Creative Counselling

Tarot Cards

Tarot cards originated in Italy as playing cards in the 15th century. The main difference between these cards and our modern playing cards was the additional 22 picture cards that served as trumps. Only the trump cards and the four court cards in each suit were illustrated, the other cards simply had 'pips'. Such cards are still in use today for card games and there is a thriving tarot-playing community in France.

The first popular tarot pack to have pictures on all the cards was published in England in 1910. Packs following in this tradition (variously knows as Rider-Waite or Rider-Waite-Smith) provide a ready-made set of 78 images which can be used for self-exploration. The images cover archtypes such as the Emperor, Death and the Star and images of human activity.

You can get some idea of the variety of packs that follow this tradition on the Collection of Decks website. My own personal recommendations for packs to use for personal development work are:

• The Universal Waite Tarot. This is a re-colouring of the Rider-Waite pack making it easier to see the details.
• The Hanson-Roberts Tarot. This is based on the Rider-Waite pack but the cards are smaller and the pictures have a more immediate emotional impact.
• The Whimsical Tarot. This pack is based on fairytales, so there is the benefit of archetypal imagery on all the cards, not just the Trump cards. There are no frightening or nude pictures in this pack as it is intended to be suitable for children. This would probably be my pack of choice for working with clients.

In addition to traditional tarot cards, there are a number of different "oracle card" packs available. These usually follow a different structure, or no structure at all, and some of these also have wonderful pictures that are useful for Gestalt experimental work. One example of these is the Radiant Sun Oracle. For a listing of oracle packs you could look at aeclectic tarot where you will find links to images from a number of different packs.