Tarot Tip #3 - How to choose your tarot deck

 You may already have chosen your tarot deck, and are enjoying it.  Even if you have, I am sure you’ll pick up many pointers here, so continue to read or listen.

    First, let’s talk about choosing your deck.  A traditional deck has 78 cards in it, so stick with that.  If you want to read with fewer cards, choose to read with just the minor arcana (56 cards) or the major arcana (22 cards). Together, they comprise the traditional 78 card deck.  You can also read with a regular playing card deck of 52 cards and apply the traditional tarot card meanings to them, minus the four Pages.  When you do that you are essentially reading the minor arcana - hearts are cups,  spades are swords, clubs are wands and  diamonds are pentacles.

    Most traditional decks have pictures loosely based upon the Rider Waite deck, which was carefully researched in an attempt to regain the universal meanings of the first tarot decks, whose origins are lost in time and only open to conjecture nowadays.  When you choose one of them to read with, you are reading with a deck that your unconscious mind instinctively recognizes and responds to.

    Decks that have fewer or greater numbers of cards are not based on the traditional Tarot.  You may like the pictures and want to collect them, or if you are very attracted to them you may want to use the little book they usually come with as a guide to read just for yourself.  But traditional meanings will not apply to those decks.

    Many tarot decks available today are based purely on artists conceptions.  They are often unique and beautiful, but you should be aware that you cannot apply traditional meanings when reading them, and you also will be psyching into the artist that created them as you attempt to read with them.  Personally, I don’t use these decks for that reason.  I don’t need to add someone else’s emotional or mental issues or karmic problems to my own.  I do own some of those decks, but I only collect them as art.

    There are also a very few decks available that do not correspond to traditional meanings but may still be used to read for yourself.  Those decks are decks that have been carefully researched and employ symbols that are universal symbols too, just like the traditional tarot decks of 78 cards do.  Examples are the Arthurian Tarot, based on the legend of Camelot and King Arthur, and the Crowley Deck, based upon the deep research of Alister Crowley into the mystical traditions of many cultures. 

    You should also buy your tarot deck yourself, and make your choice yourself.  Do not use a ‘used’ tarot deck, even if it was passed down to you from someone you love.  You do not wish to ‘become’ that person.  When you learn to read the tarot, you are also learning to open yourself psychically.  Be sure to start reading with a brand-new deck, that you have chosen yourself!