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Your Reading

Many people belive that they can "read the cards" but few are able to provide extremely accurate insights into your life. For centuries the power of the tarot has helped people gain an extra insight into their lives, shedding light onto difficult situations and answering those burning questions.

Readings are used to predict and interpret relationships, love, careers and can also be used for spiritual, esoteric, psychological, occult or divinatory readings. Each reading tends to have a great deal of variation, as the different cards of the Tarot (as well as the order in which they appear and their position within the 'spread' when dealt) each have different specific meanings. These meanings are often open to the interpretation of the Tarot reader, resulting in no 2 readings ever being the same

Our readings are designed to help guide individuals. We firmly believe in the readings that are given but in some instances, the information may represent opinion or judgment. We cannot guarantee, the accuracy or completeness of any information given during the time of the Reading. We believe in your individual power to transform you life and all interaction should be used as a guide only

Although readings carried out here are of the highest quality - it is important to remember that readings have never been experimentally proven and are the work of an experienced Intuitive with over 20 years experience of providing insights into individual situations and helping others to form their own educated decisions based on what is going on in their lives at that moment in time. Readings while done by a genuine psychic in good faith are for entertainment purposes only.

Despite this, we have many satisfied customers who come back time after time for help and advice

Most people have heard of the tarot, but few really understand their significance and history. This of course is not helped by sites that offer their own versions of the history which isn't always strictly accurate. Here at the Creaky Cauldron we not only "do" readings but we can teach you how to read as well. As a start, we thought we'd clear up some misconceptions about the cards......

Tarot - A Brief History

Some time in the first half of the fifteenth century, somewhere in northern Italy, someone created the first set of tarot cards. Like the playing cards of the time, the tarot deck included number cards (1 through 10) in four suits, and court cards page, knight, and king. But the tarot deck had more: a queen was added to each of the courts, and 22 special cards, not belonging to any suit, were added. These special cards bore symbolic pictures, with such subjects as the Emperor, the Pope, The Wheel of Fortune, Death, the Devil, and the Moon.

The tarot cards were used to play a new type of card game, similar to bridge, but with 21 of the special cards serving as permanent trumps, which could be played regardless of what suit was led, and outranked all the ordinary cards. This Game of Triumphs, as it was called, became extraordinarily popular, particularly among the upper classes, and spread through northern Italy and eastern France. As the game spread to new locales, changes were often made in the pictures, and also in the ranking of the trumps, which usually bore no numbers.

In time, tarot spread south to Sicily and north to Austria, Germany, and the low countries. Centuries later, devotees of the occult arts in France and England encountered the tarot and saw mystical and magical meaning in the enigmatic symbolism of the cards. Their fascination with the cards led to the reputation tarot presently has as a divination tool and occult artefact

Origins

The tarot originated in northern Italy early in the 15th century (1420-1440). There is no evidence for it originating in any other time or place. The earliest extant cards are lavish hand-painted decks from the courts of the nobility.

The Name “Tarot”

The earliest names for the tarot are all Italian. Originally the cards were called carte da trionfi (cards of the triumphs). Around 1530 (about 100 years after the origin of the cards), the word tarocchi (singular tarocco) begins to be used to distinguish them from a new game of triumphs or trumps then being played with ordinary playing cards. The etymology of this new word is not known. The German form is tarock, the French form is tarot. Even if the etymology were known, it would probably not tell us much about the idea behind the cards, since it only came into use 100 years after they first appeared.

Symbolism

The symbolism of the trumps is drawn from the culture of Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Most tarot subjects are distinctive to European Christendom. Illustrations virtually identical to each of the tarot subjects can be found in European art, and such precise analogs are not found in other cultures.

Tarot And The Church

The Inquisition documented in considerable detail what the church regarded as evidence of heresy and the tarot is never mentioned. Many printers made their living printing both religious cards and playing cards. Playing cards were sometimes restricted or outlawed because of their use in gambling. Tarot cards were, in fact, sometimes explicitly exempted from bans on playing cards, perhaps because of their association with the upper classes.

In 1423, playing cards (tarot cards were not mentioned) were among many things thrown on the fires in Bologna by followers of Bernadino of Sienna during an attack against all studies and pastimes not focused on religion. After the Reformation, the church did object to the cards depicting the Pope and Papess, and cardmakers substituted less controversial images.

Original Uses

Written records tell that the tarot was regularly used to play a card game similar to Bridge. The game was popular throughout much of Europe for centuries and is still played today, particularly in France. Early poets also used the titles of the trump cards to create flattering verses, called tarocchi appropriati, describing ladies of the court or famous personages.

Although it is possible that tarot cards might also have been sometimes used for other purposes, there is no clear evidence of such use until long after the cards were invented. Records from a trial in Venice in 1589 suggest that tarot may have been associated with witchcraft (at least in the minds of the accusers) at this date, about 150 years after the appearance of the tarot. After this, there are no references connecting tarot with magic or divination until the 18th century.

The Gypsies and Tarot

The gypsies brought the tarot to Europe and spread its use. This idea was popularized in the 19th century by several writers, notably Vaillant and Papus, without any basis in historical fact. There is no evidence that the Rom (gypsies) used tarot cards until the 20th century. Most of their fortune-telling was through palmistry and later through the use of ordinary playing cards.

Tarot and Divination

There is evidence of such use, but it is fragmentary and suggestive rather than conclusive. Tarot was used as early as the 16th century to compose poems describing personality characteristics (tarocchi appropriati). In one case (1527), the verses are presented as relating to the person's fate. There are records of divinatory meanings assigned to tarot cards in Bologna early in the 1700s. This is the first unambiguous evidence of tarot divination as it is commonly understood. However, it is known that ordinary playing cards were connected with divination as early as 1487, so it is reasonable to conjecture that tarot was also. From the 1790s with Etteilla's deck we find tarot design being modified specifically to reflect divinatory and esoteric meanings.

Occult philosophy and the original design of the tarot

The early Italian Renaissance, which gave birth to the tarot, was a time of great intellectual diversity and activity. Hermeticism, astrology, Neoplatonism, Pythagorean philosophy with roots in Alexandrian Egypt, and heterodox Christian thought all thrived. Any or all of these may have left their mark on the design of the tarot. Although it should be remembered that all of the symbolism of the tarot has close analogs in the conventional Christian culture of the time, many scholars today believe that these philosophies, which are foundations of occultism, were important in the design of the tarot.

Tarot and the western esoteric tradition

The first occult writers to discuss the tarot were Court de Gébelin and the Comte de Mellet in 1781. For the first 350 years of its history, the tarot was not mentioned in any of the many books on occult or magical philosophy. Following 1781, occult interest in tarot blossomed and the tarot then became an integral part of occult philosophy

Astrological, elemental, and kabbalistic correspondences

There are many, many systems of correspondences for the tarot. None can be shown to go back to the tarot's origins, although the French tradition exemplified in the works of Eliphas Lévi predates the English tradition now familiar through the works of Waite and Crowley. Most sets of correspondences have a rationale and system that make them meaningful and useful when studied within their own tradition. Correspondences are a matter of individual choice and of intention or adherence to a school of thought rather than right or wrong.

The Waite-Smith Tarot

The Waite-Smith (or Rider Waite) deck was created in 1909, making it a relative newcomer in the almost-600-year history of the tarot. A. E. Waite was a prominent member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The deck owes much of its symbolism to that group and represents a departure from the earlier French tradition. The artist, Pamela Colman Smith, contributed her own vision, especially in the innovative creation of fully illustrated scenes for the minor arcana. For many years, the Waite-Smith deck was the only one readily available in the US, so it became familiar to whole generations of tarot readers. There is actually no "definitive" version of the tarot. The well-known Celtic Cross spread, publicized by Waite as "an ancient Celtic method of divination" is also relatively recent, although it was not invented by Waite