I dealt out the cards and gave a smile. It had happened again. I have used a lot of methods of predicting the future over the last few thousand years, but modern cartomancy always manages to make me smile. A feature of many versions of dealing out cards in modern cartomancy is the “self” card. It is a card that tells something about the person having the reading. It tells about who they are at the moment. That card can change over time and in different readings for most people. After all, the situation has changed from reading to reading. As the saying goes, sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you. But I’m not most people. I looked once again at The Magician.

Tarot is fairly new from the perspective of the history of divination. The deck started out as a card deck to play games with. It was only in the 15th Century that a deck like the modern deck was invented. It was used to play a game known as trionfi. Then it was used for other card games. The word we use in modern English, Tarot, is a French version of the many names the deck has had. One difference that this deck has from the playing cards most Americans may be familiar with is something that has come to be called The Major Arcana. These are cards outside the suits (cups, batons, coins, and swords). There are 22 of these odd birds. Since the 18th Century, 300 years after they started being used for card games and gambling away the family fortunes accumulated over centuries, the cards started being used in cartomancy.

What cards are used in cartomancy really does not matter. The cards are only a focus, just as is true in casting the runes or grabbing the yarrow sticks or tossing a coin for the I Ching. You can use a standard 52-card poker deck (54 with the Jokers) for cartomancy. You could use a deck of flash cards created to teach math or reading. It’s really not about the cards at all, it is about opening oneself to spiritual vision and understanding. It is about allowing the universe to reveal itself through patterns.