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December 17, 2025 18 mins

George Noory and author Janice King discuss tarot cards and the coded messages that connect us to the energetic world, whether the cards can predict our future, and if tarot cards can be dangerous if put into the wrong hands.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
And welcome back George Nori with you. Author Janie King
has been working with the Tarot cards for more than
twenty years. She's the creator of the award winning Life
Code Tarot Deck, has written several books as well as
done readings for thousands of clients across the world. Her
passion is bringing Tarot to life in the real world
and making it make sense so people can use it

(00:26):
in their quest to create a happy, sustainable, and abundant life.
One of her books includes The Life Code Tarot, A Fool,
a Magician, and The Secret of Life. We'll get into
that in the moment. Janis welcome to the program.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Well, hello, it's lovely to be here. Thank you for
having me.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
How did you get involved in Tarot cards?

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well, I mean I was familiar with cards being read
for you know, divination. My aunt used to read playing cards,
which we can call catamancy, so she read playing cards
when we were growing up. So I was sort of
familiar with the idea of it. And then I went

(01:08):
through a big old life meltdown, you know, as a
lot of people do, and I was sort of guided
to Taro by quite strange means. So yeah, it felt
in retrospect a bit orchestrated, as if I was, you know,
sort of shoved in that direction. But yeah, it was

(01:31):
after one of those one of those periods where life
just falls apart, and that's where I that's where I
was directed.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Jennis, give us a little refresher about the tarot cards.
How old are they, how many in the deck, and
how did it start?

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, well, there were seventy eight cards in the tarot deck,
and we can trace the tarot back to the fourteenth century.
The early actual tarot cards we find in Italy in
the fourteenth century. We don't know the exact origin of Taro.

(02:10):
It's sort of evolved over the centuries. We think it's
a bit of a mash up between so that we
don't term them gypsies anymore. But they would call gypsies
back in the day, primarily because they had come from Egypt,

(02:31):
and Gypsy was a you know, a sort of shortened
version of Egyptian. They weren't from Egypt, they were actually
from India, and they were carrying with them a set
of cards that were the attributes of the god Vishnu,
and with those cards they would connect to you know,

(02:53):
the spiritual, their spiritual deity, and so they carried their
cards with them and they had kings on them. It
was a long migration, we're talking hundreds of years, right,
because they had come through India. They had they had
kings on those cards, and those cards were called farrow

(03:17):
because obviously in Egyptian, you know, that's that's about king,
So this is higher, so it's like higher source. They
came through Egypt, then through Europe, found themselves in Italy,
where those cards got mashed up with gambling cards and

(03:38):
so they just through common usage and they got mashed
up together. So we have the trumps, which then became
the deities, the important you know, the archetypes of the day,
if you like, mashed up with the suits and the

(04:00):
and the and the numbers, and then so they all
mashed up together. Now they've since separated, so a normal
depth of playing cards is just the suits and the fall,
which was the which is the joker. So that's you know,
they they've they've mashed together and then they've split up again.
So that was their earliest that was where they came from.

(04:24):
And they've they've evolved over the centuries to literally spread
all over the world. There is taro in every single
country of the world. We think every country has been
It's an amazing phenomenon.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Tell me about the title of your book, The Life
Code Terror. What does that mean.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, Well, the book talks about taro as being a
code and that code is a way of communicating with
the energetic world, which we can read because it talks
about the stories within our life. So we read it
because it's referring to earth energy, so we've got earth, fire, air,

(05:11):
and fire, and also we also have the fifth element,
which is spirit. So it connects all those things together.
It gives us archetypes that we recognize. So it's a way.
It's like a language, and it's called a code because
anybody can read it, doesn't matter where you're from, doesn't

(05:33):
matter what a country you're from. It is a universal
code that can be read by anybody anywhere in the world.
So it's a life code because it's talking about our
lives and how we create our lives. So it's an
energetic playbook if you like The Fall of the Magician,

(05:54):
and so it's the secret of life, right because it's
a playbook. The Fall of the Magician are the heroes
of our story, and they talk about energy and how
we use energy. And most people are familiar with the
term manifestation. Now I think it's a fairly you know,
fairly mainstream concept. We all know what we're talking about.

(06:17):
And so that the Fall talks about the potential of
all things, the potential of all energy, and the Magician
is the flip side of the fall where he's taking
that potential and he's turning it into reality. He's making
it real. Here's the master manifesto. So they're archetypes, right,

(06:38):
So we have the energy of the potential of all things,
and then we have us making it real while having
to bear in mind our environment and all of the
things that influence it which make it really down complicated.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
The the subtitle of the book is A Fall, A
Magician and the Secret of Life. Who's the Fall?

Speaker 3 (07:07):
The Fall in Taro is number zero. So we have
a couple of sections of the Tarot deck. So we
have the major rakana. Which are they would be you know,
as I just explained, they would be the archetypes, they
would be the big guys, So they are the rock

(07:28):
star cards. In Taro that we're all familiar with. You know,
we have death, we have the hanged man, we have
the lovers, and the Fall is the first one. But
he's zero. And the reason that he's numbered zero is
because he contains everything and nothing all at the same time.
So potential is everything and nothing all at the same time.

(07:51):
If something has potential, that potential is not realized yet,
so nothing is happening, but it still has potential. So
here's zero. And the Magician, of course is number one
because he's where it all starts.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Now, do tarot cards tell us our future? Do they
tell us our past? Do they tell us that things
maybe or could be or will be?

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Yeah, well, you know what it's This is a source
of much discussion. Yes, tarot cards can definitely tell the future. However,
it's not quite that simple. What tarot cards are actually
doing is they're reading potential. That's what they're doing. So
they're able to because this is an energetic communication, right,

(08:43):
So we're talking to the energetic world here, and what
we're doing when we're reading is we're reading a potential path. Now,
the reason that that potential path normally plays out is
because we're very predictable. So most of what we do
is on autopilot. We know that our subconscious minds basically

(09:05):
just run the thing, and we kind of just we
just do what we're told by our subconscious So we're
very predictable. So what what the cards are doing is
they're reading a string of predict predict sort of potential

(09:26):
and then normally that plays out, and sometimes it doesn't
because what you can't because what there's a lot of
factors in play. Most of the time, it does most
of the time. So it's not one hundred percent written
in stone, but it's a pretty good indicator right of

(09:49):
what's likely, what's most likely to happen. So I think
we need to we need to understand that nothing is
one hundred percent absolutely written in stone. We are reading potential,
We're not reading, you know, one hundred fat but based
on what the what the predictors are saying at that moment,

(10:14):
that's pretty likely to play out in that way.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
How much of a genesis is based on the person
who pulls the card.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
None of it really, it's not based on anybody pulling
a card. Anybody can pull the card as long as
the intention of the person who is leading the session
is focused, so it doesn't matter whether my client pulls
the card or whether I pull the card. In fact,

(10:49):
for probably most of my tarot career, my clients don't
pull cards.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
I do.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
If I'm doing a big event and I'm reading for
you know, thirty or forty people at that event, I'm
not going to keep giving the cards to everybody because
the cards get mucked up. To be honest with you,
it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter as long as my
intention is focused and I'm the one, I'm the one
doing the work. That's the point.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Pretty dramatic. Do you shuffle the decks?

Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah? Yeah, you shuffle the deck I really, I mean
some people do casino riffling. I personally dislike it a again,
it MUCKs the cards up, bends them like bananas. Don't
like that very much if you've got nice cards like mine.
But shuffling is important because in a way, it's the

(11:48):
point at which the reader focuses. So it gives you
that point of quiet where as you're shuffling, you're focusing
your intention on the client, your focus, seeing your intention
on what you want to know, and it's just that
moment of calm where It allows you to just hone
in on what it is you want to get from

(12:10):
the session.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
How important is the attitude or the belief of the
recipient of the tarot.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
The belief is not important at all. I have many
stories of reading for people who have told me prior
to the reading it's complete load of rubbish, and.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
I think, but they still, oh, well, you.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Know I had. I'll tell your quick story as to
how that can be. So I did a wedding many
years ago now, for it was an Iranian English wedding,
and the Iranian side of the family wanted a taro reader,
and so my job was to sit in this. They
provided me with this gypsy caravan. It was all very theatrical,

(12:58):
and so I sat there and in walked this very
handsome man in a very sharp suit, who pronounced himself
to be the father of the groom, who was the
Iranian dad, as it were, And he sat down and
he said, I just want you to know, I think
this is a whole load of rubbish. And I'm only
here because my wife told me I have to come.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Ha ha.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Can we please get this over as quickly as possible
so I can get back to the party. So I said,
of course. So I put down the three cards that
everybody was getting, and I looked at the three cards
and I said to him, well, you know, if you
don't do exactly as your doctor tells you and play
it by the absolute book and follow the rules, you

(13:42):
will probably have another heart attack within the next year.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Why he didn't know you knew he had one in
the first place.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
Right, I didn't know he had one in the first place.
I'd never met him before in my entire life.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
Right at that point as astounding.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, he just walked in. All I knew was that
he was the father of the groom because he told
me as he walked in, he looked like he was
going to expire on the spot and said, I that
is just I had that conversation with my consultant on Wednesday,
What what on earth is going on here? And he
just ran He just ran away. He literally got up

(14:23):
and the track.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Did he think he was setting up?

Speaker 3 (14:27):
He was freaked out. He was completely freaked out. I
didn't set him up.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
I mean, tell me about the reading that allowed you
to think he had that initial heart attack and might
have another one.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, Well, that there were three cards. There was the
Ace of Cups, and there was the King of Swords,
and there was the Hiaphan, and so they wind in
that order. So the order, if I remember rightly, was
the Hierafan, the King of Swords, and the Ace of Cups.
So the Hierophan is where we are following the rules,

(15:07):
we're doing it like it's done by the book. Then
we've got the King of Swords in that's where we're
looking at the evidence of things and we're being very prescriptive.
And that can often come up as a doctor or
maybe a lawyer in some but it's somebody who's looking
very evidentially at a situation, not emotionally evidentially. And then

(15:29):
the Ace of Cups at the end means of the heart.
Now it doesn't necessarily mean heart attack, but what I
heard when I had the cards on the table was
healing heart. And I'm going to be honest with you,
I don't know why I said those words. They just
came out of my mouth unbidden, and if I had

(15:53):
thought about it, I may not have taken such a risk.
Sometimes we're here to deliver a message that somebody needs
to hear, and I think that's what was going on
at that point.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Can tarole courds be dangerous in the wrong hands.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yes, they can be dangerous in the wrong hands. They
can be dangerous in the hands of people who don't
understand how to or how to read properly, because there
are a lot of Charlatans out there who claim to
be readers and actually are just are either faking it

(16:30):
or using AI or using books or whatever. So what
they're not able to do is tune into the nuance
properly and professionally, because it does take training to use them.
You know, you can look into taro and look at
the images and see your own fears reflected back, which

(16:53):
we all do because we all look at things and
look for what we think we know so and that
can sometimes make things worse, not better. And then you
also get other people who are very egotistical when they
read for clients, and they are you know, they will

(17:14):
they will tell them I don't know that, I mean,
I can't I going to give you examples, but they're
but they don't read for clients sensitively or they judgmental.
Just you get bad client practice so dangerous. You've just
got to be very You've got to understand that You've
got people's lives on the table in front of you,

(17:36):
and it's your job to treat them properly.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Does ego get in the way, Jannis? Sometimes?

Speaker 3 (17:45):
Well, not with me, I hope no, No, not not
with well, No, not with me, because to be honest
with you, I've I've you know, there is nothing. I've
been there and got the T shirt right. So I've
had a I've had a long and very very colorful life.
So I think whatever my clients show up with, I've,

(18:07):
you know, I know what they're going through. I always
have compassion for them. Nobody gets judged when from me. Ever,
but some people maybe you're not quite so open, should
we say, and so you can get a little bit
of judgment coming in where somebody thinks they know best,

(18:29):
and that can be difficult if you're with a reader
who isn't quite as should we say, open as they
need to be.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one am Eastern, and go to Coast to coastam dot
com for more

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