Students can have the life stories they never knew they had read to them at the Tarble Art Center’s Tarot Card reading tables Thursday.

Two trained Tarot Card readers will have tarble tables set up outside of the Tarble Arts Center building, weather permitting, from 5 p.m. until 6:30 p.m.

In case of rain, the tables will be set up inside of the Tarble Arts Center.

Museum education manager Tim Abel said the trained readers will read students’ cards in 10-minute sessions for free.

One of the readers will do traditional card reading while the other reader will bring an oracle card set.

Abel said with the traditional Tarot decks, the cards have set meanings unlike the oracle cards.

“With an oracle card, it can be very personalized for the reader, so the story can be more fluid and more impromptu and intuitive,” he said.

Tarot cards, Abel said, are all about storytelling. The readers use the cards to form narratives and stories about the other person.

Tarot has been around for a long time, too. Tarot.com describes Tarot as “an ancient divination that began in 14th century Europe.”

The traditional decks usually have 78 cards “depicting symbolic archetypes” that people use while reading to create different stories, according to the website.

Concordia University’s Gigi Hofer said the first reference to Tarot cards were in Europe and the earliest set was prepared for King Charles VI of France.

The symbolism of the Tarot cards “(has) historically drawn on a vast amount of material including astrological, mythological, Gnostic, and Christian traditions,” but because the origin of the cards is uncertain, each card’s symbolic image has changed in various interpretations in various cultures, Hofer said.

Abel said he would recommend anyone interested in Tarot cards to attend the Tarot Tables Thursday because it is a different way to unwind and tell stories with others.

Logan Raschke can be reached at 581-2812 or lrraschke@eiu.edu.