"It is done to remove negative energy nd help provide an accurate reding." Will said.

Barry said " superstition. Perhaps uncleansed hands are thought to produce inaccurate and impure readings" he looked at Will he wanted to talk to Will but not here so he shook his head and turned back to the professer

Cale raised his hand, "Maybe if your hands are dirty, you'll get inaccurate readings? Plus, I think after a while you'd make the cards all gross and disgusting," he added.

Cale looked at his hands. They were dirty, but then they were always dirty. Cale without a nice layer of dirt on his hands and under his nails, just wasn't Cale and he doubted that any amount of scrubbing and cleaning wouldn't get them clean enough for the professor and this assignment. He suddenly wished he hadn't caught his flying tiger lilly which was currently stuck to his robe's lapel and making "faces" at people with it's petals.

"Do we have to clean our hands?" Cale asked tossing a hand into the air. "I mean...just because it's customary doesn't me you have to do it. Am I wrong? Besides Cleanse doesn't necessarily mean 'clean' either. You could just purge them of idleness or put down what you're holding..."

"Yes. Some Cartomancers believe that residule energy will create an opportunity for an inaccurate reading." 'And, it could be superstitous.' "One point to Ravenclaw.". It did the old man's heart good to see a Ravenclaw get a point. "Think fast!" He said, tossing a wrapped bundled fresh deck of tarot cards towards Ryans desk for his use. Maybe the Quidditch Captain would catch it.

"Yes, because of the residual energy." The Professor emphasized. "One point, and here is your deck.", he said also giving Ray a deck.

"Yes, that is exactly it. Two points for being specific." The Professor put Nicholai's wrapped deck on the corner of his desk.

"Good answer. One point for you." Likewise, he tossed Miles a deck of cards.

"Good. One point." He said as he laid a deck on Jose's desk for his use.

"Yes, though, not just negative energy, but any energy. Some card readers believe it causes interference. A sort of glitch. Like splinching during travel, where part of the message is left behind or somehow not included in the reading." The Professor placed a cloth-wrapped deck of cards on the desk for Jason. "One point and a deck of cards."

"Good. One point to Slytherin.", he said giving Will a black silk wrapped deck. He would've thrown it, but he noticed that this one was rather clumsy and was afraid to take the boys eye out.

"In fact, they are. A point for you." He placed Barry's deck of cards on his desk and moved over to Prefect Newell's desk.

"Many Cartomancers believe that, yes. And, most everyone will agree with you there that always handling cards with unwashed hands will undoubtedly lead to their accumulation of dirty. One point to Gryffindor and one deck of cards." He placed the deck on Cale's desk and moved on to the next student.


"Not neccessarily. It is mainly a cleanse to remove excess energy from the part of the body which will be in contact with the cards." The Professor nodded. "Yes. So, someone could potentially have hands covered in mud and still read from their deck." The Professor looked down at the young Thornton and pondered the reason for this particular point being made. 'Did he have a sentimental attachment to the dirt...dirt separation anxiety, perhaps?' Just then his eye caught a glimpse of the little thing making faces at everyone. "There's something on your...", The Professor cleared his throat and wiped a finger across his own robes where the flying tiger lilly had landed on Prefect Thorntons robes and moved to the front and center of the room.

"Of course,", he told the class, "This part will be made optional for those of you who'd like a more direct challenge in reading the tarot, but for those of you who'd like to keep things traditional, go ahead and cleanse your hands using a simple rudimentary charm. Once, done with that, you may begin handling your cards."

"Who can name a few of the most commonly used tarot decks in the western world?"

Cale looked down at his hands. Meh, he thought they were clean. After Borr's first lesson he had been careful to keep his hands and nails clean all the time--just in case. He raised his hand to answer the professor's question. "Well, there are lots of different cards, but the main ones are called the Major Arcana," he explained. "They consist of the Fool, the Magician, High Priestess, Empress, Emperor, Chariot, Strength, Wheel of Fortune..." he counted them off on his fingers. "Those are just a few, there are typically a lot more."

"That's correct information,", he smiled glad that Prefect Newell had obviously did some studying. "But, I want you to name different types of decks. Such as the Rider-Waite." The Professor covered his mouth, not meaning to give away one of the answers...or did he???

Cale wrinkled his eyebrows. He could name the decks, alright, but explaining them would be a different story. "Well, the Rider-Waite deck is the most popular deck in modern day Divination, I think, but there are others like the Thoth, Greenwood, and the Visconti-Sforza, to name a few."

Ryan reacted quickly to Professor Kapoor and snatched the deck out of the air. His quidditch reactions had really helped him for situations like this.

He quickly pulled out his wand, muttered a charm to clean his hands, and returned his wand to it's place in his robes.

As soon as he did so, he raised his hand and said, "The only ones that come to mind are the Major and the Minor Arcana. Do those count? I'm not even sure if those are different decks. There is the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, as well. This is where I start getting confused though."

He looked back down at the deck, flipping it over in his hands and examining each card carefully.

He had an idea, though, and pulled out a book he had rented from the library. He flipped through, looking for decks. Once he had found a few, he started naming them off. "There's also the Tarot de Marseilles, Minchiate, Tarocchi di Alan, Tarot de la Nature, a deck by Etteilla, whatever that means, Thoth Tarot, Golden Dawn Tarot, Paul Foster Case's B.O.T.A. Tarot, and.....WOW. There really are a lot of decks. I don't even want to read them all off, there are so many."

Barry only new 2 or 3 he said " Theres that Golden dawn Tarrot thingy and um Toth" that was all he knew and he didn`t have any idea what it meant

"Correct, sir! Four points to Gryffindor."

"Good. Those are two of the more popular decks as well. Two points."

"Very good! Nine points. Etteilla was a name of an earlier Cartomancer. If you recall,", he said addressing not just Ryan, but the class, in general, "your first homework assignment had you matching up common symbols in Divination with things like colours and planets. Etteilla was the fellow who designed a tarot deck around some of these associations like the four elements, humours and western astrology. He sort of married certain occult concepts together for the western culture of that time." The professor took out his well-worn deck.

"The major and the minor arcana are part of every deck, but before we talk about them, would anyone else like to offer up any other examples of cartomantic decks? It's alright if you've already given examples. I just want you to familiarize yourself with different decks."

Ryan had been waiting for an opportunity to offer up some more decks. He had hit the jackpot. "Sir, I've just come across a huge list. Tarot of the Cat People, Aquarian Tarot, Tree of Life Tarot, Cosmic Tarot, Alchemical Tarot, Motherpeace Tarot...Tarot of Baseball? Silicon Valley Tarot, Robin Wood Tarot, Morgan's Tarot, and the Mythic Tarot Deck. Sir, why are there so many different decks? It almost seems like a bit of a joke...like the decks are just personalized based on various interests. Wouldn't that sort of...detract from the credibility tarot and cartomancy may have?"

To each their own, Ryan supposed.

Jose raised his hands "Sir I heard of these, Tarot of the Cat People, Aquarian Tarot, Tree of Life Tarot, Cosmic Tarot and Robin Wood Tarot"

"Sir?" Nico raised his hand, " The Universal Waite deck- which is prettified version of the Rider-Waite deck with softer artwork, The Hanson-Roberts deck- which is good for beginners and features medieval-style artwork, The Tarot of Prague- which features architecture and artwork of Prague, Sharman-Caselli deck which is inspired both by the Rider-Waite and the Visconti-Sforza deck. These decks are all ideal for beginners."

He cleared his throat, " And as for non-tarot decks, the standard 52 card, 4 suit playing card deck and the french deck piquet which contains only 32 cards are also universally popular."

"I know one more the uh Tarot of the Cat People" said Barry reading it from his book

"There are lots and lots of novel decks I've come across - the Alcohol Tarot, tthe Creative Fire Tarot, the Glamour Tarot, the Gothic Tarot, the Healing Tarot, the Kei Tarot, the Mexican Tarot, the Modern Medievel Tarot, the Mountain Dream Tarot, the National Geographic Tarot, the Parfait Amour Tarot, the Sentiero dei Tarocchi, the Silver Era Tarot, the Tarot of Gemstones and Crystals, the Tarot of the Bellydancers, the Tarot of Timeless Truth and the Voyager Tarot are some very interesting Photographic Tarots," Jason offered.

Cale raised his hand. A lot of people had already named most of them, but he was hoping he could add a few in there as well. "Well, I don't know much about them specifically, and there are hundreds of decks, but a few others include the 1JJ Swiss Tarot Cards, Bohemian Gothic, Celtic Dragon Tarot, Celtic Wisdom Tarot, Fenestra Tarot, Herbal Tarot, Tarot of Marseilles, Pythagorean Tarot, Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg...like Ryan said, it looks like over time people have basically just made up random decks to fit their own personal needs. They even made a Lord of the Rings Tarot, which I guess is based on some Muggle book series or something," he added, reading over his notes.

Will raised his hand. "There's also the decks of the Old English, the Russian, the Universal Waite, the One World Tarot, the Thai, The Thoth, the Goddess Tarot, Tarot of the old path, the quick and easy tarot, Hermetic, Tarot of the Gnomes, Zerner Farber Tarot, Zolar's Astrological Tarot, the Alchemical Tarot, the Wiccan tarot, Tarot of the World Spirit, the Necromantic Tarot-- Dark Artists use that one, I've heard... and Zen Tarot, the vampiric tarot and the Tarot of the Whimsical." This last seemed the most appealing to Will's sensibilities.

The Professor tried to hide a laugh a bit, admiring the boys sensible approach to the subject matter. "Just as an event may have two people verbally relaying it to a listener, the tarot, likewise, may use different tools of communication to relay the events of the same day. A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. It is the responsibility of the interpreter to decipher what he or she will from the picture on the tarot card."

"A very good list, Mr. Lee. Take eleven points and one more for putting some critical thought into it."

"Five points, Mr. Moiser."

"Excellent examples! Five points and one for mentioning non-standard card decks which may be used for divining."

"One point for Ravenclaw.", The Professor said, happy to give a point to a Ravenclaw.

The Professor mentally tallied the mentions made by Weasley, "Fifteen points to Gryffindor."

"Any artist working closely with a Diviner can create a deck, but I would like for you all to note that they all must have sets of symbols, basic or obscure, which the reader must interpret. Even the suits on an ordinary deck of playing cards are symbolic of the classical elements."

"Ten points, Prefect Newell."

"They probably do, Prefect Jones. Nineteen points.", The Professor stiffled a slight laugh.

"No one knows where the tarot began, though many speculate that Italy is its' birthdplace, due not only to the etmological similarities of the word 'Tarot' to earlier Northern Italian decks like 'Tarrochi', but also to similarities in their suits."

"What other possible places of origin exist for tarot?"

Cale rasied his hand, "They believe that playing cards, the basis of the tarot we use in Divination, originated with the Mamelukes of Egypt, and eventually led to the tarot cards that we use today being formed in Milan, Ferrera, or Bologna, which are all in northern Italy."

Will raised his hand. "No one definitively knows where the tarot originated. There is evidence of tarot in use in ancient Greece during the time of Pythagoras as well as between 1410 and 1430 from Milan, Ferrara, or Bologna, They are mentioned in the surviving text of Martiano da Tortona from 1418 and 1425. It was even mentioned in the ancient Qabbalah religious texts as well."

"However... current thinking places the origin of tarot most likely as coming from the ancient Egyptian times, where they were tools of initiation into the priesthood. They can be traced to the time of the Pharoah Le-eet. In that time the cards were known in Le-eet speak as 'T3h Ra', or 'Teh Ra, The Sun God', as the cards were thought to be a divine gift for communication by the priests with the sun God Amun-Ra himself. However, over time the word changed to Tarah, and finally to the term 'tarot' that we use to this day." Will nodded, pleased with his answer. Which was totally, absolutely, accurate.

"Good. Two points." Kapoor turned back to address everyone in the class. "Any other places?". There was still at least one unmentioned.



Kapoor nodded his head at the first half of Will's answer. "Three points!"

Quote:

Originally Posted by XanaSnape

"However... current thinking places the origin of tarot most likely as coming from the ancient Egyptian times, where they were tools of initiation into the priesthood. They can be traced to the time of the Pharoah Le-eet. In that time the cards were known in Le-eet speak as 'T3h Ra', or 'Teh Ra, The Sun God', as the cards were thought to be a divine gift for communication by the priests with the sun God Amun-Ra himself. However, over time the word changed to Tarah, and finally to the term 'tarot' that we use to this day."

Kapoor stared blankly at the eh, almost correct answer uttered by Prefect Jones. He wanted to tell him that although Alliette theorized that the Major Arcana was the work of Egyptian priests, he'd never heard of this 'T3h Ra', but all he could think was, 'Tah-rah-rah Boom-d'ay! Tah-rah-rah Boom-d'ay!'

Cale raised his hand once more. "Well, there are also some suggestions that the Tarot comes from India or China, even Morocoo, although the evidence pointing to these places isn't as strong as the evidence that it came from Italy."

"That'ssss...three more points for Gryffindor, Prefect Newell." This time the Professor had to write it down. He was having a hard time remembering exactly who got how many points and he wanted to make sure he tallied correctly at the end of the class.

"Go ahead and open up your card decks now. Shuffle them and find a card from the major arcana. It need not be a specific one, so long as it is from the major arcana of your deck. Who can tell me what a significator is and how one is chosen? Also, how many cards are there in the major arcana? how many are in the minor?"

A white snowy owl comes into the classroom and lands in the Professor’s desk, it eyes the big man next to it and the students in front.

Tilting the head from one side to the other, the owl takes another flight, only to mess up the tarot cards three of the students where holding in their hands and ripped off some of the cards.

The owl returns to the desk and after one look at the Professor it grabs the piece of parchment he’d written something in and flies around the classroom with the piece of parchment still attached to its claws.