Looking to combine my Tarot readings with Oracle

[Aldor44]

Hey ALL

 

So... I want to try and combine Oracles into my tarot readings

 

 

I have 2 Q: 1) Any suggestions for solid Oracles to use - I am drawn a lot to animal images but not exclusively- NOTE: the decks must be easily obtainable and hopefully not SUPER expensive  

 

2) what methods do you use to incorporate oracles with Tarot readings - aside from just drawing 1 card for additional info at the end.. 

 

Thank you!

[DanielJUK]

I quite often combine them and found you can use almost any decks, even ones you think are opposites and would never work, the contrasting (rather than decks that are similar) seems to work best I have discovered but it's something to experiment with, try many decks together! It's always surprised me 🙂 In my mind I always think of it as divination experiment, combine different decks and see what works and what doesn't! I tend to take one card (or two cards for a larger reading) from each deck and read them together, I interpret the tarot card and the oracle card and then give a combined meaning, in my reading there would be 3 paragraphs for each part, tarot, oracle and combined. They often work together to reinforce each other strongly I have found. Some people use different decks in different positions in the reading and others give a certain angle to each deck in each position (for example external / internal or conscious / subconscious).

 

When I joined AT, everyone was raving about the Power Animals Oracle by Steven Farmer, it is very mass market oracle from a mass marker publisher and a guy who just turns out those oracles! Each card has an animal on with a little meaning. I am not the biggest fan of it in my collection, I find it hard to have a intuitive connection to it, it just feels like it was made for publishing, there is no intention of spirituality in it for me. However it's a fairly cheap deck these days and just has animals on. There are a lot of animal oracles which are from massmarket publishers / artists / creators, these days I find them such a turn off, I want something I can connect with, an artist who puts their love into the deck, a deck with a soul!

 

If you have the Wild Unknown Tarot, the Wild Unknown Animal Spirit deck is the perfect combination because the art style is the same! Even if you don't have the WU tarot I would recommend it. It's a more expensive oracle than the massmarket ones above, although this is an easy to get massmarket, I think the creator / artist's intention is good. You get a huge set with this but over here it's just under £20 / €25. I am sure I paid a lot for me it when I pre-ordered it before release a few years ago 😮 You get a big box, a book with it and 63 cards. They are divided into 5 groups, Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether, they are Yogic Elements apparently. Each card has a beautifully drawn animal (in the same style as the WU Tarot) and it doesn't have a meaning on the card images but the book is helpful. You can read the images totally intuitively from the artwork with no keywords but the book helps, there is an element symbol on each card. One thing I like is the animals have a hierarchy in the suits, eg one group goes from fire ants to a lion, with 5 animals in between in the fire suit. I would recommend this animal oracle if you can afford it because it is beautiful. My only criticism is some of the meanings / associations are weird! It is recommended in the deck's book to form your own idea about the animals, what does this animal mean to you? Because some of the associations are really odd, like this animal is psychic or this is healing, I just don't have that associate with the animals that the artist does. You really feel it's the creators idea or opinion of the animals, I recommend forming your own associations. But glad to own this oracle, I think you could combine it with most tarot decks I think.

 

 

 

 

[Natural Mystic Guide]

This is a fascinating topic and one to which I have not given much thought.  I do own a number of oracle decks in my collection of over fifty decks.

 

My choice of deck(s) is always guided by prayer.  I do have 4 'go to' decks at any time that I use professionally for face to face readings.  One of the things I love about reading long distance is that I can play with a more challenging/less traditional deck.

 

The oracle deck with animals that I love working with is 'The Medicine Cards' by David Carson and Jamie Sams.  As you can see, the cards have a lovely clean aesthetic.

[AeonHorus]

I use the Druid Animal Oracle by Will Worthington (Love all his Celtic stuff).

You can find them here. Just be careful though as some scoundrels are trying to sell the book separate from the cards. Should be around $25 for the set, (shipping not included of course).

Loads of useful info in the book, gives you spread ideas too. 

 

I usually use oracles to signify the way a read will go by pulling one at the beginning of the read. If it's incoherent to the question at hand then I abandon the read until another day lol. I feel its a way to connect with the higher consciousness, if no connection then no read. To quote Crowlie in the Book of Thoth in his text about the first operation...

 

Quote

First Operation This shows the situation of the Querent at the time when he consults you.

 

I. The pack being in front of you, cut, and place the top half to the left.

 

2. Cut each pack again to the left.

 

3. These four stacks represent I H V H, from right to left.

 

4. Find the Significator. If it be in the Yod pack, the question refers to work, business, etc.; if in the He' pack, to love, marriage, or pleasure;, if in the Vau pack, to trouble, loss, scandal, quarrelling, etc.; if in the He' final pack, to money, goods, and such purely material matters.

 

5. Tell the Querent what he has come for: if wrong, abandon the divination.

 

6. If right, spread out the pack containing the Significator, face upwards. Count the cards from him, in the direction in which he faces. The counting should include the card from which you count.

For Knights, Queens and Princes, count 4.

 I usually use as in number 5. Tell the Querent what he has come for: if wrong, abandon the divination. 

I will also draw an oracle or two within the read to add extra clarity if I pull a difficult card that in itself doesn't clarify to the question at hand. 

Let me see if I have an image or two to show this in action.
 

Here is a very good example of the use of Tarot, Oracle and Dice divination all together.

↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓      ↓

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by AeonHorus

[Audelia]

I LOVE combining tarot and oracle cards to read. I always find that intuitively, it just seems to offer so much more depth and has the ability to take away an over-reliance on clarifying tarot cards.

 

My favourite decks to use in conjunction with my tarot decks are The Alchemist's Oracle by inner hue (which is very complementary to The Wild Unknown tarot) and the Earthbound Oracle by Skull Garden (I also tend to dip in and out of using The Empty Cup oracle). I usually draw an oracle card for every tarot card in the spread and I find that say if I draw something like Strength, the oracle card pulled with it will offer much more depth and a different perspective on the meaning of the card. It's very intuitive.

 

I would absolutely encourage you to give it a try if you're interested. I'm also fond of using charms, runes etc. alongside my cards 🙂

[Barleywine]

Although I will occasionally pair tarot and Lenormand cards in a reading, I haven't done much with other tarot/oracle match-ups. One challenge I had was trying to find a similarly-sized oracle deck to use with unusual large-format tarot decks like the Voyager Tarot, which is a unique system unto itself. Having huge tarot cards and much smaller oracle cards in a layout creates a visually jarring impression that throws me off my stride. They also had to be similar in color range and, at least to some extent, image design. I found the Messenger Oracle to be a near-perfect companion for it. I've been looking for a match for the Thoth deck; the Sacred Geometry Cards looked like a good choice since they adopt elements of the Synthetic Projective Geometry that Harris used in the Thoth. But I made the mistake of buying the second version of the deck instead of the original.

 

Here is a link that isn't entirely on-topic, but it shows the Voyager/Messenger combination at the bottom of the page.

 

https://parsifalswheeldivination.com/2017/09/29/companion-decks/

Edited March 5, 2020 by Barleywine

[ilweran]

I use a few together, though they don't particularly meet your requirements (Greenwood with Celtic Shaman Pack for example), but how I use them is that I just go with what feels right at the time, which might mean using an oracle card in a certain position in a spread instead of a tarot card (usually in a central position), having a short separate spread, just having one card for extra info. I normally sit down, hold the cards I want to use and see what pops into my head.

 

Examples - Triple Goddess Tarot (not so much a tarot deck) with the Greenwood, Frouds Faeries with the Hidden Realm,  and  lastly Greenwood with the Celtic Shaman's Pack, Greenwheel Oracle and Wee Star Oracle

 

[latenite]

On 1/25/2020 at 7:41 AM, Natural Mystic Guide said:

This is a fascinating topic and one to which I have not given much thought.  I do own a number of oracle decks in my collection of over fifty decks.

 

My choice of deck(s) is always guided by prayer.  I do have 4 'go to' decks at any time that I use professionally for face to face readings.  One of the things I love about reading long distance is that I can play with a more challenging/less traditional deck.

 

The oracle deck with animals that I love working with is 'The Medicine Cards' by David Carson and Jamie Sams.  As you can see, the cards have a lovely clean aesthetic.

I have these and they are amazing. I have gotten so much meaning out of them. Highly recommend also.