DO YOU remember the moment you became interested in Tarot?

[Saturn Celeste]

DO YOU remember the moment you became interested in Tarot?

https://www.tarotforum.net/threads/do-you-remember-the-moment-you-became-interested-in-tarot.276519/

 

It's been so long I've been into tarot, I honestly don't remember how I acquired my first tarot deck.  I can only imagine it was gifted to me from either my mom or grandma.  But since my first deck I've been interested in tarot.

[Raggydoll]

When I was 11-12 years old, I was gifted a book on magic and divination by my parents. In this book I learned about playing card divination, and that was something I became interested in. Later, I went to the library to find more on the topic, and that is when I saw books about Tarot. I do not think I had ever seen tarot cards before, but I really liked what I saw. And after that, I was determined to own a deck at some point 😁

[DanielJUK]

I was always into the subconscious world and things I couldn't see, all my childhood. I was a weird child, into ghosts and my dreams. I can't exactly say what brought tarot into my life, like how did I know about it? I had no influences with it, I was alone. My Parents were neutral on it, like not pushing it or banning it, they just wanted me to find my own interests in the world and so were supportive, despite them being personally sceptics in this area. When I was around 12 / 13 years old, I was browsing a book shop, in the cellar, at the esoteric section and found a "divination kit". It was beautifully boxed with a magnetic folded part and had a little tarot deck, I Ching stuff and other items of chance and a book explaining them all. This was my gateway to tarot and divination. The sales assistant wouldn't sell it to me and said it was company policy to be 16 for esoteric stuff! There was no law about this and I don't even know if t was really company policy or her moralism. My Parents bought it for me. I think in the next 12 months after I bought a RWS deck. The deck that came with the kit was a black and white Marseilles and was a nightmare for beginner readers! That was how I started.

 

What I can't remember is if I had interests or had experienced tarot in some form before that bookshop moment or was it just a moment when I bought that kit. I just don't remember. However that first purchase was the moment I became interested. I would talk about it a lot to my schoolmates in my primary school and my high school afterwards.

[Rose Lalonde]

I stumbled across the Mary-el tarot blog shortly after my mother died. Only some of the majors were complete, but the beauty of it and the edge to it drew my interest to tarot while I was looking for a way to deal with how I felt. Since that deck wasn't done, I bought Tarot of the Origins -- a terrible deck for a beginner, with its own system for minors, so in some ways like an oracle deck, but also it was the perfect deck, set in the stone age when dying young was no surprise, and that's part of the deck, which weirdly comforted me when it seemed strange that the world was rolling on.  Eventually Marie finished enough cards to make 150 (I think) copies of her home-laminated Mary-el Majors & Aces deck. I snapped one up, and those were my only 2 decks for years, until I found the Aeclectic forum and decided to learn about the methods of reading everyone was discussing. 

Edited January 17 by Rose Lalonde

[Scandinavianhermit]

I encountered cartomancy with playing cards before I encountered tarot. My maternal aunt (farmer's wife) and an elderly lady neighbour (gardener's wife) were practicing cartomancy, and there were books in our public library about card games AND cartomancy. Tarot was briefly mentioned in some of the books about playing card cartomancy, but mainly as a background to playing card cartomancy (which is now proven wrong, since playing cards are older than tarot). Tales of the Unexpected aired on television from 1980, I believe, with later re-runs. Its intro showed 1JJ Swiss tarot cards on a rotary device, but I wasn't aware of the deck's name at the time. When I was a teenager and the entire family visited Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg, located on the best coast, I bought an 1JJ Swiss tarot deck and the US Games version of Rider-Waite at a metaphysical book store. At the time, there were only two metaphysical book stores in a country with eight million people. A little later, I read about Etteilla's divinatory keywords and read a book illustrated with Grimaud's post-1973 version of Ancient Tarot de Marseilles, but I will not write more about that here. 

 

2 hours ago, DanielJUK said:

My Parents were neutral on it, like not pushing it or banning it, they just wanted me to find my own interests in the world and so were supportive, despite them being personally sceptics in this area.

I can relate to that situation, Daniel. In their own teenage years, they had spent time at dance halls, and couldn't understand that I was willing to spend much of my time at our local museums, the public library, and, foremost, in the forest. Today, I put either the label 'Druid' or the label 'Heretic' to what I do, but those are only convenient place-holders for something I cannot define briefly. 

Edited January 17 by Scandinavianhermit

[Christina]

I always had a draw towards the "weird" stuff....ghosts, paganism...lol, and things no one had an answer for. So after I got married I started studying paganism and when I was pregnant with my son, I came across some tarot websites and the artwork sucked me in, so of course I did what everyone tells you to do and bought a good ol' RWS and that was that. Was that 20 years ago? Yes, yes it was.

[Misterei]

My father gave me my first deck when I was 14-15. Since my birthday is 12th day of Christmas it's one or the other. I had never seen Tarots before then -- but here we are 💫  Thanks dad💖

Edited January 18 by Misterei

[Morwenna]

For me it was around the early '80s when I met people into neo-Paganism, and of course Tarot was big in that community. I knew of Tarot's existence before that, of course, but at that time I started buying books on the subject, and got interested enough to start buying decks. I had always been interested in things like that (which my husband used to call 'woo-woo") so I just kind of fell right in. My maternal grandmother had been a reader of playing cards, and I got into astrology at least in college (by then it was the late '60s. the hippie era), so any form of divination was bound to catch my attention. 

 

Of course my husband wasn't immune; he had enough exposure to all us "woo-woos" that he began to pick up principles, and ended up devising his own stone-casting method, and picked up a surprising amount of Tarot just by osmosis, I think, but he never learned to actually read. Same with runes.

[Laura Borealis]

It was in college for me. I had some friends who were interested and I got interested too. One was really into Cabala and would do mini-lectures at the kitchen table. We also loved comparing decks; I remember one time we got a few people together and laid everyone's decks out on the floor so we could compare all the cards all at once. That was so much fun!

[xTheHermitx]

I got started on my journeys into the occult and divination around 12  years old ('81) with Rune study...thanks to heavy metal music, the maps in the beginning of the Tolkien books, and interest in my heritage (Swedish).

 

I did this for about 10 years before I got into Tarot at 22...and I got into Tarot as I was also discovering Kabbalah and other Western based esoterica. I do vividly remember getting my first RWS deck (which is the one I still use now) at the cool, seedy occult shop just south of Ohio State's campus. We would ride the bus down to the store instead of going to classes 😎

 

Sadly, that place went away in the mid 90's when that whole part of the city got gentrified...

Edited March 22 by xTheHermitx

[Nemia]

I was 17 or 18 when a friend did a reading for me at a crisis point in my life - I still remember that reading. It was in the early Eighties. Some ten years later, I picked up the book Spiritual Tarot, a book that features three decks (RWS, Aquarius and Morgan-Greer), looking in vain for the card that had impressed me most. I went to a bookstore and bought a deck that I didn't know but it appealed to me (that was before I discovered the Internet). When I opened it at home, I discovered the never-forgotten card that had impressed me so much. I bought the Thoth that day, without knowing anything about it, and it has remained my main reading deck ever since. 

 

 

The Thoth has been my teacher, and I can't imagine my life without tarot, kabbalah, astrology and collecting decks. 

[WhiteMoon]

I was raised in an ultra conservative religious home, so all things occult were “evil,” according to my elders. But I first glimpsed a book about Tarot on a renegade aunt’s book shelf and paged through it until I got caught. This was in the early 1970s. My next exposure was via the album art on Led Zeppelin IV (attached), which shows the 10 Wands on the front (though not in Tarot form), and the Hermit in the center spread—I gazed at that for hours. 
 

I was finally able to break away from that constrictive background in the late 80s/early 90s when I started with Motherpeace, followed by Crowley’s Thoth, followed by Robin Wood.

[Anesiadora]

I have the origin story of when I bought my first deck out there, but what really got me *interested* in tarot was a few days post-purchase. I got the Thoth, and as a pre-teen, the LWB that came with it just sounded like mumbo jumbo and didn't make much sense to me, so I didn't give tarot much thought beyond "Hey look at the pretty cards" for a bit after getting them. The novelty had started to wear off and I was losing interest. That's when I happened to draw a card, read the LWB, and, using what little information I got out of it at the time, kind of just scoffed and went about my day. But then later that day, things happened that related to the card and I remembered it from the LWB. That was when I started to think that maybe the information wasn't just pretentious magician bullshit, but might actually have a deeper meaning. And then I got interested and started reading everything I could on the subject of tarot. And then I never stopped 😂

[JaelenUk]

I was about twelve or thirteen, I think? A schoolfriend brought a catalogue to school that had things in it for sale like crystals, incense, candles. There was a Tarot deck listed, and I immediately wanted it, but it was far more than my pocket money could afford. My friend said her mum had one that she'd give me, and she brought it in the next day.

 

Now I wonder if her mum had any say in this, or if her daughter just came across it abandoned in a drawer and thought she was doing a friend a favour! I learned later when I became more seriously into Tarot that it was the Hoi Polloi. I still have it, and it's my favourite deck.

Edited May 8 by JaelenUk

[WhiteMoon]

On 5/8/2025 at 3:44 AM, JaelenUk said:

was the Hoi Polloi. I still have it, and it's my favourite deck.

Wow, I totally love the 1972 inflected art. I just bought one on EBay. Thank you! 

[Chariot]

On 3/22/2025 at 5:10 PM, WhiteMoon said:

I was raised in an ultra conservative religious home, so all things occult were “evil,” according to my elders. But I first glimpsed a book about Tarot on a renegade aunt’s book shelf and paged through it until I got caught. This was in the early 1970s. My next exposure was via the album art on Led Zeppelin IV (attached), which shows the 10 Wands on the front (though not in Tarot form), and the Hermit in the center spread—I gazed at that for hours. 
 

I was finally able to break away from that constrictive background in the late 80s/early 90s when I started with Motherpeace, followed by Crowley’s Thoth, followed by Robin Wood.

Gosh.  I listened to that particular Led Zeppelin album till I nearly wore it out, back in the early 70s, but I never made the connection with tarot. In my defense, I hadn't heard of tarot at that time, and haven't owned the album for ages.   Gosh.  I wonder where that 10 of Wands image came from.  Does anybody know?  I would LOVE to own that deck—if it exists. 

My first encounter with tarot was in the mid-70s—1976, maybe?—when I was living in a university town in the USA.  A friend of a friend visited me (on another matter) and during our visit she mentioned "doing" tarot.   She had a deck (regular Rider-Waite-Smith) with her, and did a reading for me, to show me what it was like.  I was captivated.  I started looking to buy my own RWS deck and found one in a local 'head' shop, shortly afterwards.  I went on from there.

I had to teach myself, as this woman had graduated and left town by that time, and I didn't know anybody else who did tarot, but I started with the little white book that came with the deck.  No internet back then, so I spent many years—till the mid-90s, after I had married and moved to the UK—using a very rigid system and ONLY the Celtic Cross spread.  Once the internet opened up, however, and tarot card decks and books became available in large bookstores, my interest widened and took off.

My start with tarot was very conventional, though.  That is probably why I haven't deviated too far from 'traditional' meanings, and still use the RWS system.  However, I have learned to design my own spreads, am quite happy using smaller spreads for most issues, and lately have been working at de-catastrophising my readings.  (Death = An issue which was dragging has finally ended and won't come back—not OMG somebody is going to DIE!!!)  This makes my daily readings much more accurate and less traumatic.  I also now ALWAYS include a specific Advice card in every reading, which has been an enormous help to me.
 

Edited May 19 by Chariot

[katrinka]

12 hours ago, Chariot said:

Gosh.  I wonder where that 10 of Wands image came from.  Does anybody know?  I would LOVE to own that deck—if it exists. 

It's not from a deck. (And he's got a lot more than 10 sticks) It's a 19th century photo of a thatcher named Lot Long.

 

 

While the inside cover of the album obviously IS the Hermit, this photo bears only a superficial resemblance to the 10 of Wands. 

This was the actual intent:

"Robert found the picture of the old man with the sticks and suggested that we work it into our cover somehow. So we decided to contrast the modern skyscraper on the back with the old man with the sticks - you see the destruction of the old, and the new coming forward.”
Jimmy Page

 

Source: https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/stories/led-zeppelin-ivs-last-mystery-revealed/

[Chariot]

14 hours ago, katrinka said:

It's not from a deck. (And he's got a lot more than 10 sticks) It's a 19th century photo of a thatcher named Lot Long

 

While the inside cover of the album obviously IS the Hermit, this photo bears only a superficial resemblance to the 10 of Wands. 

This was the actual intent:

"Robert found the picture of the old man with the sticks and suggested that we work it into our cover somehow. So we decided to contrast the modern skyscraper on the back with the old man with the sticks - you see the destruction of the old, and the new coming forward.”
Jimmy Page

 

Source: https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/stories/led-zeppelin-ivs-last-mystery-revealed/

Thanks so much for that.  I guess I'm always attracted to decks where the image in it is actually 'real.'  Even though the sticks aren't the right number, the feeling engendered by this picture ...a person carrying a huge burden ...is applicable to the conventional 10 of Wands meaning.  Dang.  Now I'm wishing that deck DID exist!  🙂

 

[katrinka]

16 hours ago, Chariot said:

Thanks so much for that.  I guess I'm always attracted to decks where the image in it is actually 'real.'  Even though the sticks aren't the right number, the feeling engendered by this picture ...a person carrying a huge burden ...is applicable to the conventional 10 of Wands meaning.  Dang.  Now I'm wishing that deck DID exist!  🙂

 

Flawed though it is as a card, a person probably would stick that in a deck if it wasn't copyrighted six ways from Sunday. Even if it's Public Domain, I'm sure Zep has a copyright in effect. These are the guys who hired Peter Grant as their manager back in the day, and I'm sure their legal team is equally ruthless. You don't mess with them.  The way to go would be to use it as an inspiration for actual art: painting, pen & ink, linocut, whatever - something done with the hands (NOT AI) and not overly similar.

And with ten sticks.

ETA: Bringing this back on topic, I don't have a precise moment that I became interested in Tarot. I must have seen it on Dark Shadows when I was in elementary school, and I'm sure I was fascinated, but the whole show fascinated me: vampires, werewolves, and Quentin Collins' bizarre 19th century sideburns. LOL.

Later I got a Majors only Tarot from Scholastic Books. That one doesn't really count. It had a song for every card and most of them were a poor fit. Death, or at least the image they used for Death, would have been better expressed by the Byrds' Turn! Turn! Turn! than it was by Me And Bobby McGee, which is more of a nostalgia song. It's someone getting in their feelings, thinking about a past relationship. Elusive Butterfly for the Lovers really stands out, it's horrendous. That guy struck me as a creepy stalker even then, sneaking around the girl's window. There were lines like "If you remember something there that glided past you followed close by heavy breathin'" UGH. And all of it sung with a smarmy Bobby Goldsboro-esque delivery. Get the pepper spray!

It was confusing and unreadable. And I might have dropped Tarot then and there if I hadn't seen an ad in the back of a magazine about a year later, when I was 13. Join the Mystic Arts Book Club and get a free Tarot deck - a real one, a University Books RWS with 78 cards and no attempt to shoehorn songs into it. 
I used the LWB at first, then by some synchronistic miracle I found Eden Gray's Mastering The Tarot on the rack at the corner drugstore. It was the only Tarot book I ever saw there, before or since, and I snapped it up. 

About a year later I saw Lance Loud's mom Pat get a reading from one of his friends at the Chelsea Hotel on An American Family. Lance Loud. The CHELSEA. Legend! The guy used an Albano Waite, and yes, he did predictive (everybody did then) and he nailed it - she was getting divorced. It starts at 32:31 here. That cemented it in my mind. Reading cards was COOL.  

So for me it wasn't a moment, it was a process.

Edited May 21 by katrinka