Deborah Cooke: Author

I find tarot cards quite intriguing, although I’m not that good at reading them. (I have to look everything up, then work from there.) But even so, my cards do tell me things, sometimes things I’d rather not know, and are a resource I consult every once in a while.

It’s not clear how old tarot cards are. There are decks which survive from the 15th century and there are 15th century references to them – they were used to play a specific card game called tarocchini or tarot. The official story is that they were adopted for divination later, but there certainly are people convinced not only that the cards have older origins than this but that they were always intended for divination.

A typical tarot card deck has 78 cards. The main body of the deck is the minor arcana. Within this, there are four suits of 14 cards each – numbered 1 through 10, then a page, a knight, a queen and a king. The suits are rods (which govern work matters) coins or pentacles (which govern money), cups (which govern affairs of the heart) and swords (which govern conflict).

If this sounds a lot like the playing cards you already know, that’s because our 52-card playing deck is derived from the tarot. The page was dumped in the transition and the knight became a jack. Cups became hearts; rods became spades; coins or pentacles became diamonds; swords became clubs. It’s easy to see how a talented card reader would still be able to use a 52-card deck to tell fortunes.

The other distinguishing characteristic of a tarot deck is the inclusion of the higher arcana cards. These are the ‘court cards’, the 21-card suit of trump cards with specific names. Their appearance in a reading indicates importance – either of the question itself or the magnitude of the querant’s choice. The intriguing thing about tarot cards is that they are supposed to indicate the current view of the future, given the choices at hand. So, they’re a good resource for questions like “should I take this job?” or more accurately “will this job allow me to achieve my goals?” Of course, the future is always in flux – everyone’s choices are constantly shaping it. I like to see how that is mirrored in the cards, and also how they respond to the energy of the people present.

They shouldn’t work. They’re pieces of cardboard with pictures on them. But they often do work, and that’s fascinating.

I am also amused that my two decks have such very different personalities. My full deck – which has lovely Renaissance illustrations based upon the Visconti-Sforza tarot deck from the 15th century – is fond of showing all the nuances relevant to the reply. The abbreviated deck, which is a variation of the traditional tarot, is blunt. It likes short questions and gives pithy replies. It makes me laugh.

I’ve often included tarot cards in my stories, just because they are so neat. In one of my Claire Cross books, LOVE POTION #9, the heroine, Lilith, is a Gypsy who has read tarot cards all of her life. They are completely familiar to her, not mystical at all but simply a part of her life. I loved how intuitive Lilith was with them and how reliant she was upon them.

It made sense to structure the book – which was really her story – accordingly. That book has 21 chapters, each one named after a card in the higher arcana. I took them in order, and the card of choice governed the action in that chapter. This was quite a challenge – I didn’t even think of it until the book was about half done and I was reading more about the journey one can follow by using the cards. I realized then that a lot of what I had written did line up with the cards, and so the challenge was on to make it all work. I had a great time writing that book.

More recently, I’ve been using tarot cards in The Dragon Diaries. There’s a continuing character who is learning to read them – no, I won’t tell you who! – and I enjoy the way that this character is feeling the way forward with them. The relationship isn’t nearly as intuitive as Lilith’s in LOVE POTION #9, but then these characters aren’t centuries old! The cards seem to open a portal to a deeper understanding in these books, which is certainly consistent with my relationship with my cards.

Here’s the Wiki on tarot, in case you want to read more.

Here’s where you’ll find more information about my re-release, LOVE POTION #9. (Scroll down to this cover.)

Do you read tarot cards? Do you believe that they work? Do you believe in any kind of divination? Have you ever had your fortune told and learned something surprising as a result?