21 February: Tarot Cards

Today is Card Reading Day. It's a day to read cards. There is no particular evidence associating it with tarot cards, but mention card reading and that's probably what springs to most people's minds. So here are ten things you might not know about tarot cards:

1. When they were first invented, they had nothing to do with fortune telling at all. They were purely and simply a game invented in Italy around the 15th century. It was called Tarocchi and it was a storytelling game. The object of the game was for players to make up poems and stories relating to the cards they were dealt.
2. It's not true that modern Playing cards evolved from tarot. Playing cards came from Muslim Spain, and pre-dated tarot by about 50 years.
3. There are 78 cards in the deck. The deck is divided into two sections called the major arcana and the minor arcana. The major arcana in the original game were the trump cards. There are 22 of them: The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgement, The World, and The Fool. They are all numbered apart from The Fool, although this is sometimes assigned the number 0. In card readings, these cards represent major life events.
4. There are 56 cards in the minor arcana and they are divided into four suits – Cups (related to the element Water; in readings they're related to emotions and relationships), Pentacles (The Earth element, relates to career, security and money), Swords (Air, relating to the mind and conflicts and life's challenges) and Wands (Fire – productivity, projects and goals).
5. The cards might have carried on being nothing more than a game if not for 18th century French occultists. Jean-Baptiste Alliette was the first to claim a magical element, and in in 1781, Antoine Court de Gebelin claimed that tarot cards were based on Egyptian religious texts.
6. It's not even strictly true that the church banned tarot cards as evil or heresy. They're not even mentioned in the list of things the Spanish Inquisition considered as evidence of heresy. (You weren't expecting that, I bet!) Cards might be used in gambling, so any bans were more likely to do with that than fortune telling. In fact, tarot cards were often exempted from bans because it was a game played by the upper classes, a bit like today when you can't have a children's party because of covid but a hunting trip is perfectly okay. The only thing the church did take exception to was cards depicting Popes.
7. There are numerous different tarot decks with countless themes and focusses (like the Aura Soma deck which links each card to a combination of colours) but the best known deck is The Rider-Waite Deck, which was commissioned by an occultist named Arthur Waite, a prominent member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, in 1909. The cards were drawn by Pamela Colman Smith, who was responsible for much of the symbolism associated with the individual cards.
8. Another myth is that gypsies brought the tarot to Europe and spread its use. There's no historical evidence for that. Gypsies told fortunes by reading palms and with standard playing cards. The idea that they used tarot was invented by Victorian writers.
9. Each card has a meaning, but the interpretations depend entirely on the person doing the reading. An identical spread of cards could be interpreted entirely differently by two different readers. They're not hard and fast predictors of the future, either, but show up possible possible opportunities, challenges, and outcomes. Nor is there any such thing as a "bad" card. Some methods of reading assign positive and negative meanings to cards depending on whether they land on the table the right way up or upside down. Drawing the Death card doesn't mean you're about to die. Most card readers interpret Death as something coming to an end and something new about to start.
10. Everyone has a personal card in the major arcana based on their birthdate. Want to know yours? Simply add up the digits in your date of birth and add together the digits in the total until you get a number which is 21 or less. That is the number of your card.

Who's That Girl?

Matt Webster lives in a tower block and attends a failing school. He dreams of being a spy like James Bond. Little does he know that he is being watched by someone who can make him into even more than that – a superhero.

His first solo mission is to attend a ball at the Decembrian Embassy and discover who is planning to steal a priceless diamond. While there, he meets the mysterious Lady Antonia du Cane, and is powerfully drawn to her. It soon becomes clear, however, that Lady du Cane is not what she seems. Matt’s quest to discover who she really is almost costs him his career.

A modern day Guy Fawkes gathers a coterie around him with the aim of blowing up Parliament with a nuclear bomb. To achieve this, they need money. Lots of it. Selling the Heart of Decembria Diamond will provide more than enough. All that stands in their way is the Freedom League – but the League is beset by internal disagreements. Can the heroes put their differences aside in time to save the day?

Prime Minister Richard Miller and his wife Fiona grieve for their daughter, Yasmin, who has been missing for three years, and is presumed to be dead. Viper agent Violet Parker could hold the key to what happened to Yasmin, but Violet is accused of giving away the organisation’s secrets. She is to be executed without trial. Will she take her knowledge of what happened to Yasmin with her to her grave?

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