We live in an enlightened age. In these modern times, consider having a modern approach to Tarot, which means leaving behind the Dark Ages of superstition and ignorance. Let’s deal with some of the superstitious concepts that I see on Tarot forums occasionally…

Q: Do I need to bless my cards before using them?
Mister Tarot: No. They are just a deck of cards. Just shuffle and go!

Q: “My old deck is worn out, how do I dispose of them?”
Mister Tarot: A surprising amount of people on these forums come up with suggestions such as: “You should burn them.” Or they say, “You should deconsecrate them and bury them.” Listen up folks…we’re talking about Tarot cards here, not nuclear waste. Instead of throwing them all away, why not put your favourite cards in frames? Or use these older cards for drawing your ‘Card of the Day’ and stick it on the fridge to remind you of the energy you are likely to experience over the next 24 hours. How about gluing one of them to some cardboard and making a greeting card out of it for a friend? Or laminate them and use them as drink coasters! Don’t waste those lovely cards…even if they are a bit old and don’t shuffle as well as they used to, there are plenty of ways you can use them to decorate your home.

Q: “What do you do to protect yourself during a Tarot reading?”
Mister Tarot: Do you cross yourself and say “Hail Mary” when you chat to a friend on the phone? No, so why would you do that when you are doing a reading with your Tarot cards? Do you worry about being possessed by evil spirits when you play Canasta or Bridge? Of course not, they’re playing cards! Tarot cards are a set of playing cards combined with some trump cards. Sure, those trump cards have archetypal figures on them, but archetypes are everywhere. Archetypes are mother figures, father figures, and heroes—you don’t have to be protected from symbols such as these.

Q: “Do you need to prepare sacred space when reading Tarot cards?”
Mister Tarot: No, you don’t need sacred space, but if you want to attune to your intuition, you need to be receptive to it, so you’ll need time and space to be comfortable and ‘in the zone’, but it doesn’t have to be a sacred zone!

Q: “Even though I’ve checked that all the cards are upright before I shuffle, sometimes a card will magically turn itself around in the deck and will be dealt out reversed, so does this mean that this card has to be read reversed?”
Mister Tarot: The laws of physics and the laws of the natural world still apply to Tarot cards. You have unwittingly placed a card into the deck up-side-down. Don’t delude yourself that your Tarot deck has a magical entity trapped in that pack of cards. Be real about your Tarot readings and realise that you don’t have to resort to a belief in the supernatural to use Tarot.

Please understand that Tarot is based on intuition and an understanding of symbolism and psychology. Having some knowledge of the fundamental principles of Tarot will help your interpretations and give more accurate results, but believing that your Tarot cards have supernatural powers to foretell the future is only taking away your own responsibility and (quite frankly) your credibility too.