tarot cards
 

lately if started using my tarot cards again. i use a guide to the celtic dragon tarot and the cards that go with it.

any way ive been having trouble understanding what the cards are telling me.

if anybody has any tips, advice, or card formations that help, i would appricate it if you post them.

I'd help you if I could, but I have a question. Are you using these tarot cards as entertainment, or do you plan on following/believing in them? Just curious.

Whether or not they work, I shall never know. I've always figured to keep my options open, than to pull out some cards, so they can choose the fate. Life is filled with options, being told your future is only one of those many options, so I figure that I get my future told, that I have just set in stone one of the futures. Not worth it to me. As for entertainment value? Probly not for me, either. Just my 2 cents on it. I wouldn't mind hearing about your experiences, though.

-- GakFace

I used to read about tarot cards. For a halloween, my friend and I got a chance to practice the things we'd been practicing and reading about as an "act" for a haunted house. As they were exiting, they had the option to sit down with us and let us try out the things we knew. Personally, I don't have the kind of memory to remember the meaning of all 78 cards. So, I watched my friend do Tarot cards and it's not like how you describe it Gak. So as far as my knowledge goes, the idea behind Tarot isn't to tell you what your exact future is. It's more like a way to get warnings and caution signs. It can warn you about upcoming hardships and such. It tells you the things that could happen or with whom, but it doesn't say how you deal with it or what happens afterwards. That's up to you to decide. It doesn't tell you "You will die in 2809 from a laser beam attached to a shark's head."

I randomly flipped to a card in one of my tarot books, Reading the Tarot. "Six of Cups" Here's the rhymed message:
"Six of Cups is a friend in need,
Revealed to you by thought and deed."

Now, everyone always has a friend in need, but whether they realize that or not is another question. Individual tarot cards are pretty vague, but when you do a card formation, things make more sense. But again, nothing is set in stone with tarot because the message is vague enough to usually only make sense to the person for whom it's being read. I must say, though, that the description of the person's present is uncanny. My friend read tarot for this one guy and she told him he was divorced with three children and she was dead on. Keeping in mind these people were complete strangers to us, I think that's pretty impressive.

I've always enjoyed the symbolism of Tarot.

My favorite source is the "Book of Thoth" by Aleister Crawley

Of course there are many other sources on the net too.

Remember, you will only get out of them, what you put into them.
The words will only have meaning to you.

i only use the cards for advice.
the cards have a very small affect on what i do.

may i suggest using the celtic cross spread for the cards and invest in a high quality tarot book, even though tarot at heart is meant to be completely interpeted by you

Most tarot cards have amazing illustrations, that's why I like them. Whether I agree with them or not, I don't know yet.

There is no real set meanings. Only a few guidelines. Other than that, its up to you to discover what each one means to you. As far as I know at least.

I have read tarot for years.

I believe that the cards don't mean anything until you know what they mean.

If I tell you that the Death card means death, then when you read the cards, that is what happens. Most people that read tarot understand the Death card as change, maybe death maybe not, probably violant(sp?) change, but only change.

And the whole reverse thing is annoying, until you learn the cards upright don't read them as reverse.

Try the Rider Tarot. Most of the symbolism is drawn on the cards, and most people have seen that deck and have the same understanding of the meanings. Lots of books for that deck too. And use the Celtic Cross before trying other things, or even start with Past Present Future. Use the cards to guide your mind. They help you understand someone, they don't tell you "Fred will die at 3:00 on next Thursday in a boat", but you might be able to tell Fred be careful of traveling by water in the near future.

And I believe in the heart of the cards (to quote Yu-Gi-Oh). I have done to many readings for myself and others that come true. Whenever I read the cards for me (or had them read) I always (90 % of the time) got the Queen of Swords. I am now married to her, and now the card hardly ever shows up in a spread.

Oh, and don't let Tarot guide your life. Use it as suggestions, not absolute truths... Pretty much like anything else.

You know, I recently went to the Renaissance Festival and had a great tarot card reading...BUT...they didn't read my future. They read me my present. The cards were very on, too. Amazingly so! I think they only thing they mentioned regarding my future is about kids.

Is this possible? I was always told that tarot cards read your future.

Thank you for the insight on how these actually work. We're all ignorant in some form.. I've just been enlightened in one of my areas. I still don't know if I care to use them, but all superstitious aside, it could really help someone to understand themselves better. It sounds like its vague and open to interpretation. Thus you'll see card and it'll remind you of something in your life. That sounds pretty cool. On top of that it can be used on others. This seems kinda hard, but then again we all have a "psychic sense" as some would put it.. I just call them my spiritual senses. This could merely be something used to focus in on, in which we would then be using it a bit more actively.. which may be how some people end up describing others pretty well. I don't think I'd mind too much watching someone I can trust do this to someone else. Thanks yet again!