When I read cards, people often ask me if I was born psychic.  Personally, I believe that everyone has the ability to activate their intuition.  I also believe that anyone can learn to read Tarot cards.  As you practice reading Tarot, your intuition increases.

    I learned to read Tarot cards in a class, using the Waite/Smith deck (also called the Rider/Waite), which I still use for most of my readings with clients.  It's a classic deck, with pictures on both the major and minor arcana cards.  The interesting thing to me about taking the class was that the cards worked!  Even as a beginner, I could shuffle and lay out the cards and then look up the meaning in the book and get insights and information about a question or the future.  We used the book A Complete Guide to the Tarot by Eden Gray.  I still use that book when I teach classes on the Tarot.  I feel this book gives some good interpretations of the symbols on the cards.

    Continuation of my Tarot studies came from both doing readings for myself and others, and from ongoing personal study and classes in Tarot, yoga, astrology, numerology, metaphysics, meditation and spiritual philosophy.  As a "book" of symbols, Tarot does not exist by itself.  At its essence it is a course of spiritual growth.

Here are some other good books on the Tarot:

Eileen Connolly  The Apprentice

Gail Fairfield  Choice Centered Tarot

Arthur Edward Waite  Pictorial Key to the Tarot

I had the opportunity to take a workshop with James Wanless, creator of The Voyager Tarot, at a conference put on by the International Tarot Society.  He demonstrated the use of Tarot as a tool for making more intuitive business decisions.  I immediately bought his book Strategic Intuition for the 21st Century : Tarot for Business.  I've used the techniques in this book with good results.  I enjoy using my Voyager Tarot deck for this, but he gives interpretations for the Waite-Smith deck as well.