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HOW TO START TAROT?
The first rule is to become familiar with your cards. Get to know the pictures, shuffle them a lot, carry them about with you, even sleep with them by your bed so they absorb your personal energies and become uniquely yours. Many Tarot experts recommend keeping the cards wrapped in black silk and/or in a wooden box. I keep mine in a protection velvet tarot bag, and I know others who just keep them in a drawer. The important thing to remember is that the cards are yours alone, and should be special to you. You should not allow others to play with the cards or even pick them up without your permission. Most certainly you should not allow anyone else to read them.Once you have begun the process of making your pack of Tzigane Cards individual to you, you can start to practice reading them .
WHAT ARE FORTUNE TELLING CARDS?
Fortune telling Cards or Tarot cards are a specialized set of cards that has a disputed history. Some claims tarot cards to derive from the ancient Egyptian civilization or even Atlantis. It is more likely that they are Roma (Gypsy) in origin and it appeared in Europe some time around the period of the Crusades. From this time that the Gypsies were enslaved and therefore others got access to the Tarot. It's not knows if it was stolen from the Gypsies or if it was willingly given. A Tarrot deck is similar to an ordinary pack of playing cards. Both have four suits numbered from ace to ten. In a Tarot deck these are known as the Minor Arcana, and instead of Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamond, the Tarro suits are Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles. Unlike an ordinary pack of cards, each suit has four court cards rather then three: King, Queen, Knight and Page, making fifty-six cards in the Minor Arcana. These do not belong to any suit, but have their own numbers (with the exception of the fool), a symbolic image and title. If when doing a reading, more Minor cards occur then Major, then your destiny is mostly in your hands. If it is the other way around, fate governs your future.
THE ORIGIN OF THE TAROT
Current Historical Understanding: Originated in Bharat, aka India, thousands of years ago. The Roma, aka Gypsy, people brought it to the West around 1000 CE. Three excerpts are offered: Excerpt 1 "Preface to TZIGANE TAROT (Tarot of the Roms) By Tchalai "[...] We Roms possess Tarots which have come to us from the 'Chaturangas' that our ancestors the Rajput Princes had painted on round pieces of mother-of-pearl or leather. We draw them for one another following our elaborate and familiar laws which make life so livable. The present one was made for a brother, or a non-Tzigane cousin, who humbly wishes to forsake his prejudices and ready-made ideas (for which he naturally bears no responsibility), and open his mind to our true story, our true inner landscape, to our people as a whole. For this reason, the Tzigane Tarot (Cigany Kartya) is termed 'ethnological game'. [...] Source - http://www.romani.org/rtchalai.html To claim Tarot Card is not Gypsy in origin is the same maybe unintentional but racist idea that the pyramids were built by aliens. For some people it's easier to accept alien intelligence then to admit Egyptians or Gypsies posses any intelligence to design pyramids and tarot cards. Tarot cards or rather Gypsy tarot cards were used by the Roma women in their travel to make their living from fortune telling. The most popular Gypsy fortune telling card is the Hungarian Gypsy Tarot Card or as it's called in Hungarian, the Cigany Kartya. It brought release for people those days and today, a relief of their problems; assurance, encouragement about the future, similar to the job of a psychologist today. The Gypsy Tarot card reading is so accurate that often the fortune tellers themselves are surprised how predictions with the Gypsy Tarot comes true. If you are considering to learn tarot it's easy with the explanation of the free digital tarot books. The tarot books are free with the purchase of any tarot card.
THE REASON TAROT DIDN'T KEEP IT'S ORIGINAL "GYPSY" ROMA LOOK
One of the reason of the widely held belief tarot could not originate from the Gypsies, Rromas is because tarot doesn't have the "Indian look" or original Gypsy look. The cards show a specific system of transporting messages of different content; known early examples show philosophical, social, poetical, astronomical and heraldic ideas, for instance, as well as a group of old Roman, Greek, Babylonian heroes. For example, the earliest-known deck was produced to show the system of Greek gods, a theme that was very fashionable in Italy at the time, by which everyone come to conclusion that Tarot Cards originated from Italy. However many group of Roms come through Greece to Europe it's evident in their language, containing many Greek words. Tarot within Roma culture was an important part of life. The Roms had to develop the tarot in a way that people will understand even without the use language. That's the reason why the tarot doesn't resemble the original taro deck. It had to be drawn according to the time: For thousand of years the Roma (Gypsy) lived nomadic lifestyle and consequently came across with many different cultures and nations. The knowledge of fortune telling card was handed down by the women from one generation to the next. Every Tarot Card reader girl drew their own pack of Cards - some were more skilled then others - however the point is that these Roma girls familiarized themselves with the Tarot Cards. By drawing it themselves they gained deep and elevated understanding of the meaning of Tarot. Since Romas could not read or write, furthermore they were exposed to many different languages in their travel the Gypsy Fortune Telling Cards had to be illustrated in an articulate way that everyone could understand, hence overcome the language barriers. The handmade cards preserved the knowledge of many generations and at the same time it could adapt to the ever changing world and even today Roma woman use their own handmade cards without any writting.
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