Thursday 17 November 2011

On tarot:

Whatever the local fortune teller or pastor has told you about tarot cards is wrong.

Trarot cards were NOT invented by egyptians, or gypsies. they were invented in Italy during the 14th-15th c.( no-one is quite sure about the date!)
Neither were they invented for divinatory puropses! they were essentially a extended deck with more cards to make the games more interesting. This becomes especially apparent when you consider the deck's structure.
the structure of a tarot deck:
the tarot deck is divided into 2 parts:

I- A deck of 56 cards, in the 4 Latin suits.
     each of the 4 suits is divided thus:
      1- a series of 10 pip cards, from 1-10
       2 - a series of 4 picture cards, viz: KIng, Queen, Knight ( cavalier), and knave ( jack)

II - A series of 22 cards, called "trumps", which outrank the former series:
21 of these cards bear numbers from 1-21, and one is unnumbered.
***
Part I of the deck is known by the fortune telling dunces a"s the "minor arcana" , and part II as the "major arcana " it is here where you will find the omnimous sounding cards, like death, the hanged man, and the tower: but not to worry, these frgures were very probably taken from characters in triumphal parades.
    

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