#kind of weird an atheist skeptical ex-catholic being this into tarot readings

[july-19th-club]

how did you first get into tarot? do you have any advice for someone who wants to learn?

i got into it in college when i was doing a bit of exploring around in terms of what i guess you’d call ‘witchy stuff’ - i’m not super involved in it much at all because like all hobbies there’s lots to dive into and i’ve always been just enough of a skeptic that im never sure if what im doing is working or not (also because as a community at least online, the modern witch zone has some problems with racism and TERF-adjacent ‘woman power’ shit and i am not about a) appropriating cultures i’m not a part of’s magical or spiritual traditions or b) associating with gender essentialists not least bc i dont ahve an essential gender). ALL THAT just to say when i was in college i thought tarot reading might be fun and i bought a cool pack with some artwork i liked, and then was gifted some other decks by friends etc. there are lots of beautiful (very expensive) decks out there - some of the fancy ones can run you like $50-60 easy - but you can get a basic rider-waite deck online for like 20 bucks.

the main thing to keep in mind about tarot is that whether or not you have much of a belief in that certain whatever-you-want-to-call-it (magic? the paranormal? words like that always feel WAY too dramatic to me an ex-catholic wary of anything that smacks of hardcore spirituality way) - your tarot deck is just cards, and it’s essentially an intuition tool. whatever you wind up reading is gonna mostly come from you - your interpretation of the cards, your interpretation of the questions you ask. and sometimes you’ll surprise yourself with the insight you glean off of that and you’ll get that cool uncanny ‘i’m onto something here’ feeling and sometimes you’ll just read a spread distractedly and get nothing out of it and just feel like you’ve wasted your time. either way, it can be a great way to sort out your own thoughts, which is mostly what i use mine for. i guess you could call it mindfulness in a way. when i draw a card and know that it either clarifies my thoughts or doesn’t make any sense for what i’m feeling, both of those answers can be helpful ways to narrow down complicated thought processes. if i’m feeling confident about a decision and i draw “The Chariot” for example, that doesn’t necessarily mean that some outside force is agreeing with me that i should do whatever im about to do. probably nobody else is giving me advice from beyond or influencing the cards i draw. but it does maybe mean that i’m not just tricking myself into feeling confident; it might mean that subconsciously (or consciously) i know i’m on top of whatever i was asking about. for someone with a degree of imposter syndrome, that can really help.

this is turning into a bit of a dissertation and you said you wanted tips, so bear with me :) my main tip is to buy a cheap deck (you can always buy a pretty one later) and to spend time with it. lots of people say that, but it’s like learning any new skill or subject - you’ll be more familiar with it and it’ll be more intuitive if you practice. the deck should come with a little book that tells you the commonly agreed-upon meanings of each card and what suit it belongs to (major arcana are for big themes and questions, minor - suits are wands, cups, coins or pentacles, and swords - are for more everyday garden-variety stuff). the book should also have some spread ideas in the back - by which i mean ways in which to lay out the cards and designate questions to each of them.

a simple spread, for example, might look like this: three cards in a row, which you designate past, present, and future. you could consider the spread broadly - the past encompassing a long time, present encompassing every aspect of your current life, future encompassing everything - or you could do it minutely; this morning (past) right now, and tonight (future). another thing everyone always says is not to be afraid to build your own spreads. if you feel like they’re not working or you’re not putting together any clear insight, you can always adjust them or go back to the ones in the book (if you find those work for you) or look some up online.

few other things i’ve noticed help you to achieve “clearer” results from a reading:

yes or no questions or extremely big, broad categories are troublesome. “how,” “what,” and “why” questions, or questions that allow for open-ended answers, are more likely to help you form a conclusion that makes sense

basically, you know how lawyers ask leading questions? this is NOT like that. if you do a spread full of leading questions, you’re just leading yourself in a circle

i’ve noticed that if i read for the same question over and over again all at once, the cards i flip get more and more nonsensical. either the deck’s getting tired of my bullshit, or i’m losing the ability to coherently interpret what’s in front of me - either way, i think past a certain point there’s no reason to beat a dead horse

^ the above leads me to a tangent which i SWEAR is related, tangent being i just said all that stuff about there not being any outside force directing your readings. still think that’s probably true unless you do spirit work about it on purpose, which i know nothing about and probably never will - but one of my few ‘i’m pretty sure i believe this’ beliefs is a bit of mild animism; the idea that objects as well as creatures have something akin to a soul or a personality. im not sure how distinct or clear or ‘real-in-the-way-that-you-and-i-who-are-living-human-beings-are-real’ those *souls* are, but the few hard and fast i-can’t-explain-it experiences i’ve had have been to do with places that felt like they Had Emotions and objects that felt like they Had Intent. and if you do subscribe to the line of reasoning that everything has a beating heart of *being-ness*, then things you spend lots of time with and interact with will probably come to some kind of understanding with you and/or you will influence each other a bit.

SO when the deck seems to be throwing unrelated cards at me after i start reading for the same thing over and over, or when reading for an anxious topic nets me reassuring cards, or when i truly do start a reading baffled and finish it clarified, the part of my mind that is a little less skeptical imagines that the deck and i, having spent some time together, are capable of maybe, just possibly, reading each other. and that magic is potentially, POTENTIALLY, in a barely tangible way, happening.

last thing: also everyone says this, but it bears repeating: don’t be intimidated by Death; it’s a card of transition really. and don’t let scary readings make you feel intimidated or scared or depressed. your readings are a reflection of your own emotional states and thought processes, and like smart seers in stories like to remind characters all the time, what you see is just one possibility and you have the power to change it if you don’t like what it shows.