Tarot for Beginners: A Guide to Psychic Tarot Reading, Real Tarot Card Meanings, and Simple Tarot Spreads (The Divination Series: Tarot, Runes and More)

by Lisa Chamberlain

Divination, by contrast, is the art of accessing information, wisdom, and advice from the invisible realm—known variously as the ethereal plane, the astral realm, the unseen, or the divine.

The Tarot is a tool for understanding the language of this realm as it applies to our own life circumstances and development as spiritual beings. Viewed in this light, the Tarot experience can indeed be empowering, as it brings clarity to confusing situations and shows us that we have the ability to shape our future based on the choices we make in the present.

This was the first full Tarot deck designed exclusively for divination in the English-speaking world, and it’s widely credited with popularizing the Tarot in the 20th century. It was initially known as the Rider-Waite deck, crediting the original publishers, William Rider & Son, but has more recently become known as the Waite-Smith deck, in order to give due credit to the artist responsible for the images on the cards.