Cult of Tarot Forum

If you are just joining the forum, welcome! It's lovely to have you here.

If you would like to, take a moment and tell us your Tarot story. Maybe you'd like to answer one or more of these questions:

• How did you get started in Tarot? Oracles? Lenormand?

• What was your first deck and where did you get it?

• Do you have a favourite deck? Why?

• Do you have a favourite topic or area of interest in Tarot, for example, symbolism, history, reading groups, collecting, etc..?

Lets try and keep this one continuous thread and see how that works. Just click, "Post Reply" and add your personal Tarot adventure.
We could weave a pretty interesting tapestry of experiences here with all the different stories people have.

Make it as short as long as you like.

Thank you again for joining us. now just click "post reply"....

Hi everyone
I am tara and I love both the tarot and oracle decks and reading exchanges and practicing on my friends.
I began through a spiritual meditation group a few years ago and am passionate about the area in general.
My first deck was the Rider waite but I have about ten decks now and a few oracle as well.
My favourite is the Transparent Tarot by Emily Carding. I love it because you can layer two or three on top of each other to give more depth to the story and it helps me to use my imagination and intuition more.
The Druidcraft is my most used deck overall.
My next deck will likely be The Star Tarot.
I love exchanges using spreads for a specific purpose, preferably indepth, but I am happy to do any kind for practice.

Warm wishes
Tara

I'm Nemia, and I had my first tarot reading, done by a friend, many years ago (1983?). I never forgot the reading but was sure I'd never be able to read tarot myself.

Twelve years later, I saw a tarot book on sale (Spiritual Tarot) and bought it in order to re-visit the beautiful cards that I could not forget. The cards in the book looked different but tarot now really caught my interest.

I went to a bookstore (it was pre-Internet time for me) and simply bought a deck that looked beautiful to me. Imagine my surprise when I opened it and found that it was the deck my friend had used in the early Eighties. It was the Thoth, still my favorite deck.

In the more than twenty years that passed since then, I have never lost interest in tarot (although there were times when I took breaks from the cards, but I always knew I'd come back). I became active on Aeclectic, learned a lot there, dared to discover the kabbalah (I read a lot about astrology already as a child), started to read professionally for a website, and everybody who knows me is aware of my tarot interest. My tarot collection is around 90 decks, and I have some Lenormand and playing card decks, too.

I'm interested in the art historical and historical side of tarot, in its connection to the esoteric tradition of Western culture, in its function as therapeutical tool for introspection and healing. There's always something new to learn. Lenormand - I discovered it before the boom and find it fascinating. Playing cards - would love to really wet my feet but I find the many different methods and traditions confusing and a bit daunting.

My favorite tarot activities are: keeping my tarot calendar up to date (I'll write about it later), doing readings online, exchanging views and experiences on tarot boards (I'm active on three), crocheting tarot bags (I find my cruciform tarot wraps extreeeemely practical and nice), and reading tarot books.

I hope that one day I'll find the courage to read one-to-one professionally and not only for friends.

The Cult of Weimar deck is one of my favorites and I'm happy its creator has established this forum.

Olá, meu nome é Cláudia Boechat, moro em São Paulo, Brasil, e estudo tarô há mais de 20 anos. Porém, há apenas seis anos comecei a atender profissionalmente. Jogo por email e whatsapp, jogos longos e com gravações. Jogo presencial apenas em eventos. Também jogo I Ching, que também estudo há mais de 20 anos. Estou começando a estudar o Symbolon. Me interesso especialmente pelo Tarô na internet e gostaria de conhecer novas experiências. Meus jogos são de aconselhamento para o presente, autoconhecimento e muito pouco de previsão de futuro, apenas o inevitável. Tenho tido ótimos feedbacks e me sinto cada vez mais gratificada por esse trabalho. Minha língua é português, falo um pouquinho de inglês e leio bem em espanhol. O Google ajuda muito. Tenho clientes no Brasil e em outros países. Minha maior dificuldade é jogar tarô para mim mesma. Gostei muito da proposta do Forum. Namastê. Grata.

Hi everyone, have just joined the forum. I've been studying the tarot for a long time, although i started my oracular life with petit lenormand. I am not a professional (maybe i will some day) but try to help people when they come to me. I am mostly interested in tarot history and symbolism and as for that matter i think marseille family is paramount. I live in rio de janeiro, brazil and yes i am fully convinced tarot can see the past, present and future. Thanks for letting me join the forum. Cheers!!

Hey everyone, I’m Lindsay and have been reading professionally since 2007. I also enjoy collecting cards – it’s almost like an addiction! I once picked up 3 old vintage decks from the early 70's at a second-hand market. All 3 together cost me $1.50 Australian dollars! For those of you that aren’t familiar which Australian currency, it is about the price of a chocolate bar. At the moment I’m trying to get back into Lenormand, but as a mature aged student that has just started university, I’m finding it hard to find any extra time!

Hello good people of CoT! Congrats on the successful kickstarter campaign. I'm certainly down for a new tarot forum with such a great focus.

How did you get started in Tarot? Oracles? Lenormand?
I started in Tarot over 25 years ago. A few years after that, I discovered oracles. It's only within the past 3 years I picked up Lenormand and I love that learning experience. I've been a solo reader, a professional reader, and a friends & family reader. Basically, tarot has been my trusty companion as I walk through life.

What was your first deck and where did you get it?
The Thoth--it was my mother's deck that she had cast aside.

Do you have a favourite deck? Why?
I don't have a favorite because they're all my babies. But I tend to use these the most: Pamela Coleman Smith Commemorative, Thoth, Universal RWS, Sun & Moon, and I've been known to squint at the Shadowscapes.

Do you have a favourite topic or area of interest in Tarot, for example, symbolism, history, reading groups, collecting, etc..?
I'm an ex-ATF member who was part of Great ATF Migration Trail of 2017. I can be found on a couple of Tarot forums now, and I tend to peruse all manners of topics, but here are the main ones...

Collecting, upcoming decks, historical decks, reading groups, Lenormand, and oracles. I will be making my own deck one of these days, so I'm curious about the experience of deck creation. I've been short on funds lately to afford independent decks, but I do love them and want to explore that universe.

That's about it. Great to meet everyone!

I'm just gonna copypasta from my blog cause that's easiest!

~~~

When I was very young, I had a recurring dream. It was me, but a past life. A young girl from a well-off family. I had a nurse who took care of me, and taught me things. My favorite lessons were in the middle of the night, when she taught me magic in secret. I was given a tarot deck - one with large green borders and an image on the top half and an empty square in the bottom half. When I used these cards to read, the images would move and flow and words would appear in the bottom box, telling me what I needed to know. It was a learners deck, and I was told that when I got older, I wouldn’t need the words. The cards would speak to me. Eventually in the dream, my family was going to move across the ocean. My nurse told me my cards were tied to the magic of my home, so I couldn’t take them. I hid them in a hole in the barn and left for the boat. I believe it sank before arriving, as my dream never finished.

My first in-person experience with tarot was at a girls night with too much tequila. A friend brought out a RWS deck and told me my boyfriend was an asshole (true) and there was a tall dark stranger in the distance (turns out that was literal - he lived across the country) I laughed it off and didn’t think about tarot much for a few years.

Wolfboy was my next divination experience and the big one - I don’t even remember why, but he brought out a copy of Froud’s Faeries’ Oracle. He let me hold them and I got a paper cut! I don’t know why I didn’t expect faeries to bite, but there it is…. Regardless, I was enchanted. Within a week, I found a copy of The Heart of Faerie on clearance and bought it. My very first deck . I honestly feel like starting with an Oracle deck shaped my entire path as a Reader. I’ve anyways felt that the imagery and how the cards “speak” to me (my dream was right about that!) trumps what the card is “supposed” to mean.

My first actual tarot deck was Shadowscapes, and the beautiful, intricate imagery of that deck allowed me to continue my intuitive path, while introducing me to the traditional RWS structure at a subconscious level. I also used that deck in story telling and poetry, as it moved me to. Down the line, I picked Fairy Lights tarot, and the paired-art imagery of that deck helped to build my ability to connect cards to each other in a spread. As well, the fairy tale nature of the artwork was so easy to create worlds around - it taught me to enter my cards, to explore them from within to reach greater depths.

Other decks had come in the meantime with their lessons, of course, but the next Big One was being gifted Archeon Tarot. A little bit darker, Archeon had QUITE the voice. He was the first to demand one-on-one study and his own journal. He arrived just when I started shadow work and has been my strongest ally in that journey to this day. Then came Mary-El with her intricate and depthy imagery, hitting me right into every crevice of my Soul. I’ve had her something like 6 months and have maaaaybe worked with as many cards. The impact that deck has had on my spirituality is indescribable.

Most recently, my tarot journey has taken a turn towards the traditional, finally! I have a copy of the Universal Waite tarot that has been mostly neglected finally getting it’s time to shine. I’ve started a study journal where I document my intuitive read of the individual cards, along with their traditional meanings from as many sources as I can get my hands on, and explorations of the various connections I can find - myths, astrology, symbolism, numerology, etc. I think I’ll always be an intuitive reader at heart, but the study of tarot had been so interesting!

And that’s it. The highlights of my tarot life.

Hi, I'm Arie. ^-^

I've found tarot interesting for a very long time - when I was in middle school, I think, I got a deck from a scholastic book order (pretty sure). It's one of those mass produced for general use type ones, but I loved the pictures and found them fascinating. I treated it more like a deck of cards, to reorder and shuffle and reorganize. (I was an odd child, I liked to take all my playing cards and dump them into a pile, mix them all around, and put them back in order. xD)

I had that deck for years, and pulled it out periodically, but never really did anything with it (partly because I have small hands and it was a huge deck. xD) I picked up a few books and read through them, but again, didn't do much with it.

Once I got a real job and had some actual money of my own, I started getting other decks that interested me, here and there over the years.
I'm up to 9 at the moment actually. x3 (I have a link here listing each of them. Some are for reading, some are just for my collections, like the tiny one and the Wonderland one. x3)
The decks I actually use are mostly determined by which ones fit in my hands - I have somewhat short fingers and the traditional size is just a bit too big to be comfortable for me. xD

For a couple months a short while ago I was actively working on studying, doing nightly card pulls and so on. I've been on hiatus from that for a few weeks now, though.
While I was doing so, I was using Shadowscapes and Wild Unknown, and using Type Tarot as a source for meanings. (I would draw a card from one of the other decks, then find the matching card in Type Tarot and see what words popped out at me, before going to a book)

I suppose that's enough for now. x3

Hi.

I started studying Tarot almost a year ago. I'm very literal-minded, very practical and have kind of a low "woo tolerance," (no disrespect to anyone of a more mystical bent; it's just not how my brain works), so I was drawn to tarot for the purpose of getting better at listening to my own intuition, thinking more creatively, and just generally being in better touch with myself.

My first deck was a Morgan-Greer, because I wanted something RWS-ish and traditional, but inclusive of people of color. Currently I'm really vibing with my Numinous Tarot deck, which is a radically inclusive deck with degendered card names, and figures that include people of many races, gender expressions, sexualities, and ability levels. It fits where I am (or more precisely, where I aspire to be) politically.

I grew up in a fairly conservative, intellectually-focused religious tradition, and while I'm definitely no longer part of that narrow denominational tradition, I'm still working out my relationship to the larger religion as a whole. So engaging in a divinatory practice that didn't come with the baggage of what I grew up with has been appealing to me. I've been at it long enough now that I start to notice synchronicities, times when something I've been spending a lot of of emotional energy on will result in a super obvious, keyword-level, called-out-by-a-deck-of-cards kind of reading. So that's fun.

But I definitely feel like I need more practice reading, so that's something I'm looking forward to.

My name is Wilma, I am a witch and a professional tarot reader. I read at festivals and events, as well inperson readings. I am also a deck creator and have just started an Indiegogo campaign which I wrote about in a post in that section of the forum. I am 50 this year, single mother of 3 kids, 4 dogs and am passionate about tarot, bellydancing, and yoga. Tarot has been instrumental this past 2 years in assisting me with some of my mental health struggles... it was a great learning and reflective tool. Anyways, this forum seems very comprehensive and am looking forward to interacting with all of you!

I live in Canada, and also have an online boutique where I sell some of the indie tarot decks for any of the Canadians out there, and where I will also hopefully sell my new deck. https://freyjasdaughter.com

Hi all, have been interested in tarot and other forms of divination for some years. At this moment in time the TDM majors are my thing, also playing cards. Have read for a few people , and also some paid readings. Still learning and finding out things that were in plain view !. So onwards and upwards..

Hi Everyone!
found your forum through the kickstarter link. congratulations for a successful launch!

- How did you get started in Tarot? Oracles? Lenormand?
Years ago I had someone reading the cards for me. The person used the Crowley Tarot. I was so amazed I took Tarot classes but stopped using them after a while.

- What was your first deck and where did you get it?
It was a Crowley Tarot Deck.

- Do you have a favourite deck? Why?
Not yet, I am a newbie again

- Do you have a favourite topic or area of interest in Tarot, for example, symbolism, history, reading groups, collecting, etc..?
I am interested in symbolism and would love to be part of reading groups. However I am total newbie

Hey there! Looking forward to discussing tarot with all of you. Since I'm terrible at introductions (I am legit THE WORST when they do those during meetings) I'll jump right into the questions.

How did you get started in Tarot? Oracles? Lenormand?

I started when I was about 14, as cliche as that seems. My mother got me a deck and would have me do readings for her because I guess they were accurate. Flash forward and I'm still reading to this day though I'll waffle in how much I study/use depending on what is going on in my life.


What was your first deck and where did you get it?

The Robin Wood Tarot. It wasn't until I started using other decks that I realized just how little it resonated with me.

Do you have a favourite deck? Why?

My two favorite decks are The Alchemical and Aurum Solis tarots. Both because of the depth of symbolism available in the cards which allows for a deeper level of reading. For me anyway.

How did you get started in Tarot? Oracles? Lenormand?

After my son was born I started taking him to a wonderful baby massage class that was run by an amazing woman. After a few months we graduated from the class but I stayed in touch with the teacher and she eventually invited me to join a small meditation circle of women that meets monthly. A few months in she introduced us to Tarot and I instantly fell in love with it. The first deck I ever touched was a mini Motherpeace. It's not a deck I have now or am especially drawn to but I found the whole concept of laying out pieces of card with different images on them, and receiving insights or truths or messages from them, utterly fascinating. I was a little scared too, I was brought up in a very religious household and Tarot was very much seen as the work of the devil. But i was hooked so I went out and bought my first deck and a book and here I am now.

Oracles followed later, but I've never had very many and most of them I have moved on to new homes. They just don't work for me the way Tarot does.

Lenormand I am totally new to but I'm very keen to learn and I have some beautiful Lenormand decks I would love to start using.

What was your first deck and where did you get it?

It was a Radiant Rider Waite and I bought it online along with Joan Bunning's Learn the Tarot book. I spent a few weeks with deck and book side by side going through all the cards individually and completing all the exercise in the book. I didn't know at the time the Radiant is a redrawing of the RWS, i thought it was the real thing just nice and colourful.

Do you have a favourite deck? Why?

I have several decks I love but if I had to pick only one then it would have to be Thoth. I don't know it terribly well and haven't been working with it all that long but it is extremely beautiful and very powerful. I have two copies, the first, a large one, I trimmed all the borders off. The second I trimmed just leaving the keywords on. Free of borders the artwork is truly incredible.

Do you have a favourite topic or area of interest in Tarot, for example, symbolism, history, reading groups, collecting, etc..?

I don't really read for other people very often so reading groups online are great for my practice. I like seeing other peoples collections, new decks that artists are working on and talking about new decks but I am too easily enabled, which is ruinous. I'm also very interested in symbolism and learning more about influences such as kabbalah and astrology.

Hell everyone. My name is Corrina.

I've been reading tarot since 1981. I began with the Rider-Waite and have since acquired many other decks.
I have had so many amazing experiences with tarot over the years; it has led me down some curious pathways and I've had some intriguing encounters because of it.

I have read professionally - on and off - since I first began! I know that sounds unlikely, however that's how it happened. I seemed to take to it like a duck to water and found no difficulty creating stories from the randomly selected images. The stories were relevant and helpful, and within days I was reading for family, friends, neighbours and then complete strangers! In those days of course, a Tarot deck was a rare oddity. After a couple of years, I found the Thoth deck and an esoteric bookshop, and I began to study tarot from a more academic perspective.

My approach to reading, my opinions concerning it and my personal philosophies around it have, understandably, changed over the decades. For many years I favoured the Thoth system, but around the time of my 40th birthday began to prefer a more Jungian approach. To be honest, the older I get, the more pick'n'mix I get in my readings; it's just endlessly fascinating!

Hello,

I'm a total newbie to the world of Tarot. I have never been drawn to Tarot so this is still quite a bit of a shock to me that I'm even here trying to gain knowledge about what I had always thought to be a silly parlour game with nothing of value to gain to even bother dabbling in it.


~How did you get started in Tarot? Oracles? Lenormand?
Finally relented to buying a deck and giving it a go after seeing several interesting Tarot cards on Flickr.

~What was your first deck and where did you get it?
Linestrider, bought at a major bookstore six months ago

~Do you have a favourite deck? Why?
I have several but the current two that are fav's from my little collection are: The Victorian Steampuck Tarot & The Gilded Tarot. Why? - The artwork

~Do you have a favourite topic or area of interest in Tarot, for example, symbolism, history, reading groups, collecting, etc..?
Reading groups are of interest to me since the only thing I understand about Tarot at the moment is how to put the Major Arcana in order

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thank you desmond, especially for the link to the enriquez movie. i have been looking for it but hadn’t found it until now. i love his vision and his way with the cards. awesome! as is your tarot story, thanks for sharing

Hi, I'm Fay. I've been having a lurk for a wee while and decided it's about time I remembered my manners and introduced myself.

I've read for a long time, I originally got started as I was working night shift and in the wee small hours was finding it difficult to stay awake if the ward was quiet. I was supermarket shopping, and on one of those bargain book table displays was a deck and book in a tin. I figured that this was just the ticket as it would keep both my brain and hands active.

It was the best purchase I've made - the deck was a floppy TdM type affair, and the little hard backed book fairly basic but it set me on a path that made me a lot of friends, kept me sane (usually), and ultimately became (and still is) a large part of my work.

My favourite decks change fairly frequently - right now, I'm using RWS, Voyager and Aquarian a lot, oh, and Tarot of the Angels. If you'd asked a month ago it was TdM or the huge old Italian decks all the way, before that I was reading a lot with the Arthurian and the Lioness Tarot Oracle. Getting back to RWS is nice though - I kind of killed it for myself by over learning. The flow disappeared and my intuition kind of seized up. I've never really gotten away with Thoth style decks, but I'm hoping to ease in gently with the lovely Zillich Tarot which was gifted to me by a friend - but those bloody esoteric titles do my head in!

I'd really like to get back to reading Tarot for myself. I've kind of lost the rhythm and consoled myself with the knowledge that I use my beautiful tools all of the time for others, so they aren't wasted, and I think joining in here with the planetary week etc. will be a perfect way to get back in there. I have the Stretch Tarot sitting idle with no job as yet, and this could get the stretch juices flowing.

So hello everyone, and thank you for having me!

Hi Tarot lovers, it has been interesting reading the different backgrounds of everyone in this Forum. I have already read and enjoyed the deck review section, probably because after a gap of some years from tarot, retiring from my day job has given me more head-space to pick up this interest again, and the first thing I have turned to is deck buying. I would very much like to hear suggestions from those with big collections as to whether they are still able to enjoy reading for themselves and others without the obsession of acquiring new decks getting in the way!
The first introduction to an oracular kind of knowing for me was with Ralph Blum's Rune Cards. They did away with the fear of the forbidden (I grew up in an evangelical Christian family) and I then found a Motherpeace deck and a Rider Waite. I loved the way image combined with emotion to produce an intuitive response which quickly became a kind of Jungian narrative. Although occasionally reading for friends, I am a novice as far as 'proper' card meanings go and would like to learn these in a more disciplined way.
I still feel the deepest connection with the Haindl Tarot. That being said, there are so many amazing decks and worlds of thought out there!
Thanks for reading this and I look forward to chatting with you.

Hi from a lurker turned member.

My tarot journey has been a rather short one to date. I came to tarot about 5 years ago when I was going through a very difficult time in my life and it has been an on/off relationship since then, for various reasons.
I mostly read for myself (due to lack of confidence), but feel I am restricting myself by doing so and believe I am missing out on interacting with the cards on a deeper level. I have read for a small number of family and friends very occasionally.
I use RWS system and have a small collection of tarot decks, a number of oracles and a kipper deck which I sometimes use, although tarot is my mainstay.
'Comfort zone' is somewhere I've been stuck in for a long time and so I think I'm ready to take the leap.

Greetings, old friends and new. Although I've been retreating from the online tarot forums to focus on my blog, Joan Marie invited me here so here I am. As a creature of habit (like any honest Cancerian), I will still answer to "BW" if you choose, but I'm trying to promote my blog persona, so "PW" would be more appropriate. Many of you know my story: tarot student and reader since 1972, big fan of the Thoth deck and the Book of Thoth, occasional writer for The Cartomancer and regular contributor to the American Tarot Association's periodicals, relentless spread designer and practitioner of various other forms of divination (Lenormand, geomancy, horary astrology, etc).

ParsifalsWheel wrote: ↑17 Jul 2018, 10:58 Greetings, old friends and new. Although I've been retreating from the online tarot forums to focus on my blog, Joan Marie invited me here so here I am. As a creature of habit (like any honest Cancerian), I will still answer to "BW" if you choose, but I'm trying to promote my blog persona, so "PW" would be more appropriate. Many of you know my story: tarot student and reader since 1972, big fan of the Thoth deck and the Book of Thoth, occasional writer for The Cartomancer and regular contributor to the American Tarot Association's periodicals, relentless spread designer and practitioner of various other forms of divination (Lenormand, geomancy, horary astrology, etc).

hi BW/PW! good to see you here too!

Hello! I'm Saturn Celeste tarot reader, gamer and refugee from AT. I recognize many names here I know, I feel right at home already! I thought I had checked out all the tarot forums but this one escaped me. I'm glad to find a new tarot site, can't have too many.

How did you get started in Tarot? Oracles? Lenormand?
I was actually 12 and it was a palm reading. The woman said I was young for a palm reading but was she ever right! When I was 12 I wanted to be a flight attendant. I wanted to fly. And the reader told me there would be much traveling in my life. Was there ever; instead of a flight attendant, I was an over the road semi truck driver and school bus driver off and on for 20 years. Her prediction stuck with me to this day. When I was 13 I purchased my first tarot deck but it's long lost and I don't remember the name of it. In the 90s my son was around 12 or 13 and I purchased a deck for the both of us to use, I wanted to teach him the tarot. It was the Ancestral Path. He surpassed me in knowledge and I went on to try to earn a living and he flourished with the craft. I came back to the tarot in 2011 and we reconnected with the tarot together as a family. He then taught me what he knew! The first deck I purchased to seriously learn from my son was the JJ. Swiss so I learned on a Marseilles deck. In 2014 my son and I took an advanced class in tarot reading. We were jumped ahead of the regular class, it was awesome!

What was your first deck and where did you get it?
The Ancestral Path purchased from Mayhem Comics in Ames Iowa.
http://www.mayhemcomics.com/

Do you have a favourite deck? Why?
I have over 200 tarot and oracle decks. I have a few favorites but I often return to the Radiant RW. That was my first workhorse deck and I still love it to this day.

Do you have a favourite topic or area of interest in Tarot, for example, symbolism, history, reading groups, collecting, etc..?
I love the history of tarot. I do not read for myself, I only read for others so my perspective might be a little different than if I read for myself. I might pull an oracle card for myself but that is very rare.