Nancy Shavick's Tarot Universe - Softcover

CHAPTER ONE THE TAROT: AN OVERVIEW

What Is The Tarot?

The Tarot forms a bible of ageless wisdom by using cards bearing ancient and mysterious symbols and archetypes to create a vast knowledge system that classifies and describes everything in the universe. The Tarot is a philosophical code of spiritual law that explains how our personal karma controls cycles of activity and change as we fulfill our preordained destinies. The cards are personifications of lessons taught by natural metaphysical and psychological principles whose meaning is understood as you gain awareness of how the drama of your conscious reality connects to your ever-evolving subconscious intelligence, which depicts the greater picture of the purpose of your soul. The Tarot cards are considered the sum total of enlightenment available to us, as the Tarot system defines all levels of physical, emotional, intellectual, and creative states as represented by the definitions of the 78 cards in the deck. They identify every type of feeling, incident, characteristic of humanity, and cosmic truth eternally found within the repetitive cycles of creation and destruction in the universe. The Tarot reflects all your romantic, creative, professional, and spiritual urges, both harmonious and chaotic, as you work to attune your life to inescapable heavenly law. It can help you purify your unconscious and destructive tendencies and show you a higher path away from unhappiness and confusion as you improve every aspect of your existence.

The Tarot cards are a textbook for raising your consciousness by discovering the will of divine guidance, urging you to evolve and make positive choices in your journey toward individual freedom. The Tarot can reveal your true spirit and relay truthful information concerning the past, present, or future to determine obstacles and opportunities and gain greater independence and joy in the present. Today, the Tarot is used as a tool for intuitive development and self-transformation. A reading becomes a form of therapy similar to a psychoanalytic talking cure that promotes healing through increased self-awareness of your own emotional process and instinctual behavioral patterns.

The Tarot is probably most utilized to make personal predictions about love, money, and romance. Tarot card readings can also help you gain clarity about your career direction, expand the boundaries of your earning potential, and discover inborn talents and creative abilities. In the best sense, a reading should be a private method of deliberation where you form your own opinion privately and make important decisions for yourself. The reading is a tool for thinking things over and working out your problems in a self-reliant manner. The very act of reading the cards forces you to sit down and center your attention to finding viable, successful solutions to your own problems.

The reading is never the final word on what will happen; it merely illustrates the options you have concerning a particular matter and what sort of behavior you can expect from everyone involved. A Tarot reading only reflects the current schedule of destiny that can be altered in the future and shows what is likely to happen later on. Therefore, you can know what will probably occur, which enables you to influence the outcome of your fate by fortifying your attitude and initiative toward a preferred result.

"Billed as the "Linda Goodman of the Tarot," Shavick is skilled at presenting the traditional insights of the tarot in an engaging manner that avoids the pitfalls of trivialization on the one hand and esoteric obscuration on the other. Primary a "how-to" book, it discusses the various "spreads" and appropriate attitudinal approach for effective "reading," but the bulk of the text is devoted to interpretive analyses of the cards in the respective subject areas of romance, work and business, and spiritual growth. She explains an interesting technique for using a "significator card" to identify the topic or combination of subjects (work, love, trouble, money) which are presenting themselves for consideration. Tarot enthusiasts and novices alike will find this a useful handbook in their exploration." -- KJ, NAPRA ReView, Nov/Dec 1999

"Nancy Shavick has a relaxed, low key, highly spiritual, and tremendously insightful interpretation of the Tarot to share with us. I find her insights to be impeccable. Her analysis and interpretation of personality types is brilliant and incredibly accurate. Her influence on me as a reader has been significant . . . Her ability to clarify the complexities of human emotions and situations through the cards is quite profound. She writes as if she were sitting in your living room speaking to you. She shows no condescension or reproach, and she shares her wisdom." -- Cheryl Lynne Bradley, President of Tarot Canada

"The book is thorough in its presentation of the history and symbolism of the cards and clear in its directions for their use. Nancy Shavick's Tarot Universe is a thoughtful and enlightening presentation of a subject too long shrouded in mystery." -- Kristine Morris, ForeWord, October, 1999