This is a digitized version of The Kirby Tarot book and cards put
together by Michaela Joffe. You can download the original PDF and cards on
Itch.io here: https://joffeorama.itch.io/kirby-tarot
The text on this page and below the cards is from the original PDF.
The Tarot is a pack of playing cards, originating roughly in the mid 15th century. Originally it was used for playing various games, but in the late 18th century became much more commonly used for divination, or seeing the future. Even when this kind of spiritualism fell out of fashion, Tarot decks remained popular thanks to the work of psychologists like Carl Jung, who used them for psychoanalytical purposes.
The most common European Tarot cards are not the only diving cards. There are similar traditions in Egypt, Peru, China, India and many other countries. Before computers, a shuffled deck was an effective random number generator, after all.
The true value of the Tarot is not for supernatural divination, but for personal introspection. The archetypes, themes and ideas that are randomly generated in a reading give you the opportunity to ask yourself questions you might not think of otherwise. They may bring to mind certain ideas that you did not realize you needed to express. So, yes, in a certain way they are "magic" in that you are evoking change in yourself and the world around you. "As above, so below" refers to using your inner mental power to effect real world changes. In a more accurate sense, no. No this is not magic. Its art and psychology.
Each card has a given "meaning" but you should feel free to also divine your own meaning based on the image or your familiarity or experiences with where the image comes from in the Kirby games. The simplest way is to shuffle the deck and draw a single card. Read the card's meaning and ask yourself how it relates to your current life. Performing this simple action once a day can provide you lots of insight.
There are other more advanced ways of performing a tarot reading, of course. Some are more complicated than others. The Celtic Cross uses a total of 10 cards to show insight on a specific question or problem from every angle. Other readings may be more simple, like a simple 3 card spread representing Past, Present and Future or a 4 card cross spread showing you two choices you can make and where each might lead.
When you draw a card, it may be upside down. If you are using reverse readings, that means the card's meaning is altered. It may mean the opposite of what it meant before, or it may be a more subtle difference