Is Tarot Card Reading by Telephone as Goos as Face to Face?

The history of the Tarot is something that is obscured by time. There are some references and researchers that connect the origin of the Tarot with that of Ancient Egypt, while other historians and scholars suggest that the Tarot shares roots with ancient gypsy cultures. Still, there are other researchers that attach an Italian origin to the Tarot cards, and it is believed that the Tarot Cards became a tool of divination right around the 1400s. Since that time, hundreds of different decks have evolved and are currently in use; one of the most popular decks being the Rider-Waite deck.

A typical tarot deck contains 78 cards consisting of the four suits seen in regular card games, which are hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs. The Latin version of the tarot deck has a different set of suits. They are swords, batons, cups, and coins. Like a regular deck, tarot cards are numbered from one to ten plus the four court cards; jack, queen, king, and ace.

The difference between a tarot deck and the regular deck is the twenty-one divinity cards known as Major Arcana. A joker equivalent in the tarot deck is called the Fool, or the excuse. The Fool can take all four suits and acts as the strongest trump card.

Tarot card interpretations are always changing - and they have also differed significantly through time. Today, however, there are common and general card meanings. For example, minor arcana cards usually have an astrological meaning that changes along with the seasons of the year. On another side of things, court cards talk of people and their nature. This nature concerns the physio-emotional traits of a person.

More specifically, the determinants of a card's meaning are the following: Card Number, Key Number, Rulership (Astrology), Hebrew Letter, Translation, and Numerical Value. The meaning is also determined by the position of the card, whether it is upright or Ill-Dignified/Reversed. The difference between peoples' readings is the weights they impose on the different 'statistics' and 'attributes' of the card.

When card readings are conducted face-to-face, the card reader will sometimes ask the querent to shuffle the cards as they concentrate on the question. The querent will sometimes be asked to split the deck into three piles, and then to put the deck back together again. The card reader then lays out the cards in a specific pattern, and each card has a different meaning, depending upon the layout used. For example, the card reader may layout three cards, one to signify the past, one for the present and one for the future: all three cards together give a full interpretation of a given situation.

Card readings over the telephone are conducted much the same way that card readings face to face are conducted. A querent (caller) will call into a reader, and the reader will ask the caller to concentrate on a question that he or she wants answered or clarified. The card reader then shuffles the cards and lays them out in a particular pattern. Popular patterns include a single card reading, a three card reading, and a Celtic Cross reading, which is a reading of 10 different cards. The card reader will examine the symbolism in each card, in addition to the card position to conclude what the cards convey.

Tarot card divination may not be a real science; it may not be as accurate as some people would like to believe, but the market for tarot is ever growing through the availability of readings online and in other similar mediums. While this is so, there is still a large demand for face-to-face tarot reading because of the mystique and interactivity. A fair judgment of the industry is that it is growing in its different aspects - whether it is face to face, on the phone, or by some other medium. While society drives itself into a more scientific future, the appeal of astrology, especially in tarot cards, is still growing fast.