Tarot Talk & Technique

Hi everyone! This is our discussion thread for this year's Sacred Days of Midsummer reading 🌞 Chat away here about decks you're considering for the reading, thoughts on how to approach a 12 day reading, anything you're hoping to get out of this years reading, anything that's come up for you since the Sacred Days of Yule, other sacred practices for this time of year...anything you're thinking about! Be sure to create your reading post over in the Lunar & Sabbat Group Readings subforum as well 💛Our reading begins June 14th!

I've been experimenting with a "psychometric" approach to card selection for my spreads. I came upon an old AT post that talked about an Enrique Enriquez practice exercise in which you hold your hand over a shuffled deck and concentrate on a particular number position in the stack, trying to "psychically intuit" its nature. I expanded on this approach by meditatively deriving a series of numbers to use in picking cards for a spread. I realize some people already use this method when pulling cards from a fan, but I'm suggesting something a little different. https://parsifalswheeldivination.com/2020/05/23/psychometric-card-selection/

I'm wanting to do more readings with my Hermetic Deck, but I'm finding the version of the Celtic Cross suggested in the LWB (version by Godfrey Dowson) to be a little long for my schedule at the moment. I know there must be a bazzillion spreads out there, but wondering if someone with experience with this deck (or similar) would recommend a spread 4-6 cards approx so I don't loose my mind while learning this system. I'm yet to buy any books on the subject, so I don't know if there are any 'Golden Dawn preferred' spreads, nor have I really experimented with 'free reading' yet - putting down cards till the story has been told. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

I just ordered the Epic Tarot, released by Lo Scarabeo in 2017/2016, written by Riccardo Minetti and art by Paolo Martinello. I love the art, the themes and connections within the deck, and the fact that the wands are books. But I am shocked at the cardstock. It isn't so much that it is thin but that it is so unfinished that there are already noticeable nicks and chips. It is a brand new deck. I could tell as soon as I opened it that this would be a problem. I am not sure what to do. I ordered some sleeves but I don't know how those will work. Should I lightly laminate? I actually have a deck with thinner cards - the Nature-Speak Oracle - but the cards are finished so it …

I've been thinking a lot about intuition and I'd like to know what works for you, whether you are naturally highly intuitive or struggle(d) to get there. Basically I have three areas I'm curious about: 1.) What, if any, are the things you do (methods/rituals/set-ups, etc.) that help you access your intuition, or put you in the headspace to do so? 2.) What have you found to help you trust your intuition? 3.) What kind of tarot decks or imagery do you feel you can more easily read intuitively? And/or, conversely, what kind do you look at and say, "Nope, won't be able to read intuitively with this deck!" Thanks in…

hey guys, hope you are all doing fine. i have a question. how can i explain how tarot works to my clients? 🤔 i don't do the "whats is my future" type readings, i do more like the guidance readings. but i don't know how to say it to them, because they seem to misinterpret and they dont get me... and they think the guidance type of readings dont work at all. so i plan on puting an introduction on my readings page so that people stop asking me about their future lol what can i write in that intro? thanks 🙈 Spoiler

What does the lovers reversed clarified by the lovers upright, the empress, and the 10 of cups mean for a persons feelings for you?

Hi, I’ve pulled the tower card for myself after asking when will I move house. Now my intuition has left me and distress has set in. Can you show me other ways to interpret this card. Thanks

My favourite deck has gone on vacation. I did a 3 card yes/no spread with it the other day (centre card give the yes or no with an upright or reversed card, side cards give information on why). I forget what the question was but the answer was "no" followed by two cards that said something along the lines of "I'm going to sit back, relax, and put my feet up for a while"! Gah! I haven't even been using it that much! Anyone else had something like this happen to them?

I found this recently https://archive.org/ and thought I would share with all of you lovely people 😄 It has tons of books and all sorts on there that you can borrow (all in digital format) just like a real library. I thought I would see what tarot stuff it had on offer and whoa boy! There's a lot! ( https://archive.org/search.php?query=Tarot&and[]=subject%3A"tarot"&and[]=subject%3A"Tarot"&and[]=mediatype%3A"texts"&and[]=languageSorter%3A"English" ) Any suggestions on some good old tarot books to check out?

or is it just my carpola connection? I'm trying to answer a PM. I've tried both my bookmark link and google search. Thanks, Sharyn/AJ

Hello! I’m wondering which court cards do you think would have a sense of humor. In particular I’m asking about the King of Wands. Would his characteristic be a good sense of humor?

I just got a mini version of a deck that I love. It's adorable and I think I'm going to have fun having it handy. But it didn't come with a LWB. The full size version has a book, not a LWB, and the meanings of some cards deviate slightly from traditional RWS. I'm not used to the deck enough yet to read reliably without the reference, so I was going to make my own LWB to go with the mini deck. I think it seems pretty straightforward-- include whatever notes I think I need, in as small a format as possible-- but I thought before I did, I would ask here if anyone else has printed their own "cheat sheet." Was there anything you didn't include you wish you had, or information …

Hi guys, curious to hear if/how you consider and involve the bottom of the deck when dealing a spread. Recently, after dealing my spreads I have taken to revealing the card at the bottom of the deck for supplementary underlying energy for the situation. Sometimes I will quickly pass through the bottom 3-5 cards and tell myself a quick little summarized narrative to gather additional insight to consider. Interested to hear other approaches to this, and why you guys think it's important.

I'm wondering how everyone hear approaches shuffling and dealing the cards. I get hung up on the position of cards as I shuffle, and what is 'meant' to be reversed vs. upright, and the manner in which I shuffle and flip the cards having an effect on that. I resolved recently to just stop dealing with reversals all together for the next while, and place all cards upright. It feels more natural for me to flip the cards vertically as opposd to revealing them by turning them horizontally like the pages of a book. I set the intention that's how I will flip the cards, so after I'm settled from shuffling any futher, I'm essentially left holding the deck upside dow…

Hi all! I hope everyone is well, in these uncertain times. Thank you for taking a look at my topic. As I explained in 'Introductions', I am a Tarot newbie. I just started learning and reading Tarot in November 2019. Ever since I started, I have been wondering about the different techniques of shuffling and drawing cards for a spread, and what is the 'best' way to do this. The way I shuffle my deck is by using the casino shuffle (or riffle shuffle) a few times. The number of times depends om my feeling, sometimes I will ruffle them only once, sometimes way more times. After that I will shuffle a few more times by using the overhand shuf…

So, I had my first reading today from my boyfriends mum. He himself had never had a reading either. So after my reading his twin sister had hers then he had his. They both ended up having 9 identical cards!! The only one that wasn’t the same was the final card! They were all in a different order apart from the distant past! I watched her shuffle the cards till my boyfriend told her to stop and then he split them 3 times! Has anyone else ever heard of this happening with twins?? I think this was absolutely amazing!!

I first asked about person X and how their relationship dynamic with my friend, and got the hermit card. I then asked what person X is like, and who they are, and got the seven of wands. How could you interpret this person? Both in a relationship with my friend, and who they are as a person?

Hi, everyone! Yesterday I did a general 3-card spread with my RW-deck. It immediately became obvious that the spread was all about corona. I won't go into detail as this is not the place to do so, but one of the cards was 5 of Swords. At first I didn't see the corona-connection - please correct me if someone does - but then I saw some social distancing going on. Not the warm initiatives started to help the needy, lonely, elderly and people who work in health care. But people keeping distance, turning their head, crossing the street when you approach. Diving into their scarfs, no mask at hand. Unfortunately thanks to corona, going for a walk in nature isn't tha…

Just received an email from US Games stating they are shutting down March 23 due to COVID 19. The state of Connecticut issued a shut down order for all non-essential workers and businesses. I'm thinking that, along with many other industries, the mass market tarot publishing industry is going to be pretty quiet for the foreseeable future. I wasn't planning on buying many, if any, tarot decks for the rest of this year anyway so I'll focus on my existing decks. Lo Scarabeo is based in Italy so I don't expect them to be functional at present. Not sure about companies like Lewellyn and Schiffer. AGM Urania are based in Germany so they are likely out of action too…

Greetings! I am new to this forum and tarot in general. I find tarot to be very fascinating and I have recently started to make an effort to become better at it but I often find myself puzzled by cards and their complex meanings when combined together. One such example is this simple one card reading I did today. The question was about my ex with whom I had a sort of an odd break up (she just vanished without a word) 3 months ago. I've been trying to get in touch with her for some time but she's avoiding me. My question was, what does she think of me this period, I pulled The Sun and then Judgement as a clarifier card. Could someone try to interpret this pair?…

Hello, I'm new to everything related to tarot. I need help. I received a very uosetting reading with predictions far in the future. I don't want to become a prisoner of this reading! I believe in free will. Could you tell me, is the reader wrong in this case? She said I will be lonely and unloved. I checked the meaning of cards and the were positive. There was for example magician, 2 of cups and later she took, 6 of cups, 3 of cups, queen of pentacles, knight of cups and King of cups. There was also devil followed by death. I don't have a feeling that those cards are speaking of loneliness. I'm terrified by this reading. She didn't g…

I hope I have this in the right place... I was messing around with my Wizards Tarot (by Barbara Moore and Mieke Jeannsens). And got to really looking at the fool card. I think she looks kinda depressed in it... Definitely not the happy go lucky card that most tarot decks seem to have. I've seen them be more action like. Or more... jester/fool like. But this is the first time I've really noticed one give off a depressed like vibe. I didn't think they were going for depressed. I figured more contemplative... but anyway, it got me curious and I got the book out. (Which, honestly, I just skimmed before...) The keywords were typical Fool keywo…

I recently had a request to do a paid reading covering a two-year period. I was tempted but decided that circumstances (especially those involving relationship matters) can shift so dramatically over that long a time that the amount of generalization required of such a reading could render it fairly useless to the client. I have a couple of spreads I created based on the pagan "Wheel of the Year" model but don't have enough confidence in them to offer them professionally. I'm going to tackle creating a new spread for this purpose, but in the meantime I was wondering how other pro readers deal with such long-range forecasts.

Hey family! ❤ Who here has attended a tarot convention or conference? Share their name, location, and your experience! I'm looking into attending one at some point.