Tarot Talk & Technique

Hi everyone! I recently became interested in the symbols and meanings (and also games) of tarot cards. I particularly like the Italian and Swiss types. My interest in history and art has helped me a bit; for instance the Death card to me looked immediately like a renaissance “memento mori” (remember death will come to us all, how would that affect your actions today?). Are there any books or sources where they focus on such historical interpretations? Thank you!

Okay, I know there is a Journals part of the forum, but I thought this may be better palced here? Seeing as that is for keeping a journal. I have a physical journal I keep. I was wondering if anyone else does? If you do what all do you keep in it? Daily draws? Have a list of spreads? Do you prefer lined or unlined? How often do you use it? How did you pick it? I only keep personal readings in my journal. I have another where I put ones I've done for others. I don't have a list of spreads, but I do have a few that I have done and liked or want to try. I haven't done too many daily draws, but I plan on starting and keeping up with them. I like unlined as…

I'm not sure whether this is the correct section to post this but I couldn't find one that fits the topic, so I apologise in advance if this is in the wrong spot <3 I recently.. well a couple months now.. got a new tarot deck, but every time I do a reading, I always feel like I'm not able to really understand or connect to the cards fully, to be able to understand the answers. Usually I read intuitively, whatever feelings I am getting from the imagery of the cards, or whatever emotions strikes me. When I read with my legacy of the divine deck, I used to be able to connect very quickly and feel at ease trusting whatever I feel from the cards. For this new de…

I find myself pondering whether the vision of the artist in different packs of cards based on RW actually changes the inherent meaning of the archetype, for example Knights are cards of action and movement, does the fact one person chooses to exhibit them as stationary mean they are actually stationary? it's a definite no in my book hence I consider studying imagery on different packs of cards to be a complete waste of time and really only relevant to the artist. Seems to me it's what we pin on the card imagery that's important and the picture itself is simply meant to jolt the memory of all the associations we have pinned on it over the years from different resources. …

If you have a close friend or family member who also read the Tarot, and who'd not be averse to letting you use their decks if you'd extend them the same courtesy, would you let them use the decks that you personally own? Would you be open to sharing your wholly collection with them, are there some decks that you may be willing to lend to them while others are strictly off-limits, or is anyone touching your deck strictly verboten to you?

If anyone wants to play along and add more tongue-in-cheek examples, please feel free 😊 An imaginary reading… Sitters question: "What do I need to know about this pregnancy?" Card - The Sun RWS - All will go well, the child looks to be in good health but might be on the bigger side. Possibly a summer birth. THOTH - You may be expecting twins! The angel wings should however be taken as a warning: if you insist on surrounding your kids with scorpions, lions and angry bulls, they may end up as angel babies. LO SCARABEO TAROT - You might require a c-section. Luckily the surgeon will feel confide…

Friday night and Saturday, I had a sitter each night for a 15 minute reading, very grateful, but each of them didn't really have a question and I tried to help them along with relationships questions, each absolutely refused to go there. So I said lets just do a question about th future. Great. So the 4 of swords came up in one present position Friday, and I couldn't really think of much to say excellent well, maybe you need to meditate more. I don't remember what the three previous past cards were, and I hadn't yet been able to see the other present card was, but that's one of the two cards I just seem to go blank on at times. Saturday, the 7 of swords came up …

Greetings folks! I'm in the process of creating my own tarot deck, and as a result, I am getting into the fine details of each tarot card from the Smith-Waite deck. Naturally, the internet provides me with a ton of information, even too much at times. There are the occasional instances where I have questions about something specific that I see on a tarot card and when I look it up online, I find that there is more than one answer or opinion. While I understand that the tarot can be seen and interpreted in many ways, some of the imagery is obviously meant to be more concrete: After all, if something looks like a sword then it's probably a sword, right? I would …

Hey all, So, I own about 12 decks so far- most are RWS clonea but some are a little different. I feel most comfortable reading with the regular RWS ( at the moment I use the "original version and the dirty PAM with which I connected immediately since its basically the same deck with different colors) but I have been wanting to explore and connect and read with other decks- just to get an ability to diversify like many of you do- atm its the Shadowscape and Wild unknown oneswhich I would LOVE to better use. My problem is- that when I do readings for people even here on the forum- I am reluctent to use a deck with which I still don't…

Many times do I see on Tarot social media sites, people saying that their fave card is The Tower, Death, The Devil, Moon reversed etc. Now, I know that these are fascinating cards, however favourite cards? And they seem to welcome the appearance in readings of these. The main reasons are that they: ...like a challenge...it's best to embrace the darkness ... it makes you more spiritual etc. Now i appreciate that these statements are true, but to me these are hard-core cards with tradition & pedigree of hard times to say the least. And as much as people in the west like to think of themselves as Zen we don't have the philosophy of the Orient: in the west, unless…

I’m keen to hear any views on predictive tarot and how you thinks that gels (or doesn’t) with the concept of free will. non-judgemental and non-critiqued (which is crazy hard for a philosopher) … just really interested in what position readers hold. thanks.

Do you eat or drink anything in the middle of a reading. Why/why not? Do you think it's somehow disrespectful towards the cards or do you feel like a little sacrifice (of your hunger/thirst) might make your reading more potent? Does feeling full affect your concentration, like does it make you feel drowsy or uncentered? Or do you just dislike the crumbs that would mess up your workspace if you're finicky? Or do you think it doesn't really matter, so you'd eat or drink whenever necessary, even in the middle of a reading? Some do this only during breaks tho, and just clean their hands when they have to read again.

What do you do if you give off many inaccurate readings at a row?

I have read people saying that if they get a deck in which the backs of card and definitely oriented to the card being turned over to the upright positions. That they don’t read these cards with reversal. I read with reversals, that’s the way I was taught. I don’t see what difference it makes whether the back is right side up or upside down. Do you think that knowing if I card will be reversed makes a difference? Some reversals are improvements over the main messages of the cards right side up. What do you guys do, do you read with reversals? Do you think decks with and upright back image should be only read without reversals. I have never seen that …

As I'm just staring with tarot, I've been offering free readings in exchange for feedback several places. Most people are nice and thankful, but I find some people are deliberately testing me. I've gotten questions such as "where do I work?" to which I've replied that they probably already know this. And then there are those who deliberately mislead me in the question, and then in the feedback tell me I'm all wrong. Like they ask if they'll meet someone new for a relationship soon, but in the feedback say they had a spesific person in mind that they had a few dates with. And then I feel like they are like "got ya, you didn't see HIM in your cards, did you?" How do …

Do you prefer to buy used or brand new decks? I'm not averse to purchasing used decks, altho they must be clean and they should not look worn out. But I did notice that each and every deck I bought were brand new, like untouched and sealed, brand spanking new. All of my decks are like that, without exception. Maybe I have a subconscious imperative that I should be the first one to touch my any deck I own so that they would be mine and mine alone, and so that I can imprint on them or something.

I found this quote last night by Dr. Wayne Dyer ~ "You create your thoughts, your thoughts create your intentions, and your intentions create your reality." On the table of The Magician's card are the wand (passion), cup (emotions), sword (thoughts) & pentacle (the physical realm). My uneducated mind tells me yes, The Magician card points to that we are the creators of our reality and even being so the very 1st card of the Major Arcana. But I really don't know. Or is the above quote just another example of new age gaslighting? Or is there something to it. Can our thoughts create things? Is this what the tarot…

I was just wondering how common it is for people to use tarot as an entirely secular practice for the purposes of mindfulness exercises, meditation, self therapy, mental health, shadow work, creative inspiration, etc, with no relation to spirituality at all. I'm agnostic myself and I of course respect all beliefs, and I even completely understand and can teach how to use tarot in a spiritual context. However I feel like there is a TON of untapped potential in tarot for all kinds of uses such as psychology and therapy. For instance the Root Lock Radio podcast has a GREAT learning series of episodes and he is a practicing psychotherapist who uses tarot with his clients. Ano…

For me it is Celtic Cross by far... but I will do 3/5 carder for quick stuff, especially if it's something I don't want so much information back on. The "Very Bad Day" spread I amusingly use quite often on my Tarot app (Galaxy Tarot) even though most of the time, it is not a bad day at all. I just find the energy it gives back sometimes to be quite well... awesome. It cuts through the nonsense and lets me know what my priority should be for the day and what really isn't and the other spreads in the app are not so good for this.

Is anyone else attending the free workshop that Lisa (from Divination and fortune telling) so kindly offers this Saturday? It is all about how you interpret the direction of court cards, and how they interact with each other in a reading. Sounds really interesting and I truly love all the other free stuff that Lisa is offering on her website (not only on tarot, but she has a great course on lenormand as well). Here's the link to the registration page: https://divinationandfortunetelling.com/court-card-directions-workshop (I added a screen shot of the information she had regarding the workshop. I really liked that those who can't make it to the workshop on that speci…

I have found myself pondering this question for a long time now. Is it the tarot that sees the answer, or is it the gift of the person reading the cards? While I do believe that everyone can read the tarot at least to a degree, there are arguably some that are just better at it. There are some people who with little practice can just interpret with great levels of accuracy and detail. I personally feel as though the tarot is more of a conduit for an already gifted person. A means for them to draw out their gifts if that makes sense. What does everyone else think about this?

I challenge anyone to give me a distinction between the king of cups and queen of cups without using sexist tropes to describe the queen of cups. i have scoured books and the internet to help me understand queen of cups and no explanation sits well with me. If we are going off of divine feminine characteristics, feminine is associated with receiving and masculine giving. So then why is it that everyone wants to assign this selfless emotional caretaker role like she only exists in service to others when the king of cups is just this self sufficient beacon of emotional intelligence. Who is she outside of the emotional labor she provides? I even saw one person say the queen …

I *just* saw on another internet place that someone had asked ChatGPT to give a tarot reading... and what it came back with was surprisingly interesting. I gave it a whirl too! If you haven't heard of ChatGPT, click here to check it out! Basically, it is an AI. What did it say to you if you asked for a reading? Is this "a tarot reading"? Is it any less valid because it is not interpreted by ourselves? What do you think this implies about intuition & fate? How could this interpretation method be useful to us in our personalized intuitive practice?

Hello, I always have trouble with the court cards. There are two major issue that I am experiencing: 1) The kings and the queens In almost every reading that I do, they make an appearance. But I find it hard to understand the following: • Who is this person that the king/queen is representing in a reading? For e.g., if I am reading on a topic related to my work and if I get King of swords, then I want to know if this king of swords is my boss or a co-worker or a new client. • How is this person related to the topic or to the other people (the other kings/queens) involved in the situation/appearing in the reading? For e.g., • If I get King…

Hello, How do you bring Tarot into concrete life ? Or do you use it mainly for "(self-)investigation" ? I came to Tarot by way of Rachel Pollack. I have loved the depths it showed but... In a more mundane aspect, I don't want it. I don't need to get more inside myself, I don't need to know more about my hidden feelings etc (I'm simplifying, and at the risk of sounding smug : I don't need to explore myself. Or others, for that matter). The thing is, it seems every book I come across is about that : exploration, soul dive, hidden stuff. I love it to explore certain things, yes. But how do I disentangle myself from that approach to…