How to use Tarot for magic and spirituallity?

[nadkins733]

Hello! I recentlly got a deck of Tarot cards, i know how to do a basic reading, but i know i am not using them to their potential. could anyone with experience guide me in some general direction on where to look for spiritual/ magik use? thanks!

[spoOk]

Hello! I recentlly got a deck of Tarot cards, i know how to do a basic reading, but i know i am not using them to their potential. could anyone with experience guide me in some general direction on where to look for spiritual/ magik use? thanks!

I don't use them in my magic or worship,other than to do readings for myself or if I have called upon a diety I use the reading as a communication tool from the diety.

[MadZealot]

Hello! I recentlly got a deck of Tarot cards, i know how to do a basic reading, but i know i am not using them to their potential. could anyone with experience guide me in some general direction on where to look for spiritual/ magik use? thanks!

They're great for meditation. Each card is said to correspond with a certain color, astrological symbol, a musical note, and more, so there's a wealth of info to work with.
Try: http://divineparadox.com/Tools/meditations.htm
It's an old site but a personal fave of mine.

[Sharysa]

Hello! I recentlly got a deck of Tarot cards, i know how to do a basic reading, but i know i am not using them to their potential. could anyone with experience guide me in some general direction on where to look for spiritual/ magik use? thanks!

Depending on how recently you got them, of course you wouldn't be using them to their potential--you just haven't worked with them enough yet.

I would say to get to know your deck and work with it for a couple more months before you actually try tarot-based magic.

[ccam]

Hello! I recentlly got a deck of Tarot cards, i know how to do a basic reading, but i know i am not using them to their potential. could anyone with experience guide me in some general direction on where to look for spiritual/ magik use? thanks!

There's actually a nifty little book by Donald Tyson called Portable Magic: The Tarot is the Only Tool You Need about using the tarot for magic.

[Phaedric]

Hello! I recentlly got a deck of Tarot cards, i know how to do a basic reading, but i know i am not using them to their potential. could anyone with experience guide me in some general direction on where to look for spiritual/ magik use? thanks!

If you're interested in exploring the qabalistic correspondences of the cards, here's a clever interactive site. Just click on the different parts of the Tree of Life to bring up the appropriate tables.

http://www.servantsofthelight.org/QBL/Index.html

[triple_entendre]

Hello! I recently got a deck of Tarot cards, i know how to do a basic reading, but i know i am not using them to their potential. could anyone with experience guide me in some general direction on where to look for spiritual/ magik use? thanks!

To read the tarot, I believe, is to enter a feedback loop of symbolism, of abstract ideas, of information... they come from the cards, by virtue of the system (as others have pointed out, there are so many associations to colors, astrology, paths on the Sephirot, classical elements, aspects of daily life whether mundane or spiritual.) The system enters your mind as you learn it, but I believe that you simultaneously put your own psychic energies into each card and it learns you.

So, to do a reading is to be receptive. To use them to assert your will on a magickal level, is possible but seems a different skill because we see it as active, as opposite from its usual use.

But to shift from receptive to active might very well be a skill that you develop naturally, as you broaden and deepen your understanding. The distinction between them might even come to be of no matter.

Intertwining my energy with the tarot was the key, for me. I like to use the tarot meditation, as shown in David Fontana's Secret Language of Symbols and in the little white booklet in the Shadowscapes.

In order to make use of the [ tarot ] as a method of self-discovery, it is necessary to spend time reflecting on what each of the ... cards represent. Once you can visualize the card clearly, meditate deeply upon [the image] by holding it in your awareness and disregarding any extraneous thoughts. Next, imagine that the frame around the image is the frame of a door, and that you are looking out onto the scene in front of you. Then step through the door and become part of the scene. Notice how at this point events may take on a life of their own, as in a dream. Allow the scene to unfold and see what happens. [ Do not ] worry whether you are talking to an image that has objective reality or simply to an aspect of your own unconscious. In all work with symbols, results come only if we cease to plague ourselves with the need for logical explanations. The image is simply there, existing in its own dimension. Let it do the work for you.

Look at [ the tarot card ] for so long that you can see it with your eyes closed. Then close your eyes, still seeing the card. Step into the image. Imagine how it feels, how it smells, how it sounds. Experience it. If you're feeling adventurous, interact with a figure in the image.

I've begun to treat the faces of the major arcana as a pantheon, actually. If I draw them during a shuffle, it's like sensing their presence (although, that's...probably one of the side effects of actually being present, in card form.) To reach your intuition into one, is like prayer or meditation-- it's talking to the arcana, and listening to it. That's what I'd suggest for spirituality, although, I think that unlike most of the Pagan gods discussed here, the "tarot gods" are... purer? As in, each arcana just is what it is, they're probably resonating with something in your mind/soul/heart or situation, but they're not as... human as most other gods? They might have many aspects, levels, and applications of meaning, they might even seem to talk or act if your mind tips that way, but, there's some core consciousness that seems to be just plain missing from them. At least, that's my UPG. So that's why I agree, they would easily fit as telephone operators between you and a named god.


As I mentioned, these are energies, or ideas, that can be received, and directed. So:

- You can use an appropriate tarot card in any spell setup, as if they were a crystal or a sigil or other charm/tool with a specific meaning.
- You can stack the cards so that the ones you want to draw will come up-- and you can convince yourself on a deeper level that the cards which you deliberately draw will still tell the future.
- You can meditate to take up the energy of a card into yourself, and then shout that message out or down a connective line in some otherworldly plane in some altered state of mind.
- You can pour your energy into a card until it comes to a sort of life -- a thoughtform.

Or you can do something else entirely.