DIY Tarot Deck for Closet Witches
Iâve been thinking on this for a while, and though there is room for perfection, I think Iâve come up with a pretty good, sneaky method.
Iâve seen plenty of people suggest you read tarot with a deck of playing cards. This of course leaves out the major arcana cards, and one of the court cards in each suit, so I am hoping to remedy this. Although the final product may look a little amateurish, it will suffice until you are safe and able to get a real tarot deck.
2 decks of standard 52-card french playing decks
5 Jokers in Total (4 at minimum, 5 is better)
5 different color highlighters/markers (I suggest green, blue, yellow, red, and purple, to represent the elements associated with the suits, in order to keep track easier, but any five colors will do)
A box/rubber band/something to store them in
*(I used this website to determine which suits would correspond to each other)
Get one full deck of cards, and the four jokers, and sort them all by suit.
Hearts = Cups (water/blue)
Spades = Swords (air/yellow)
Diamonds = Pentacles (earth/green)
*(I used this website to determine which suits would correspond to each other)
Trace three of the four edges of each card with the correct color (if you chose your own colors, pick now which will correspond to each suit, and set one aside for major arcana) based on the suit. Leave the bottom edge uncolored, so you can easily recognize if the card is inverted or not (if you do not wish to read with inverted cards, you may trace all four edges). So you will recognize an ace of cups, for example, both by it being an ace of hearts, and because itâs traced blue to represent water (or whatever color you chose), which is represented by the suit of cups. Also trace one joker in each of these four colors. This will be each suitâs page, and the jacks will be the knights. The other cards all bear the same names (ace, three, king, etc), so those are obvious which they will be. Set them aside.
Get the other deck of cards and the fifth color (I will be using purple to represent spirit, which is the element associated with the major arcana).
You can pick whichever cards to be the major arcana cards that you like. I will be using all ten numbers (including aces) from hearts and clubs (because those are the suits I felt most drawn to and thatâs literally the only reason why), plus a joker for the fool card, and a queen of hearts for the high priestess. This adds up perfectly to the 22 cards in Major Arcana.
Trace these cards as you did the others with your fifth color. Keep all the extra cards uncolored as spares.
My Personal Correspondences:
The Magician: Ace of Clubs
The High Priestess: Queen of Hearts
The Empress: Ace of Hearts
The Hierophant: 2 of Hearts
The Wheel of Fortune: 5 of Clubs
The Hanged Man: 6 of Clubs
