Tarot Tales: The Basics - The Tarot Card Deck

  This is the first installment of Tarot Tales, where I will be discussing elements of the tarot, starting with the basics and moving onward to more detailed and in-depth exploration of the wonderful world of tarot.   First thing's first, you will need a tarot deck. I recommend starting with a version of the Raider-Waite-Smith deck. There are many, many tarot decks but a lot of the books you will pick up (unless its a book directly tied to a deck) will be based on some version of this deck. That is why I recommend it, you should be able to pick up a version of this deck and use any number of books. Later on I will write a post about selecting other decks, what to look for and what to avoid.   Now you have your deck, I use the Radiant Rider-Waite deck as my go-to deck, I really enjoy the colors.  

After going through your deck, you will notice there are some basic elements. Breaking down these elements will make learning tarot much easier to do.

There are 78 cards in the usual tarot deck. There are 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana cards.

The 56 Minor Arcana cards can be further divided into FOUR suits:

Cups

Wands

Swords

Pentagrams (or Coins)

Each suit has 14 cards, that each represent different aspect of the suit.

Aces, 2-10, Pages, Knights, Queens, Kings

The first thing I recommend to do with your deck is just getting familiar with these elements, look them over, look at the similarities and differences. It may seem overwhelming but by breaking down the elements, it will make learning tarot much easier.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction, please follow me on this journey deeper into tarot and you will be rewarded with a very useful tool to navigate life.

Until next time, stay in love and in light,