Chances are, the last time you encountered a card reader it went ‘beep!’ and cleared you to leave the newsagent with your bread and milk, rather than requesting its palm be crossed with silver and delivering a tall, dark, handsome stranger forecast.
Nevertheless, tarot is enjoying a resurgence, with modern readings as far from the hackneyed image above as your local corner shop is from chequebooks. Truly, tarot isn’t what it used to be. Although it probably wasn’t what you thought it was then, either.
For a start, there’s nothing inherently occultish about tarot. Rather, the deck began life in the 1430s in the same capacity as its standard sister: as a game. Indeed, by the time tarot cards were being used to predict the future - about 1780 - it had…
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The Simple Things (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2022