The esoteric tarot speak about the stages of the inner journey towards ourselves, which in the ancient teaching used to called INITIATION. The esoteric tarot are not predictive, but they help us understand in which inner stage of the evolution of consciousness we are in the journey towards our essence or our soul. 

"The big difference between our initiate and the ordinary man is that the ordinary man is taken in by life and is a puppet of life. The initiate knows that he is a channel for releasing spiritual energy on behalf of something greater than himself, so he is not being taken in by the shadows of life. It is like a great river; either we are buffeted like a puppet, or the river is in us and we can let the waters of life flow when it is needed, It caries us and if we think something needs to be done, we will do it automatically. 'Man know thyself', is what we are doing when we have recognized everything we have been. We must find ourselves in all the events of our existence and understand the situations attitudes and reactions."

From "The Spirit of the Tarot" by C. Aegerter and B. Benjelloun