Facts About Tarot CardsGrillot de Givry (1971): "The tarot is one of the most wonderful of human inventions. Despite all the outcries of philosophers, this pack of pictures, in which destiny is reflected as in a mirror with multiple facets, remains so vital and exercises so irresistible an attraction on imaginative minds that it is hardly possible that austere critics who speak in the name of an exact but uninteresting logic should ever succeed in abolishing its employment." The current version of the tarot deck has been traced all of the way back to 15th-century Italy. Traditionally tarot card decks have two sets of cards. The first card set has 22 pictures and is know as the Major Arcana. This deck consists of such cards as the Devil, the Fool, the Hermit, Temperance, the Sun, the Lovers, the Hanged Man, and Death.The second set of cards is the Minor Arcana. and it is comprised of 56 cards. This deck has the kings, queens, knights, and knave of wands, swords, cups and coins. There are many different types of tarot decks used in cartomancy. (Cartomancy is a form of fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards) Stereotypically tarot cards are read by a carnival fortune teller, though it must be admitted that currently anyone these days can buy a deck with simple instructions on how to use them to tell the future.
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