Some images trigger remembrances of situations you have been in before. You've been that Fool taking a leap of faith, reached a higher spirituality through a relationship like the Lovers and forgotten about your blessings when disappointed with aspects of your life like the man in the five of cups.

Some are from outside of your actual experience but you have seen or been taught about them since childhood. You recognize the Trinity and scales to be balanced in the Hierophant, the Moon has always indicated sub-conscious and hidden thoughts, and you automatically recognize the chains of obsession and unhealthy desires of the Devil.

Immediate fascination and at least partial understanding of Tarot is no real mystery, while learning to interpret the meanings, relationships, interactions and subleties of the cards is a life-time study. (As you study, grow, change and experience life, your understanding of Tarot deepens and more meanings become clear, as with any subject).

Tarot's only real mystery is how a perfect stranger can tell you your life's trials, accomplishments, fears and loves - past, present and future, by laying out Tarot cards. Well, a real mystery for anyone that doesn't believe in a super-conscious or who does believe there is such a thing as truly random events.

I have met very few people who honestly believe there is nothing more to us than our physical bodies and nothing more to the world than the elements. These are very sad people to me. To never have felt a spiritual connection with anything or anyone?

Now random events are another matter. People constantly say, it was "coincidence" or "luck." I personally believe in neither. I believe everything that happens to you is caused by either an action or decision that you make (making no decision is a decision) or a test, challenge if you will, by the super-conscious to push us to grow and learn. If you can accept this reasoning you can accept Tarot as a form of divination.

Big leap? Not really. If nothing is random, including laying out Tarot cards, and we acknowledge that we are either all connected through what we deem to be the super-conscious, i.e., through Nature, the Collective, etc., or we have a path to the super-conscious, who is in turn connected to everything and every one, i.e., God, Saints, Angels, etc., then it is really a small step to conclude that anyone tuned into your question and who reads Tarot in anticipation of receiving an answer, will in fact receive that answer for you. The reader must understand Tarot to adequately interpret the answer, which does require study, but the message will be there.

Tarot has become popular in India. Many of us reach for the weekend papers to see what Tarot cards predict for us in the week to come. But prediction, divination or fortune-telling are just some of the ways in which the deck of Tarot cards has been used through the ages.

For experienced Tarot card users, these ancient cards serve a variety of purposes like counseling, therapy, healing, spiritual growth and energy work. Originally an ancient book of wisdom, the Tarot took its card form in the middle ages, the earliest surviving deck dating back to the 15th century.

Hundreds of distinct Tarot decks are available today: the choice extends from decks with modem imagery to the classic ones like the Rider Waite pack. Tarot consists of 78 strikingly vivid, pictorial cards, divided into two sections commonly called the major and minor arcana. The major arcana consists of 22 cards with names such as the Magician, the Empress, Strength, the Tower, the Chariot.

A primary and sometimes a secondary meaning is assigned to each of these cards. For instance, in popular occult, the Magician represents will power, the Emperor: realization, the Chariot: triumph, the Hermit: prudence, and the Devil: fate.

The minor arcana, which consists of 56 cards, is divided into four suits of wands, cups, swords and coins. Each suit, which is said to represent a different level of consciousness, has 10 cards plus a King, Queen, Knight and Page. From these cards have come our modem deck of playing cards with the suits of diamonds, hearts, clubs and spades.

"The Tarot has the ability to reveal to us, both, individually, collectively and therapeutically, the gifts and talents inherent within the psyche; it can also reveal, through problematic symbols, our personal psycho-pathology. Within the Tarot, 13 symbols of the 78 represent neurotic or challenging states."