h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Tarotman
So can you read the cards? Im interested in spiritualism but ive only ever had my tarot done on one occasion when i was very young

Alas I'm actually at work and don't have them on me!

What kind of other spiritualism are you into?
Just divination or does it spread more into the paranormal like me?

I'm sort of more ecclectic, interested in all sides of it. I'd like to get into mythology and folklore more but that is some HEAVY duty reading!

Hi Well im more into the spiritualism side, ive been told i have the power of healing but i dont know how to use it yet. I have mediums, healers and crystal ball readers in my family. Im a bit aprehensive about the paranormal as it scares me a bit too much! Im terrified of polterguists and the like, i have never had any ghostly experiences though.
I want to go back to my local spiritualist church soon as my mum passed away recently, id like to see what a medium has too say

I wouldn't worry about the paranormal so much. The problem is that the paranormal is used when you were younger to scare you, and as such they still scare you as adults. It's kind of been conditioned in.

However no one has died from ghosts, poltergeists, bigfoot, the loch-ness monster or anything else. Well apart from one death from a UFO sighting, but he was a fighter pilot who crashed, and it is guessed that the aircraft failed due to getting to close to the UFO and the controls failed, as opposed to an act of aggresion.

Wow, with a heritage like that I'm sure you know more than I do! Mind you I don't know that much, and I don't make any claim to. I'm very much a student.

I believe it is possible to have healing hands, but I'm not sure about mediums. I'm not ruling them out, but I'm a scientist at heart, and it is too vaugue to gague sometimes. I like to be able to have something to actually measure, which is why I don't like astrologists in newspapers. They're so vague that it doesn't aim to be accurate, and anyway it doesn't work the way it says it does.

Bit of a rant eh?

Oh, I fancy a now. Maybe some too. Decisions...

Well after all that you deserve a and
I dont know much myself, but my great-uncle was a well known healer and is said to have been very good. Every spiritualist/medium/healer i have been in contact have said i have healing hands and maybe one day i will learn how to work the gift! My mum always said when i gave her a back and neck massage that my hands always felt very hot
So how long have you been reading tarot cards?

A while now, but not in any profesional sense, more for personal use and for my friends. I use the Rider-Waite deck. I think I've managed to find 'my' pack as it were. I seem to be on the same level as my deck, well I think so. I know it sounds funny, but I think my deck have a sense of humour. They have ways of telling me if I'm being stupid, or asking silly questions.

Wierd huh?

I'm not familiar with the cards, could you explain a bit more too me about them please? I'll supply the for your trouble

Yeah sure. I don't want to be patronising though and go through stuff you already know. So how much do you know already?

Oh cheers. White with two please.

About the cards? Nothing im afraid! heres you white with 2 sugars

Ok, where to start...

The full deck is made up of 78 cards split into two distinct sections, the major arcana and the minor arcana.

The major arcana haas 22 cards and are the most famous (death, the lovers, the fool and so on). They are numbered from 0 to 21 and very much describe a story. It starts with The Fool at 0, which denotes beginings (and also foolhardiness!) and moves through the remaining cards ending up at 21 which is The World and denotes perfection. In that sort of way I guess it sounds very much like Dante's 'Divine Comedy'.

The minor arcana consists of the remaining 56 cards. They are split into 4 suits or trumps, pentacles (diamonds), wands (clubs), cups (hearts) and swords (spades). Each suit has 14 cards in, made up of ten numbered from ace to 10, and then four court cards, King, Queen, Knight and page/knave. When looked at this way, you can see how the modern deck of cards draws it's inspiraton from the tarot deck.

A reading then comes by first centering yourself. This is usually just calming yourself and getting in touch with your subconcious, as this is where the reading comes from.

You then shuffle the cards until you get the feeling that they don't need to be shuffled any more. Whilst you shuffle them you need to think about a question. The question can be vague, almost like an idea (love, money, health) or more specific (what's going to happen with my new job?). You can't ask straight yes or no questions, as tarot works on the principle of influences, not definites. It shows what the influences on your life are, but how you act on them is up to you, although there can be a most likely outcome.

Now you're ready you deal the cards. Each person has a prefered spread. The most basic is to deal one card and get the reading from that. If you want more, you can deal 3 cards in a row, one meaning the past, one the present and one the future (from left to right). I personally use the celtic cross spread, as this one is more comprehensive, giving reasons for asking and the like. I also find that I can interpret the cards easier like this, and that is the most important thing. It is all about how you interpret the cards.

The interpretation is the real skill of tarot. it doesn't matter if you don't know what each card means, it's about what they are trying to tell you. This is why I use the Rider-Waite deck. Each card has a picture on, and the picture helps to describe the meaning of the card. In this way it is possible to guage a meaning without having to know every card. This helps as there is no definitive meaning to the cards, and this is why interpretation of tarot is more of an art than a skill. It gets a little bit more complex when talking about reversed cards, as it is not also clear what a reversed (a card that is dealt upside down) card means. Some say it's the opposite of what the card means, some say it's the same just less so, and there are some in between.

This is why it has become so complex, as there in no consensus as to exact meanings. So this is why it is what you feel, and more importantly, what your instincts are teling you, that is the most important. After all, if you're just going by meanings then each card has one meaning (78) which you double as the card can be read upside down (156). However in a 10 card spread there are over 4.6 billion trillion possible combinations, each one meaning a different thing.

I'm not sure what else you want to know. Anything I've missed?

By the time i had read to the bottom i was lost Ill have to go over it again and try and make more sense of it
When i got a tarot reading done it was just the three cards that were placed on the table but i was much younger and cant remember much about it now, ill have to get them done again