The tarot is most commonly viewed as a tool for divination. A traditional tarot reading involves a seeker - someone who is looking for answers to personal questions - and a reader - someone who knows how to interpret the cards. After the seeker has shuffled and cut the deck, the reader lays out the chosen cards in a pattern called a spread. Each position in the spread has a meaning, and each card has a meaning as well. The reader combines these two meanings to shed light on the seeker's question.A Tarot deck consists of 78 cards. The first 22 cards are the Major Arcana. These cards have symbolic meanings focused on the material world, the intuitive mind, and the realm of change. The remaining 56 cards are the Minor Arcana, and are divided into four groups or suits: Swords, Pentacles (or Coins), Wands and Cups.HISTORY
There are many different theories as to the true origin of the Tarot deck, but the first documented deck was painted in fifteenth century Italy
The tradition began in 1781, when Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Swiss clergyman and Freemason, published Le Monde Primitif, a speculative study which included religious symbolism and its survivals in the modern world.
Gébelin claimed that the name "tarot" came from the Egyptian words tar, meaning "royal", and ro, meaning "road", and that the Tarot therefore represented a "royal road" to wisdom.
