The earliest references to the Tarot all date to the 1400’s which emerged from the Cities of Europe and were first considered a “game.” This quickly evolved into a “best kept secret” of consulting the Tarot to receive insight into one’s affairs, predict the outcomes of wars, royal succession, whom to marry and whom to trust, and understand how to make the most of one’s life by making “informed decisions.”
At the time, reading the Tarot involved having to interpret the cards which were laid out into a spread of 20-30 cards at a time – so as to enlighten the subject on a number of issues at once. Such spreads would show the past, the present and the future, the problem at hand, conscious and unconscious influences, hopes and fears, internal and external influences, and the outcome of the entire inquiry.
Spreads that entailed over 4-5 cards were considered complicated, and in most cases had to be interpreted by an experienced Tarot Reader – an older woman who has been reading the Tarot for decades. Since then, nothing has really changed, and today, most people still need a Tarot Reader to get their cards read for them. It is because of the high complexity of the learning curve – to fully master the Traditional Tarot.
So, what happens during a Traditional Tarot Reading?
Your Tarot Reader would take an active charge of your Tarot Reading by handling your cards for you – and so the Client takes a passive role in this process of being merely a by-stander. The Tarot Reader would then shuffle your cards, draw your cards, and then lay your cards into a spread, before proceeding to ponder the meaning of each card in question and their relationship to what you are asking about.
A professional Tarot Reader who has been reading the Tarot for years, is well within her abilities – to administer and interpret even the most complicated spreads, and each such Tarot Reading takes about 10 minutes to perform. What happens during each Tarot Reading is at all times a complete mystery to the Client, because the process of a Traditional Tarot Reading does not allow for the Client’s participation to occur, with the Client taking a “backseat” during the entire process. Sometimes, the Tarot Reader will allow the Client to “cut” the deck – before proceeding to draw the cards for the Client.
Depending on the news delivered by their Tarot Reader, a lot of Clients are left wondering – whether the Tarot Reading they received was really theirs – and not their Tarot Reader’s. It is because the process of the Traditional Tarot Reading is structured around empowering the Tarot Reader to manage all of the Client's cards, and then unveil the mysteries, with the Client being merely a spectator.
If you are new to the Tarot and are leaning how to navigate your own Tarot Readings the traditional way, you will immediately encounter the level of difficulty which lies in the overall multitude of the Traditional Tarot spreads, and even a greater multitude of assortment of what each card position within each such spread stands for. And yes, these would have to be memorized, to establish proficiency in reading any of such complex spreads.
A lot of people abandon their studies of the Tarot due to their overall fear that they will not be able to navigate such complex spreads, and also because they become overwhelmed with trying to understand how to read the Tarot cards, considering their arcane names, such as “3 of Swords,” “10 of Wands,” “5 of Cups,” and so on.
Reading the picture images on the cards to divine the outcome of one’s inquiry presents a challenge to most people because it is not what our Conscious Minds have been used to doing. In addition to that, our Conscious Minds hit a “wall” – when they come across such “strange” terms as “3 of Swords,” “10 of Wands,” “5 of Cups,” etc. It is because we face a challenge of not being able to draw any familiarity from those arcane terms to our modern day-to-day concepts, and so they ring “alien" and hollow to us, resulting in rejection by our Conscious Minds which, in turn, results in us abandoning our studies of the Tarot!
If the spreads of the Traditional Tarot were not so complex, and if the cards were much easier to perceive and relate to, more people would be engaging with the Tarot, which would result in the Golden Age of humanity!
When taking up their studies of the Traditional Tarot, most people start with rather simple spreads of 3 or 4 cards. However, even with such simple spreads, one needs to know what type of layout will do what! Because there are several ways one can lay out 3 or 4 cards, the purpose of use and the context of interpretation of such spread will vary with each layout, which makes a lot of new readers simply guess as to the meaning of the cards that they received – without absolute certainty as to the accuracy of the message.
Learning the Tarot is a long and arduous process, where self-discipline and patience are your allies, while you navigate through the centuries old routines of the Traditional Tarot – to reach perfection and mastery of this old-world craft.