieval, Egyptian and modern art, this deck is the ideal "mirror for one's own development". |
 | Rider-Waite Tarot
This is the classic and most widely recognized Tarot deck, good for all manner of divinations. It is especially suited to questions of a mystical nature, and to issues of the world at large. |
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