Tarot cards are an extremely complex and subtle symbol system that can be employed to deepen your exploration of magic by several approaches.
These approaches may include:

• Meditation
  
• Path working
  
• Identification of archetypes
  
• Divination
  
• Association with astrology and the Kaballah.
  

The full seventy-eight card deck is traditionally thought of as two different decks, called Arcana, that work together to illumine different aspects of our universe. The twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana are sometimes called Trumps, or Keys. They represent universal "forces" or "laws" or "archetypes" for humankind. The fifty-six cards of the Minor Arcana represent the kinds of things these universal laws act upon.

Each card of the deck (depending, of course, upon which deck you use) is densely filled with symbols that help you to create correspondences. These are rich and rapid associations between the visual elements in the card and, for example, scenes from mythological stories, archetypal images from the human collective unconscious, astrological characteristics, or other equally dense systems of thought. Serious students of Tarot spend time building up both a classical and a personal set of correspondences to the cards. These correspondences later serve as a sort of "filing system" that can provide additional insight and understanding to the object or characteristic to which it is applied. The more familiar you become with the design of a card, the more depth of insight you can achieve when you map the journey of your own life experience onto that frame of human experience.

Though the deck is often likened to a large storybook, Tarot is more. The value of a book is sometimes limited by its linearity. A tarot deck can be shuffled. It is a story book that can tell the greatest story in the world in any order, starting anywhere and ending anywhere, talking about people you have known, know now, or will know soon.

Those of you who have some experience with "surfing on the (World Wide) Web" will understand the dynamic nature of a Tarot experience. Through exploration of the Tarot, you can experience the same sort of adventure to be found from following a "link" about one interest until it leads you either to surprises about that interest, or into new areas of study that are entirely different from your starting place.

Meditative study is a common beginning point. Carefully study each card. You discover that each creature, color, object, symbol has a meaning or a mood that is harmonious and supportive to the whole feel of the card. Later, if you encounter any of these images in dreams or stories, you have a context that deepens your understanding of that dream or story. You may first begin to classify patterns in your personal life by recognizing a given card, or the cohabiting symbols of that card. Later you may begin to recognize where that symbol of your life is "placed" in relation to others. This gives you insight into how you structure your personal story. Still later you may discover how to change the positions of these elements in your personal story, much like shuffling a deck.

Path working superficially resembles meditation with the cards, but includes a willed element. Rather than just passively absorbing cues from the cards and learning to recognize them when they appear in your life, you may choose to creatively visualize a personal journey. This is like a "waking dream" in which your conscious and your unconscious join forces or converse with one another. It is a way to deepen the connection you have between the small you of the waking world, and the enormous you that you are still discovering. In classic pathworking, the Major Arcana cards play the largest role, and you hold a conversation with these immortals to learn how the Archetypes influence your life. Ideally, you come away from that effort with some idea of how to play to your strengths.

Divination is the most familiar use of the cards. However, divination by Tarot is not simple. In a divinatory reading, each card influences and shapes the interpretation of every other card present in your spread. If you do not understand the inter-relationships of each card you can not recognize the implications or relationships being illustrated by a layout. If you do not have a firm grasp of how subjective your relationship to the cards can be, you will not recognize when you are coloring your divination with your own wishes, dreams, and fears. The detachment that passes for objectivity in a Tarot divination is most often found by remembering that the cards tell the story of "everyman" and simultaneously encourage you to interpret that story through your own experience and intuition. The more insights you build up about each card, the more layered that story becomes, and the more familiar you become with the possibilities, but the harder they become to turn into mere words. A picture built up of a series of many pictures becomes far more than a thousand words can tell.

Astrology and Kaballah are separate intuitive systems and philosophies that have, over time, become part of the Tarot. Each card has acquired a correspondence to elements within these symbol systems, and a full exposition of how to relate these systems to each other and to Tarot is outside the scope of this introductory article. As previously mentioned, Tarot's flexibility provides the ability to transit between systems by organizing (corresponding) the similar symbols within and between each system. Tarot is unique in its powerful ability to link apparently disparate systems and provide "undiscovered" clues about them. The human mind follows rules and structures that are reiterated across time and culture. These may be mapped if you have a sufficiently complex "language" with which to do so. For many, Tarot is that language.
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