We have all heard it.
“Tarot is the work of the devil” .
Personally I find the statement ridiculous and I don’t usually give it a second thought.
Recently though, someone told me to be careful with Tarot, as it was a gateway to dangerous energies.
Again, I have been on the Tarot path for 25 years and my experience with it has been very positive, but the warning made me think.
Tarot is in my opinion a tool that can be, and it is, used in many different ways. Some are safer and healthier than others, again, in my opinion.
A reading can help us focus on the situation at hand and get a more objective perspective of it. We can identify patterns in our lives, cause and effect. We can get a glimpse of where we are heading. It can help us find creative solutions. Working with Tarot will in time improve our intuition.
Let’s look for a moment at less healing ways to use Tarot.
To spy in someone’s life.
To avoid taking responsibility for our lives by
A) Asking the reader, or the Tarot, to make decisions for us.
B) Escaping the present by concentrating on the future.
Those are obvious ill ways to use Tarot.
There are some equally unhealthy but much more subtle and dangerous ways to approach Tarot.
In my experience Tarot is a tool to access intuition and information that is out there. To tap into it, I believe, I need to access the energy of the person I am reading for. Some people are more familiar than others with the concept of energy.
I think that we all communicate with each other at an energetic level. Some are just more in tune with it than others.
Let’s just say that we have something like a shield around us that is vibrant and reflects how we feel. You know when someone steps too close to you and you automatically want to step back? Well, that person has just stepped in your personal space, is making contact with your energy and you do not like it. I believe energy is real and so we should be aware of it. Fear, anger, hate, grief are heavy energy and they drain you. Love , kindness and creativity fuel and boost your energy level.
Once you understand that, you will ( hopefully) try harder to spread only good energy around you. In other words, when someone or something makes you angry you will not dump your anger on the next poor soul that comes across.
Let’s go back to Tarot.
If we are indeed working with energy, we may want to make sure to approach a reading from a calm and balanced state of mind.
If you are scared , depressed or angry do not attempt to read the cards. You will likely access fears instead of facts. If you are drank or under the influence of drugs, stay away from the cards or any other oracle tool.
If you are learning Tarot and while reading for yourself come across some of the scarier cards, do not panic. The Death card, the Tower are not always signs of gloom and doom.
Try to find kindred spirits, people who share your enthusiasm for the cards to bounce ideas with, and help you keep perspective when you need help.
Last, but not least, pace yourself. Do not try to learn everything at once. Keep your other interests well alive, stay in your body, exercise, mingle.
In other words, do not isolate yourself too much. Too many Tarot readers experience burn out. Moderation is always healthy.
The Devil card used here is from the Ancestral Path Tarot deck by Julie Cuccia- Watts.
