Tarot is often associated with the idea of "reading the future". Yet its history and structure suggest a different and richer use: that of a repertoire of symbolic images that help us look at a situation from new angles. Approached this way, the cards become a tool for reflection, similar in some respects to working with dreams.
An Italian story
Tarot was born in fifteenth-century northern Italy, in the courts of the nobility. Some of the oldest and most precious hand-painted decks to survive are linked to the Visconti family and later to the Sforza of Milan. Originally they were used for a card game, the game of "triumphs", from which many tarot games still played in parts of Europe descend.
Divinatory use and esoteric reading spread much later, mainly in France from the late eighteenth century, when Antoine Court de Gébelin proposed an Egyptian origin for the tarot, a hypothesis historians have not confirmed. Since then the deck has been reinterpreted in the light of Hermeticism, Kabbalah and astrology.
The structure of the deck
The traditional deck has 78 cards, divided into two groups:
| Group | Number | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Major Arcana | 22 | Allegorical figures: the Fool, the Magician, the Popess, the Wheel, Death, the World… |
| Minor Arcana | 56 | Four suits (batons, cups, swords, coins), each with ten numbered cards and four court cards |
The Major Arcana are the cards richest in symbols and the ones on which reflection focuses. Many read them as the stages of a path: from the Fool, who sets out without baggage, to the World, an image of fulfilment.
Some Arcana read symbolically
- The Fool: beginning, freedom, the step into the void taken with trust or recklessness.
- The Popess: hidden knowledge, listening, what is known without being said.
- The Wheel of Fortune: cycles, what rises and falls, the part of life we do not control.
- Death: the end of a phase and transformation, not physical death.
- The Tower: the collapse of rigid structures, the truth that shatters appearances.
- The Star: hope, trust regained after a crisis.
As you can see, none of these readings "predicts" an event. Each offers an image to think with.
A three-card spread for reflection
A simple and sober way to use tarot is the three-card spread:
- Ask an open question, not a yes-or-no request. For example: "What should I consider in this decision?".
- Shuffle and draw three cards, laying them out from left to right.
- First card: the situation as you are living it.
- Second card: what you are not looking at, the overlooked aspect.
- Third card: a possible direction for reflection.
- Write down what each image suggests to you, before consulting any manual.
The last point matters: your first personal reaction to the image is often more telling than the standard definition.
Why the images work
Tarot images are deliberately ambiguous and layered. Faced with a card, the mind projects what it is going through: the same mechanism that makes dreams so personal. One person sees a threat in the Tower, another a liberation. The card does not decide; it shows how you are looking.
That is why it helps to record your spreads in a notebook, with the question and the date. Rereading them a few weeks later you notice how certain images return, just like recurring symbols in dreams.
Responsible use
Using tarot as a tool for reflection also means recognising its limits. It is not suited to making decisions about health, money or legal matters, and it should not replace concrete information or professional advice. Those who consult the cards constantly, hoping they will "say" what to do, end up handing over their own responsibility.
Studio Esoterico Cornelio regards tarot as a symbolic heritage of great beauty: a gallery of images that, observed calmly, help you ask yourself better questions.
In short
- Tarot was born in fifteenth-century Italian courts as a game; divinatory use came later.
- The deck has 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana in four suits.
- The Major Arcana offer symbolic images to think with, not predictions of events.
- A three-card spread with open questions is a simple way to reflect on a situation.
- Tarot does not replace concrete information or personal, responsible decisions.