Other modern decks created since the time of the first publishing of the Rider-Waite deck in 1909 vary in their card imagery. The variety is almost endless, and grows yearly. For instance, cat-lovers may have the Tarot of the Cat People, a deck complete with cats in every picture. The Tarot of the Witches and the Aquarian Tarot retain the conventional cards with varying designs. The Tarot of the Witches deck became famous/notorious in the 1970s for its use in the James Bond movie Live and Let Die.

These modern decks change the cards to varying degrees. For example, the Motherpeace Tarot is notable for its circular cards and feminist angle: the mainly male characters have been replaced by females. The Tarot of Baseball has suits of bats, mitts, balls and bases; "coaches" and "MVPs" instead of Queens and Kings; and major arcana cards like "The Catcher", "The Rule Book" and "Batting a Thousand". In the Silicon Valley Tarot, major arcana cards include The Hacker, Flame War, The Layoff and The Garage; the suits are Networks, Cubicles, Disks and Hosts; the court cards CIO, Salesman, Marketeer and New Hire.

Symbolism
The Tarot has a complex and rich symbolism with a long history. Such history is not impenetrable. Contrary to what many popular author claim, its origins are not lost in the mists of time. In fact, much of the fog around the symbolism can be dispelled if one studies sources other than occultists with a vested interest in the occult interpretation of Tarot. We will do some dispelling further on; in the meanwhile, the most important thing to note is that modern, occult readings of the cards often have little to do with their meaning in their original context.

Some people find that modern Tarot decks are more interesting, expressive, and psychologically resonant than their ancestors. Interpretations have evolved together with the cards over the centuries: later decks have "clarified" the pictures in accordance with meanings assigned to the cards by their creators. In turn, the meanings come to be modified by the new pictures. Images and interpretations have been continually reshaped, in part, to help the Tarot live up to its mythic role as a powerful occult instrument and to respond to modern needs.

See, for example, the Rider-Waite-Smith Strength card. We can know more about the symbolic intentions of the designer here, since he conveniently wrote many books on the subject on occultism and symbolism and a handbook specifically for this deck titled The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). As with its Marseille-deck ancestor, the Strength trump shows a woman holding the jaws of a lion, but this picture is far more elaborate. The woman's hat of the Marseille card has frequently been interpreted as a lemniscate: the sideways-figure-eight representing infinity, or, according to Waite, the Spirit of Life. In the newer card, this symbol appears explicitly. Other symbols are included: a chain of roses symbolizing desire or passion, against a white robe symbolizing purity. The mountains in the background demonstrate another kind of strength. Even here there is room for interpretation: the card is sometimes considered as showing intellect triumphing over desire, sometimes as the equal union of intellect and passion, sometimes just as a symbol of mental strength or endurance.

The twenty-two cards in the major arcana are: Fool, Magician, High Priestess [or La Papessa/Popess], Empress, Emperor, Hierophant [or Pope], Lovers, Chariot, Strength, Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, Sun, Judgement, World. Each card has its own large, complicated and disputed set of meanings. Altogether the major arcana are frequently said to represent the Fool's journey: a symbolic journey through life in which the Fool overcomes obstacles and gains wisdom. This idea was apparently first suggested by tarot author Eden Gray in the mid-20th century.

There is a vast body of writing on the significance of the Tarot. In many systems of interpretation based on that of the Golden Dawn, the four suits are associated with the four elements: Swords with air, Wands with fire, Cups with water and Pentacles with earth. The numerology is usually thought to be significant. The Tarot is often considered to correspond to various systems such as astrology, Pythagorean numerology, the Kabalah, the I Ching and others.

Psychology
Carl Jung was the first psychologist to attach importance to the Tarot. He may have regarded the Tarot cards as representing archetypes: fundamental types of person or situation embedded in the subconscious of all human beings. The Emperor, for instance, represents the ultimate patriarch or father figure.

The theory of archetypes gives rise to several psychological uses. Some psychologists use Tarot cards to identify how a client views himself or herself, by asking the patient to select a card that he or she identifies with. Some try to get the client to clarify his ideas by imagining his situation or relationship in terms of Tarot images: Is someone rushing in heedlessly like the Knight of Swords perhaps, or blindly keeping the world at bay as in the Rider-Waite-Smith Two of Swords? The Tarot can be seen as a kind of algebra of the subconscious, allowing it to be analysed at the conscious level.

Interestingly, some people view the older decks such as the Visconti-Sforza and Marseille as crude and lmited when compared to some modern ones. This may reflect their belief that Tarot symbolism has evolved, especially since the early 20th century, so that it has become increasingly universal.

Storytelling and Art
The Tarot has inspired writers as well as visual artists. Italo Calvino described the Tarot as a "machine for telling stories", writing the novel The Castle of Crossed Destinies with plots and characters constructed through the Tarot. T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land uses only superficial descriptions of Tarot cards, a few of which are genuine. Random selections of Tarot cards have also been used to construct stories for writing exercises and writing games.

Tarot decks play a significant role in Roger Zelazny's Amber fantasy series, where most major characters carry a magical deck of Tarot cards whose Trumps represent other characters (and enable communication with them) or locations. A Tarot deck inspired by the Amber series has been published.

Tarot cards also play a role in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. At the end of Book 1, The Gunslinger, Roland finally catches up to the Man in Black, who reads Roland's future with a deck of Tarot cards in a golgotha: "Death. Yet not for you."

From 1977 to 1980, Piers Anthony published the "Planet of Tarot" series, which included God of Tarot, Vision of Tarot and Faith of Tarot. On the planet Tarot, nightmares, visions and fantasies become real, and sometimes tangentially, sometimes on-target, the protagonist lives through myths and stories, e.g., the moment Jesus of Nazareth "dies" and accepts his spiritual journey as Christ the savior, related to Tarot cards.

In John Crowley's novel Little, Big (1981), characters use a Tarot deck with non-standard major arcana ("the lesser trumps") for divination.

Tim Powers' 1992 novel Last Call depicts Tarot decks used for magic beyond just divination, particularly in a variant of poker, and alludes repeatedly to The Waste Land.

Divination
Divination, or fortune-telling, is by far the most popular and well-known use of the Tarot in the English-speaking world. This is sometimes seen as an extension of the psychological use mentioned above. Alternatively, it is sometimes seen as a less sophisticated use of tarot. It can be argued that we sometimes perceive the signs of future events subconsciously only. For instance, you might be subconsciously aware that a relationship or job is in trouble, before you admit it to yourself. In that sense, it might be said that the Tarot can give you insights into the future without having any supernatural or occult aspect at all. Meaning may emerge even from purely random patterns, as chance selections force you to consider concepts that you'd normally ignore, and the density of meaning is great enough that meanings can emerge from almost any selection of cards.

That point of view may be unusual among those who use Tarot for divination. Tarot card readers sometimes believe that Tarot cards allow them to exercise an innate psychic ability to see the future. Still others routinely follow the divinatory meanings assigned to each card by popular books and other authorities. Further, some individuals believe that the cards take on the "aura" or "vibrations" of someone who touches them. The cards are therefore sometimes "insulated" by wrapping them in silk or enclosing them in a box, and only touched by the reader and by the person for whom the reading is done (the "querent").

There are many variations, but in many readings the querent shuffles the cards, then the reader lays out the cards in a pattern called a "layout" or "spread". A well-known spread is the Celtic Cross. The cards are then analysed according to their positions, their individual divinatory meanings, their relationships, and whether the cards are upside-down ("reversed"). If the reader uses the interpretation technique of reversals, a reversed card has its own set of modified meanings and/or modified energies; a reversed card's meaning may sometimes be the opposite of the upright card meaning, sometimes weakened, sometimes twisted.

Divination may be seen as magical in itself, but the word "magic" often refers to the use of Tarot cards in a magical ritual designed to achieve some end. This is probably much less common than simple divination.

Layouts or spreads
In Tarot divination, results can be achieved with analysis of just one card, but, for more thoroughness, combinations of several cards in set patterns are usually used. These patterns are called spreads or layouts. There are many different spreads, although the Celtic Cross is one of the best known, and is often taught to beginners as their first spread, despite the complexity of it and the availability of simpler, more easily manageable spreads. More experienced practitioners will sometimes use their own spreads, assigning their own meanings to the relevant positions represented.

The Great Cross ("Celtic Cross") Layout
This layout generally consists of 10 cards, or 10 cards plus an optional, 11th card [as a significator card]. The significator card represents the person or the situation. The first 6 of the 10 cards are laid out in the shape of a cross. (If there is a significator card, the first card of the 10 is placed atop the significator card.) The final 4 of the 10 cards are placed in a column to the right. [3]

The Celtic Cross was possibly used by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn for outer-order members of the Order and was later made popular because of its description by A. E. Waite in his book, A Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Note that, for tarot layouts for its inner-order members, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn used a more complex sytem which included The Opening of the Key spread [4].

The Romany Draw Layout (or Past/Present/Future Layout)
The card-reader shuffles the deck, then spreads out all of the cards, asking the querent [the person for whom the cards are being read] to pick three cards, one at a time. The card-reader then flips the cards over, the one on the left telling of the past, the middle one telling current events, and the one on the right telling the future.

"Crowley's" Thoth layout
The Thoth Tarot deck was created by Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris. The deck is shuffled by the querent. The querent concentrates on the question and then returns the deck to the reader. The reader lays out the cards in five categories. The center category (three cards) represents the motivations of the querent. The top right hand category (three cards) represents things that will happen in the near or most likely future. The top left hand category (three cards) represent what will happen in the distant or less likely future. The bottom left hand category (three cards) represents forces that help the querent. The bottom right hand category (three cards) represents forces beyond the querent's control. Many readers avoid the Thoth deck because of Crowley's alleged affinity for black magic.