Sometimes, in the course of working with tarot, you end up with a deck giving you incomprehensible results. This isn’t to say that the cards you pull are telling you things you don’t want to hear. Instead this is when you are doing a reading and card after card have nothing to do with the question at hand.
This can be extremely frustrating because it can lead to missed opportunities, mistakes in spellcasting, and mistaken ideas when it comes to personal issues.
Once or twice is a fluke and might be a sign that you are asking the wrong question, but if this happens consistently with your deck it could be a sign that it needs a break.
If you’ve been working with the deck your sister bought from the mall years ago you might not know why you should have a deck that works for you. If you are just pulling cards every once in a while, you might not need anything more. But if you want to take your witchcraft practice further, it is beneficial to have a deck that resonates with you.
When you regularly use a tarot deck, you build a relationship with it. That relationship requires trust and chemistry in order for you to get good results. I personally use my deck to divine before I cast spells, to do deep inner work and for daily card pulls. Those activities are ones that I wouldn’t entrust to a random stranger, let alone with a deck that I’m not intimately familiar with.
So, if you are reading this post I suspect that you feel the same way about tarot and readings. You might have a deck or two (or twelve) that you play around with, but that more often than not don’t give you comprehensible responses. In that case, read on for ways to find a tarot deck that speaks to you.
Recently I had to retire the deck that I have used for years for this exact reason. I had a good number of other decks that I could turn to, but I wanted to have that same deep connection with a new one that I had with the old.
How I went about choosing a new tarot deck was a two-fold process: First I looked at aesthetics, then I interviewed several possible candidates. I’m going to walk you through the process so you can do the same.
When I talk about aesthetics, what I mean is that, first off, you want to look for decks that have art you love. You are going to be looking at these cards day after day after day, so you want to have art that you find beautiful. Or art that is quirky, or charming, or cute, whatever matches your personal style. You want something that you will enjoy looking at. If the art on a tarot deck makes you recoil, or even if it just doesn’t inspire you, then that’s a good clue that it’s not the deck for you.
Using that criteria you should be able to find at least a dozen decks that you like. Next, you want to evaluate the decks using your other senses. First off, how do the cards feel in your hand? Does the coating feel good, or does it give you the ick when you touch it? Do the cards fit in your hands? Can you shuffle them easily? How do they smell? Do you like how they sound when you shuffle them? Granted, the cards will change over time and use, but you want to find cards that feel good right out of the box.
It might not always be possible to handle the cards before you buy them, especially if you are shopping online. But I encourage you to try to shop in a store if you can and see if there is a sample or open box that you can try out before you buy. There’s nothing worse than getting a deck you were really excited about to pull them out and find that they are too flimsy or too stiff or just don’t feel good to the touch.
Other questions to ask yourself when evaluating a deck:
- Does it come with a booklet? (And if it doesn’t, you might be buying a bootleg tarot deck.)
- Is the box it comes in sturdy or will you need to store your cards in a tarot pouch when you aren’t using them?
You should now have narrowed down your choices to one or two decks. It’s really tempting to jump right into readings at this point, especially if you are left with one deck. But you shouldn’t skip the interview portion of the process. I liken this stage to going on the first date after you have swiped right. Sure, the deck ticks all your cosmetic boxes, but is there any real chemistry between the two of you?
There are dozens of different interview spreads on Pinterest and the internet that you can use, but I like to stick to asking one question and pulling one card at a time. It gives me more of a sense of a conversation, a back and forth, instead of an interrogation, which some of those same spreads can feel like.
Start off by giving the deck a really good shuffle. While you are doing so, take the time to connect to the cards, and focus on whether or not this deck is a good fit for you. Once you have shuffled the cards ask the following questions, drawing a card for each question:
- What are your feelings about me?
- How best could we work together?
- What are your strengths?
- What are your weaknesses?
- If we work together, what will be the outcome?
Take your time when you are looking at your cards as you are asking your questions. And when you have finished, look at them as a whole. What answers or themes were you given? If the tarot deck comes with a book, make sure to check in with it as well. While, yes, tarot cards have meanings that have been revealed over centuries of use, the deck you are interviewing might have been written with some specialized meanings as well. So you want to make sure you are speaking the same language.
If the answers given in the interview, that’s a sign that the deck–as pretty as it is–isn’t a good match. Don’t be afraid to start the process over with another deck. You are looking for a long-term relationship and that might include a few false starts. Don’t be discouraged if you have to start over. Instead, view this exercise as a way to strengthen your witchy powers, of learning more about yourself and what you want in a magical tool. It is also an opportunity to work on your knowledge base in reading the cards.
If the deck has given you positive answers, that’s a sign that you two are compatible. You can start diving into readings with confidence that the deck will work with you to give accurate, meaningful answers to your questions.