Tarot Deck Care (for beginners)
Whether you get your tarot cards as a gift, buy it online or in-store, it has picked up a bunch of energies from the different people who have handled it. This means your readings won’t be as accurate as they could be. So here’s a guide for beginners of how to take care of their first tarot deck!
It’s best if you cleanse your deck as soon as possible, and don’t leave it overnight without cleansing on the first night. This is because the energies the deck has picked up could be negative, and it could have an unwanted effect on you. There are heaps of ways you can cleanse your tarot deck, and you can use all of then, or even just one depending on what you have on hand. Here are some easy examples (keep in mind, while performing these you need to have a ‘cleansing’ intent in mind for it to work):
Tap three times on the deck
Place a tumbled clear quartz crystal on top of the deck
Wave the deck through incense
Create a sigil for cleansing and leave it in the box
'Reset’ the deck by putting it back in its original order by suit and number
This one is best for cleansing after a reading to remove traces of previous energies
Don’t freak out though if someone else touches your deck, nothing bad will happen, just make sure you cleanse it before doing another reading so it’s still accurate. In some situations, you can have someone purposely hold, shuffle, split or draw cards from your deck if you’re doing a reading for them in person and want their energy to be better connected with it.
Bonding with your deck is just as important as cleansing if you want an accurate reading! You should be able to feel a connection with your deck, which helps you understand what it’s trying to tell you through the readings. These are ways you can bond with your deck:
Sleep with your deck under your pillow
Play solitaire with your deck
Watch a movie or TV show while shuffling your deck, then ask it questions about what it thought of the genre/characters/themes
Play music on shuffle while shuffling your deck, then pick a card to help explain the song
Draw a card every day in the morning after shuffling to represent how your day will be
While you’re doing these, take the time to look at the art of each card. Without looking at the guidebook, try working out what you think the card means by looking at things like the colours, shapes, background, animals, plants, figures, and repeating symbols. After you’ve don’t these, you can try a 'get to know my deck’ spread, like this one I made, or make one of your own. This can help you see what kind of things your deck is and isn’t good at reading, and it’s strengths and weaknesses.
Like crystals, water, and most other magic tools, tarot decks need to be charged. This is very similar to cleansing action-wise, but it comes down to the intent of those actions. While cleansing is about removing energies from the deck, charging is more like putting energy back into it. This means they have to be performed with a 'charging’ intent rather than a 'cleansing’ one. Here are some examples of how you can charge your deck:
Place one or more pointed clear quartz crystals around the deck, pointing inwards
Leave the deck under the light of the full moon
Create a sigil for charging and leave it in the box
Hold the deck and envision a pure ball of energy moving from you into the deck
There are heaps of ways to shuffle and draw cards that you can go through until you find the one you most prefer!
Shuffle the deck gently using your method of choice, then break the deck and reverse
If a card jumps out from the deck while shuffling, it’s calling to be read
Let the subject of the reading shuffle the deck while thinking about their question
Let the subject of the reading pick the cards while thinking about their question
Spread out the deck in a line and pick cards based on intuition
Spread out the deck in a line, pick one card based on intuition, then draw the cards either side of it
Pick cards straight from the deck without spreading them
Pick the cards at the top of the deck without spreading them
Let a small group of cards drop onto each section of the spread, the pick the one that’s on top for that position
Let all of the cards drop, spread them out messily, then pick cards based on intuition
When I say 'based on intuition’ I mean that a card could have a different energy to the cards around it. It could seem a slightly different colour, or it could be the one your eyes are drawn to etc, and this is how you can tell if a card is calling out to you to be drawn.
If you’re doing an online reading, try to get info such as the subject’s initials, star sign, hair/eye colour, gender (and pronouns), element etc to have a better connection to them for a more accurate reading
Try to avoid yes/no questions, and swap them out for something like “what can I do to make me more likely to…”
Avoid asking about how you will die. It could cause something called the 'self-fulfilling prophecy’, which according to the laws of attraction, is when something comes true because we’re acting as if it is true (when it isn’t or may not be).
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