Tarot basics 4: What to do with a new Tarot deck
/If you’ve been reading my series on Tarot, you should now have a deck of Tarot cards, a Tarot book and someplace to read them. (If you don’t have a deck of cards or a book yet, take a look at this post on choosing a deck and this one on choosing a book.)
Finally, we’ve come to the real action.
If you’re new to Tarot, you are probably eager to dive in and lay out your first reading. Yet there is still a tiny bit of preparation to do. It’s lovely to look through your new cards and enjoy their amazing, magical imagery, but before you start the real work with them, it’s a good idea to decide exactly how and where they’ll be stored.
Image by Arie Farnam
Some decks will come with a little pouch made of plastic material that isn’t very pleasant. Many people suggest storing Tarot cards only in natural silk cloth or in a special wooden box of the right shape and size. Both of those options are delightful and may well lift your mood each time you touch your cards.
However, Tarot has travelled a long and humble road since its beginnings in Renaissance Italy and it is not snobby. If natural silk or a pretty wooden box are hard to come by—as they are for 80 percent of the world’s population—don’t stress about it. The perfect container will probably show up eventually.
Until then, keep your cards clean, dry and together in a safe place, wrapped in a nice cloth or tucked inside a small cloth bag. They are much harder to shuffle well when they get bent, wet, sticky or battered around the corners.
Another consideration before diving in is an energetic cleansing of your new cards. As I’ve explained in previous posts, most theories of Tarot are based on tapping into an energetic level of reality in which everything and everyone is connected by relationships that have various energies.
Every Tarot deck also has it’s own energetic signature, just as people have auras. This is not really because Tarot decks are extra special, magical objects. All objects have some degree of energy signature. But Tarot decks usually have particularly potent energy because of the artistic and scholarly work that goes into their creation.
Cleansing will not erase the innate energy of the cards. There will always be some amount of the energy of the author, who wrote the book you use, and the artist, who designed the cards. Older decks and decks whose makers have attracted the respect and attention of large numbers of people are likely to have extraordinarily potent auras.
For instance, I have always been magnetically drawn to my mother’s ancient Thoth deck and at the same time, that deck has an intense, even dark, energy. That has to do with the fact that the author Alister Crowley, who gave instructions to the painter Lady Frieda Harris to create the deck, had some issues with control, sex and human relationships that can carry over into the cards. The fact that his fame has outlived him by more than seventy years has only increased its potency.
No amount of cleansing is going to erase those energies from a Thoth deck, especially one with the age and experience of my mother’s. But there are many stagnant and unwelcome energies which can be cleared relatively easily. And fortunately, most Tarot decks come with innate energy that is helpful and supportive.
Most Tarot cards are made to be receptive to your energy or the energy of whoever comes into contact with them. That means they have likely been receptive since they were made and they might well have picked up the energies of people who handled them during the manufacturing, packaging and retail process or the energy of customers who considered buying this particular physical deck before you. Either way, they came through a commercial process fraught with global problems and individual stress, so they are unlikely to arrive in your hands without some less-than-wonderful energetic baggage.
For this reason, it is a good idea to do an energetic cleansing of some kind and then introduce your new deck and book to your energy in a positive and purposeful way.
Energetic cleansing is like clearing cobwebs out of the corners of your house. Stagnant and problematic energy can go almost unnoticed, like cobwebs in unused parts of a room, but it gives a certain dusty, unkempt feel to a place or object. Like cobwebs, this energy can be brushed away relatively easily, but it does tend to stick unless you make a specific effort.
Some methods of cleansing energy on a Tarot deck (or any other object really), which you can use when the deck is new or after someone else has handled your cards, include:
Use a bundle of cleansing herbs such as white sage, lavender, mugwort, kitchen sage or another natural incense to waft fragrant smoke all around your deck and book. At the same time visualize any dusty, tense or residual energies drifting away and being replaced by a clear light.
Place your deck of cards and book on a sunny windowsill for one day and ask the sun’s rays to cleanse their energy. Don’t leave them there longer because prolonged sunlight can warp paper and fade inks. If you can, leave the deck and book on a south-facing windowsill over night on the full moon for added cleansing and energizing benefits.
Place a clear quartz and/or smokey quartz stone on top of your book and deck and ask the stone or stones to cleanse the deck. Leave it there for at least 24 hours and up to a week.
If you have tried one of the other methods and still feel that there is negative, interfering or stagnant energy around your cards, place your cards in a shallow bowl and cover them with coarse sea salt for at least 24-hours or up to a week, depending on your sense of the need. Salt has strong purifying effects, but this is usually not necessary.
When your deck has been cleansed and you feel only a clear and bright energy from it, even if it may be distinctive in some way specific to the deck or its creator, you are ready to formally introduce yourself to the cards.
I love to look through each one, read about the specific deck and shuffle the cards without a specific reading in mind to get to know them and let them get to know me. You may conduct a small ritual to dedicate this deck to you, to your divination work for others or to any other specific task. It isn’t mandatory but can be helpful for focus.
A simple way to do this is to prepare symbols of the four elements: earth, water, fire and air. Prepare a bowl of salt and a bowl or cup of water. Light a candle and an energetic incense or herb bundle (mugwort, sandalwood or frankincense are particularly useful here).
Sprinkle the deck with salt and say, “By earth, I dedicate you…” You may finish the sentence with a specific dedication if you like or leave it as is.
Pass the cards through the smoke of your incense or herb bundle and say, “By air, I dedicate you…”
Pass the cards over the candle three times and say, “By fire, I dedicate you…”
Sprinkle a very few drops of water on the deck and say, “By water, I dedicate you…” Again you can finish the sentence, but also wipe the water so that it doesn’t damage the cards.
These four elemental powers are specifically needed in Tarot work and they can be a great aid in dedication. You may also dedicate the cards in the name of a deity. or honored ancestor with a particular interest in divination.
Hekate is a goddess often associated with divination and close enough to the origins of Tarot to be specifically interested. It is best if you do this once you already have a reciprocal relationship with Hekate. But this can also be a time to start such a relationship. Just be serious in your determination to study and learn from Hekate, to follow her teachings and give whatever thanks or offering she may require of you.
In the next post, I’ll go into all the issues about shuffling the cards, so that you can draw a card for information or meditation as well as begin the practice of Tarot readings.
