Anyone read Tarot Cards? What are your thoughts and experiences? (psychic)

[MMorena]

I've just started reading my own tarot cards as a form of practicing listening to my intuition but the final cards in the Romany Spread have me terribly confused. I'm not sure if I'm just not hearing my intuition correctly, my mood affected the reading or what?

[OwlKaMyst]

Moods can- as well as perspective. It is often stated that one should not read for themselves. They like to imply that there is some 'taboo' to it. I think is is just bias. One needs to be really 'open and empty' and leave the ego at the door when reading for yourself.
Having fellow readers available is helpful in times like these; external feedback ya' know.

As for my thoughts and experiences- I have shared quite a bit of that around here. But nutshell response to the question...Experiece; been reading for over 25 years. The cards still amaze me, sometimes to the point of downright spooky. I have several decks, more like a collection, and read with them often. Thoughts; I think there is a lot of portrayed 'romanticism' attached to the cards. From thier history to how the work/are used.
I take a real practical approach, I don't buy into a lot of the 'proper' handling and the dos and don'ts. I think tarot is a wonderful tool for self-reflection, for looking at situations in a different way than what we knee-jerk into seeing. Tarot gives a perspective we may not have considered, and at times it can be reassuring and gives confirmation.
Cheaper that a counselor.

[MMorena]

Thanks Owl, well I guess objectively what I'm searching for is experiences that have turned negative as a result of practicing Tarot reading. I was brought up, as I think many have, to believe they are evil and demonic. I stayed away from horoscopes, fortune tellers/psychics, and tarot reading for years but recently I've had a lot of questions and not really many around to talk to, so I started seeing Psychics or spiritual advisers to help with advice on situations. However, after talking to someone who is Buddhist and into Tarot Cards I decided to make that leap--I figured it made more sense for me to do my own reading with my own intuition and voice being applied than the instincts of someone else. The way Tarot cards were framed to me was that they are helping in teaching us how to listen to our instincts and inner voice, and that's something I've been in great need of.

So when I frame it like that in my mind, Tarot cards don't seem as harmful but today it seems like I kept running across articles and forum post that spoke of the bad nature in Tarot Cards and I began to wonder if it was indeed a sign for me to stop with these cards.

So in short, I just wondered what were some people's experiences with tarot cards. Did you notice any negative effects? Positive changes?

[JerZ]

I can't see how anything bad could come from the cards themselves; they are just cards. However, giving bad advice based on one's interpretation could result in something negative happening, naturally. ("Leave your husband," "your son has passed away - don't keep looking for him," "no, it's definitely not cancer, you can just relax now" and so on - well, obviously those are extreme examples, but you get the gist.) That's the only place I can see the potential for a negative result when it comes to the Tarot.

Don't believe all the hype about tools such as the Tarot and Ouija being evil. People love sensational stories and they also love "cautionary tales," hence all the Hollywood hype about someone, say, using a Ouija board and a devil taking up residence. (This is only my opinion, remember.)

To answer your question, no, I personally have never heard of anything bad or evil resulting from having cards and doing readings, and I've hung out with a gigantic number of people who had an esoteric bent. I myself used them many, many times from my teens through my 20s, so if you're looking for answers from a personal perspective, nothing bad ever happened to me during that time that wasn't just normal walk-a-day stuff that would have gone wrong anyway.