Some people believe tarot cards can be used to predict the future while others don’t. According to a Regina downtown card reader, it’s a practice that goes back centuries and it’s a cultural tradition that he won’t let go of.
“People do not understand our culture at all, so they fear it,” said Dino Callefos. “Therefore, they hate it.”
Callefos started reading tarot cards when he was five years old.
He says historically, card reading belongs to the Romani people and date to Biblical times.
However, it’s nothing out of the ordinary when Callefos needs to defend his profession.
“These big misconceptions that we’re into witchcraft … or there’s gypsy curse,” he said. “There’s no such thing as a curse … the problem is people start believing this garbage.”
However, Callefos said there are incorrect uses of tarot card reading especially when one extorts money from clients.
“The ruse of the tarot cards is to show you what path you’re on,” he said. “A reading shows you the path you’re on. This way you can look … go towards it. Prevent it, fix it … a reading is guidance, almost no difference in talking to a psychologist.”
Roger Petry, University of Regina philosophy professor, said history suggests that tarot cards started being used in the 1780s for that kind of divination purposes, for doing tarot readings.
He says tarot cards started off as playing cards and the older cards with illustrations began to take form as spiritual tools.
“With tarot cards, you’ve got a very specific set of meanings already attached or ones that just sort of jump out from the cards,” said Petry.
“You don’t need to be really trained to know the history … I think for that purpose, they have a specificity to them. They’ve got a detail to them that makes them very attractive if a person wants to use them for that purpose.”
— with files from Moosa Imran.
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