You could believe that all tarot decks are built using the same 78 cards, however this isn’t always the case. There are a number of tarot traditions, some of which occasionally alter the card arrangement, source meaning, and even the name. In the English-speaking world, the Rider Waite Smith tradition is the one that is most prevalent. This approach, where the images are illustrative, is the foundation for the majority of tarot decks today. Older than the Rider Waite Smith is the French tarot tradition known as the Marseille. Because the suits on those cards are represented by simple pip cards, it could be more challenging for beginners to read. Finally, the Thoth tradition incorporates various esoteric and philosophical concepts, such as Kabbalah and Astrology, into the cards. If you’re new, we advise starting with the Rider Waite Smith system since it is the most well-known. However, bear in mind these additional customs when you’re prepared to increase your tarot expertise!
In This Article...
How can I locate the ideal Tarot deck?
9 Sure-Fire Ways to Pick the Right Tarot Deck for You
- Keep an eye out for a strong intuitive and personal connection with the cards.
- Examine the Illustrations on Each Card.
- Think about your level of experience.
- Choose a traditional or modern approach.
- The Little White Book is worth looking at.
- Find a Fitting Size.
What tarot card represents your birth?
Tarot birth cards are used to describe a consistent aspect of who you are. In terms of the concepts of sense of identity and having a place in the world, this serves a similar purpose as the zodiac.
Can you interpret your own tarot cards?
It’s normal to be a little clumsy when you first start practicing the tarot. Tarot study is similar to learning a new languageit takes time to become proficient. But what happens if you no longer require the booklet and have intimate familiarity with the deck? Are you able to read yourself? No, except for a few rare instances. Simply put, it’s a horrible idea.
You see, the majority of us turn to astrology or tarot when we’re looking for clarity amid a period of ambiguity. In contrast to astrology, which is quite technical, our consciousness restricts our capacity to read tarot cards. Working with your personal interpretation of the cards, you are not constrained by short- and long-term cycles like the planets’ orbits. It might be tricky to go beyond your current circumstances while utilizing the tarot to better understand a trying scenario. Even if all the cards are spread out in front of you, putting them together requires such a broad perspective that it is all but impossible to fully understand the meaning of each card. Basically, any biases you already have will always be reflected in your tarot reading!
How should my tarot deck be cleaned?
While rearranging the cards in the tarot deck is a good approach to purify and clear their energy, there are some circumstances in which you might wish to perform a more specialized ritual. If you’re just getting started with tarot, cleaning your deck can be an excellent place to start.
You might want to clean your tarot deck for a variety of reasons, including:
- beginning with a fresh deck
- readings for other people
- You think you need to recharge.
- Your card readings seem a touch “odd” or “disconnected”
- Your deck hasn’t been used recently.
- Your deck has been handled by others
- You think you’ve been utilizing your deck a lot. A LOT, especially for books with strong emotional content
Why should you cleanse or clear your tarot deck?
Tarot deck cleansing helps keep the energy flowing between you and your deck. Consider it as a little spiritual hygiene to maintain a strong and clear connection. It’s not necessary, but if you have any of the aforementioned symptoms, try a few of the energetic cleansing techniques listed below and note which ones seem to work the best for you.
How often should you cleanse your tarot deck?
This is another way of stating USE YOUR INTUITION: there are no hard and fast laws. Don’t stress if you don’t believe it is necessary for your deck. Alternately, if you like to cleanse them once per week or once per month, that’s great. If it feels appropriate to you, you can even place your favorite crystal on the balcony each night.
If you frequently place crystals on your deck and store it on an altar while not in use, you might not feel the need to cleanse it frequently because this quick ritual will likely be sufficient to keep your deck feeling nice.
There are numerous ways to cleanse your cards, just as there are numerous reasons why you might desire to do so.
Different ways to cleanse your tarot deck
Use holy smoke. Light a dried rosemary, lavender, cedar, sage, or palo santo cleansing wand until it begins to smoke. Hold the smoke a safe distance below the deck while holding the burning herbs in one hand and the deck in the other so that the smoke drifts upward onto the cards. Turn the deck so that the smoke covers it from all angles. Next, safely put your deck to the ground and put out the fire.
On the deck, set a selenite stone (or a black tourmaline or a transparent quartz). It works well to leave it like way for an hour, but I prefer to leave it overnight.
Set them on display during a new moon. The New Moon is energy of a blank slate; you can purify the deck by setting it on a window sill on a new moon night. At this moment, you can also make a brand-new intention for your deck.
Place the cards in a salty dish. A strong and stabilizing cleaner is salt. My preferred choice for a thorough cleansing is this. Allow it to sit anywhere from one to eight hours in a dry area.
Unorderly shuffle. Spread the cards out on the ground, then shuffle them around like a child playing in dirt. This method’s freedom and randomization serve as an excellent reset.
the shuffle and sort. Set up the deck in rows of seven cards across, commencing with the Major Arcana numbers 0 to 22. (see photo above). Next, arrange the cards, Ace through King, one for each suit, as follows: Swords, Pentacles, Cups, and Wands. View the deck in this configuration, then mix everything up (like the chaotic!) and shuffle it thoroughly.
Do the cards in each tarot deck differ?
Despite their vastly different designs, all tarot decks share a few characteristics. Each one has 78 playing cards, divided into the main and minor arcana. The major arcana, which are the deck’s 22 trump cards, generally allude to bigger influences and disclosures when they are revealed during a reading. These cards stand alone without a suit and represent key occasions or people in a person’s life.
In contrast, the minor arcana refer to influences and issues that are more commonplace. Wands, swords, pentacles, and cups make up the four suits that these 56 cards are divided into. (Occasionally, tarot decks will use different terminology, such as “Pentacles for coins, but they are exact equivalents to the four original divisions.) A different aspect of life is represented by each outfit. Wands typically represent imagination and passion, swords intelligence, pentacles work and wealth, and cups emotion. Additionally, each suit is associated with a certain set of astrological signs, such as wands being associated with fire, swords with air, pentacles with earth, and cups with water.
Since we’re beginners, the meanings you’ll most frequently refer to are the functional definitions, albeit these meanings can be used when cards symbolize people and their zodiac signs. For example, a three-card spread with three pentacle cards strongly denotes a financial concern. (More on the various spreads will follow.)
While much of this is up to the deck’s owner and what resonates with them, there are a few conventions that apply to the majority of tarot readings. If you’re reading cards for someone else, you should ask them to provide you with a question or suggest something they’re interested in, and keep that question in mind while you shuffle the deckalso referred to as “removing the effects of earlier research and readings. (An illustration would be, “When will I discover love?” Am I pursuing the correct career? “How can I get through my block?
Then you could query the person you are reading for (also known as “cutting the deck, once more concentrating on the querent. Although some readers will cut the deck for the querent, we prefer this option since it gives the querent a chance to feel linked to the deck personally. In any case, you will draw the necessary number of cards for your spread and, if you’re reading for yourself, place them between you and the querentor directly in front of you.
Questions you don’t really want answered
Even though it might seem apparent, it’s advisable to refrain from asking the tarot cards questions that you aren’t prepared to hear the answers to. That’s because answers to these questions can reveal information you’re just not quite ready to hear.
“Tarot can definitely come off as offensive if you’re not willing to hear the truth or consider an opposing opinion. Tarot reading Nicole Fortunaso
According to tarot reader and life coach Nicole Fortunaso, “tarot may truly come out as offensive if you are not willing to hear the truth of the problem or look at an alternate viewpoint.” She advises analyzing why you’re reacting the way you are in order to reflect on how to effectively address the underlying problem if you ask the question and aren’t satisfied with the response.
How should a tarot reading begin?
If you find this daunting, Howe advises you to take a deep breath and believe in your own initiative. “In order to see it less as “This holds all of these secret meanings that I have to do all this work to access” and more as “I know all the meanings; it’s just a matter of establishing the connections and being able to articulate them,” use language or knowledge that you already possess. She points out that the four elementsearth, water, fire, and airplay a significant role in the tarot, which is advantageous because the majority of people already have an understanding of the meanings of each element. ” If you do that, your viewpoint will be more personal, and you will be able to express yourself more freely.
Howe suggests the three-card draw and the Celtic Cross as the two fundamental spreads for beginning readers. In the former, three cards are chosen at random from the deck to symbolize the subject’s mind, body, and spirit, or past, present, and future. According to Howe, you could even up the stakes and use a six-card draw, with one card for each location.
How are tarot cards charged?
Leave your deck in a sacred location where you can “knead (shuffle) it each hour, giving it your magical power with your hands, for one waking day, much as you would a loaf of rising bread.” The greatest time to use this charge is when you’re taking a day off at home or in a retreat.
How can I determine the tarot card for the current year?
By the way, depending on where you think the parentheses in the math formula belong and the subsequent order of operations, I think I might be calculating the year card a little differently.
My strategy is to separate out three sums for a trinity that has spiritual significance. Your birth month and day are combined to create one number. If the year is your birth year or a transiting year for a Tarot Year Card calculation, add the digits for that year separately.
You have now completed two operations. When you combine the two together, you get the third order for that beautiful, tidy trinity. Theosophic reduction is only performed once three operations for the trinity have been completed (i.e., if the sum is over 22, add the digits together for a single digit sum).
That is the intriguing riddle with metaphysics.
There are numerous alternative methods and correspondence schemes. Consider my investigation of elemental directional correspondences and resolving the conflicts in a prior blog article.
It’s crucial to comprehend your justification and to choose a strategy or correspondence system that supports your personal philosophy.
You should do such procedures independently before combining them in a math problem where parentheses denote the separation of ideas (left to right). Since the idea of a Base Year has been established, it only makes sense to calculate the Base Year using a different order of operations. It supports the viewpoint that each Base Year is “predetermined to the point where, simply by adding up the numbers, we can predict what the Base Year tarot card will be.
The degree of the sun in astrology is equal to the month plus the day. That then becomes an idea in and of itself. What is the sum of our birthday’s month, day, and sun sign degree? “changes a Base Year determination’s overall generalities. Therefore, it makes sense that the degree of the sun sign, as an independent concept transferred to numerology for this purpose, would be its own distinct idea and require a different set of parentheses. It seems logical to me to carry out this step in a separate predetermined order of operation, and to combine the two preset sums in the third and last predetermined order of operation.
This technique of calculation produces three operations for a trinity, matching it with Hermetic and Neo-Platonic philosophytwo ideas that have a significant impact on esoteric tarot.
So that’s the justification behind my strategy. However, it differs from the conventional approach advocated by Archetypal Tarot and the literature on tarot birth cards.
My advice is to investigate the many strategies, choose the one that works best for you, and then stay with it, i.e., be consistent. The most important factor is ultimately personal consistency.
The Fool is card 22 in the Archetypal Tarot. Key 0: The Fool can be a birth card or, in the case of the practice in this workshop, a Tarot year card.
I don’t follow 22 because my own philosophy favors the continuity of trinities and the hallowed sevens. I perform the theosophic reduction if the total exceeds 21. I prefer to view The Fool card as a symbol. But this is solely a matter of personal taste. Just do what seems to work for you; there is no right or wrong answer here.
If your birthday occurs between January 1 and June 30, according to Archetypal Tarot, your Tarot Year Cycle is more likely to be felt from one January to the next, neatly aligning with the calendar year.
However, if you were born in a late calendar season, between July 1 and December 31, you are more likely to experience the Tarot Year according to the appropriate Major Arcana card from your birthday through the next birthday or solar return.
I suggested a three-card oracle reading when considering the lessons your Tarot Year Card will teach you, but you are welcome to approach the journaling prompts as you prefer. Yes, you could use a tarot deck for this, but I’ve found that using a non-tarot deck works far better. Pick your favorite modern oracle deck, like as Lenormand, Kipper, or another.
Because there is a wider range of artistic expression when you take your Tarot Year Card from many modern decks, this is an extremely enjoyable practice. I had a Key 20: Judgement year in 2021, so if I’m studying the Judgement card, I’ll take a Key 20 from one of the several tarot decks I own and lay it out in a spread.
If you have a sizable collection of tarot decks, choose your Tarot Year card from seven, eight, or even ten different decks, and arrange the cards in a spread as you respond to the journaling questions on the handout.
Tarot Year card variations should be read as their own spread, which means you should look for symbols that strike out to you and make a note of which signs or symbols are drawing your attention. Summarize the various ways that Major Arcana card has been interpreted. As you explore the Tarot Year, take a picture of the spread.
The Tarot Year Card is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can accomplish with it; birth cards, personality cards, soul cards, and other cards are all covered. Learn more about Base Years, Cycle Themes, and your Karmic Year while also reading about them. This book also has an amazing reference on how to interpret your Year Cards.
Get a copy of Archetypal Tarot: What Your Birth Card Reveals About Your Personality, Path, and Potential if you desire to use the tarot for introspective psychology work, journaling, and self-exploration. Theresa Reed, the Tarot Lady, wrote the Foreword for this edition from 2021.
The 2011 book Who Are You in the Tarot: Discover Your Birth and Year Cards and Uncover Your Destiny has been updated. I own both and adore them.
How can I figure out my shadow card?
Greetings from #MagicMondays! I’ll publish a piece on All Things Witch every Monday. I frequently get texts about witchcraft, respond to emails about symbols, and have ritual discussions over shared meals. I made the decision to gather all of this information in one location and spread it around. Because magic resides inside of us, we are all capable of using it! Let’s start working now!
I occasionally determine a person’s birth card and shadow card during a reading. The cards even appear in the spread we lay out on the table to emphasize how important they are to people. In astrology, your birth card corresponds to your solar sign. It’s also referred to as your personality card. It represents the kind of person you are. It’s useful to consider astrology at this time. The sun wants to establish its individuality. Your sun sign’s characteristics influence the various ways in which you construct your existence. More of what you need to study is displayed on your birth certificate. Are you prepared to determine yours?
This is something I picked up from my ghoul friend Wolfie in Philadelphia a few years ago, and it has proven useful to me ever since. Okay, you must include the month, day, and year of your birthday. Here’s an illustration:
The next step is to add that number. Continue adding these numbers up until you reach a result that falls between 22* and 1.
1 + 3 + 4 = 8
This card represents your birth and is the Major Arcana card Strength.
This makes it simple to identify your Shadow card, also known as your Soul card by some teachers. In the tarot’s story, this card signifies what comes after you in life and what your soul’s mission or journey might be. You merely need to multiply the original three-digit number (134) by one to find out:
13 + 4 = 17
The Major Arcana card The Star has a counterpart in this shadow card, which is your own.
Here’s another illustration. Let’s use Kanye West’s birthday as an example:
And 11 + 0 Equals 11
It relates to his shadow card, Justice, also known as Accountability in some decks.
Your birth card is The Fool (22 = 0), while your soul card is The Emperor (2 + 2=4), if your initial number is 22.
Your initial number becomes both your Birth and Shadow card if the sum is greater than 22, which causes you to become intensely concentrated on the current phase of your life.
Additionally, you have three cards if your first number is 19. the Magician (1 + 0 = 1), the Sun, and the Wheel of Fortune (1 + 9 = 10). Similar to the Sunaltimate dynamic, in essence. When the odds are in your favor, you are a rare beast.
It was enjoyable! Before you leave, please be aware that I will be providing readings this weekend in Brooklyn (off the L, M, or B38 bus) in honor of Friday’s full moon and eclipse. I’m available on Saturday, October 19 and Sunday, October 20 at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4 p.m. To arrange a meeting and learn more, send me an email or a message. I would adore reading to you!
