Why did you start learning the Tarot?

I'm interested in why other people started working with Tarot... were you 'called' one day, or recommended by a friend, satisfying a curiosity...or something different...?

I had owned a tarot pack for years whcih I bought out of curiosity. The cards never spoke to me and no connection was made (the pack I bought was one which the shop keeper looked up in a book with my birth date). About 10 years later it was as if I was 'called' one day - I had to go and find the deck and look through it which I did. I still felt that it was not the right deck but needed to get another which I ordered that day. When it arrived I was amazed by it and the feelings that I got from it (Revelations) - that deep thud in you solar plexis... and I haven't been able to put it down since - each day involves some from of learning with the Tarot for me and I hope this continues...

So why did you start? - tell us your tale...!

Great Question!

I started when I was 13 and asked my mother to get me a deck for a christmas present I don't remember why i wanted it, I know though that instinctivly it was a way for me to fill a massive void I had, not so much then but now the cards act as way for me to work through my issues.

My grandad had a set of Tarot cards that he showed to me when I was very young. He said he would teach me to read them when I was older but he died before he did.
I think that set off an interest of all things weird and supernatural in me.

As a teen I became very rationally minded and put aside all things weird and spooky but a boyfriend of mine bought me a deck, Tarot of the Cat People when I was in my 20s.
I couldn't connect with it (all those strange worlds) and it seemed more like a work of science fiction to me than anything else.
In my 30s I started practicing Witchcraft and that sparked an interest in Tarot again so I dug out my Cat People deck and tried to learn how to read with it.
I found that it still wasn't for me so I got myself a different deck and I've never looked back.
Tarot is a very big part of my spiritual practice now, it never fails to amaze me

I bought the Osho Zen Tarot because I loved the artwork of Ma Deva Padma. I used it more as an oracle though. Then one day it dawned on me that this was a TAROT. I decided to check into what the tarot was about, so I bought the Hanson-Roberts deck. Its been a wonderful adventure in learning since then!

Bodhran

I started to when I started to practice witchcraft, I read about them, then when I was spliting up from my 1st husband I got a reading at a local market and had so many more questions to ask, but not the money to pay for it that I thought, why not buy a pack and learn myself so I did the Rider being my first pack to learn with 14 decks later I now find myself a collector as well as reading with all of them. I also found out when I told my mum about it that my Grandmother read the cards to but with the regular playing cards and was deadly acurate with it too I only wish I knew that when she was alive! Some times I feel she helps me with my readings.

Reading your stories is fascinating, and I'd like to join in.

My father bouth my mother a Tarot deck for some reason a few years ago. He has no idea why, and neither did she, so she put it away. This was about eight years ago, I think.

Fast-forward to 2005. I'm studying Performing Arts at college, and for a Halloween production, we needed a set of Tarot cards. Unbidden, the image of them rose into my mind, and when I got home I asked my mother if I could borrow them. She'd forgotten about them, but dug them out and handed them over, still shrinkwrapped.

I opened them and had a look inside, and was fascinated by the beautiful artwork of the deck. I then wondered what would happen if I was asked how you used them, so I started to learn. I tried and tried, but just could not connect with the cards. But after the show I kept them, and kept trying.

Next year in college I met a Wiccan, who helped me read the cards in a way that worked for me. She taught me a lot, and I became really fascinated. I took to it with new vigour, and never looked back.


And that's my story. Sorry it's a bit long...

I remember very clearly seeing an advertisement in the back of a magazine in the early 80's for the RWS deck....I was so captivated by the description....occult, secret mysteries, fortune-telling....my whole life I have been drawn to the mystical, estoric, occult and the darkly mysterious....so these cards called to me very strongly.

After many years in 1986 (I was 14/15) I finally saved up enough for a deck, my father was a Penecostal minister and my mom stricter than a nun, so of course sneaking and hiding was in order, otherwise they'd be burned and thrown out (it had happened with occult books before and would happen again!). I was completely enthralled with it, doing some readings, kinda overwhelmed. I played with it off and on until 1991 when I started getting more deeply interested in the Tarot and also started collecting other decks (Enchanted, Scapini etc.)

Intense study has waxed and waned, but since 2001 it's been pretty much non-stop, the Tarot is a major part of my spiritual journey (I'm a Traditional Witch since '90) as well as a means of self-exploration/counselor, trusted friend and confidant. It means a great deal to me and can only mean more as time goes on. You can never reach the end with Tarot, one of the plethora of things I love so much about this discipline.

Readings, I have done professionally (as opposed too reading for friends and family which I had done for 9 years) since about '95, nothing major, more off and on...cafe's, casual readings in the park, a few fair's. Since my son was born in '06 I haven't read for anyone but myself (soooo busy between juggling work/him/my needs/life!) Reading for others was always of diminished importance to me as opposed to my spiritual relationship/journey with the Tarot.....so for now I am not doing readings for others. I am very sure, in the future I wiil again though.

Obviously the Tarot is extremely important part of my life, it's a discipline to me and one of the ways I connect in the deepest ways with the Gods and spirits and all the energies in the cosmos.

Miss 6

I studied and used astrology for years, later I became interested in hand reading, after that I studied and used the I Ching and then oneday I stumbled on to the tarot. I have always been interested in things weird and the occult, so studying and using astrology and the tarot just seem like a natural thing for me to do.

It has been an on and off journey, with some side trips that took years to play out.

I bought the RWS deck and a book by Eden Gray in 1971 in Vancouver at Duthie Books. They had the greatest bookstore, now gone. It has a spiral iron stairway to get to the upper levels and the shelfs curved around so you could read and poke privately. I was working at my first job on the other side of the country from where I was born, and having a hard time making friends. When I did make friends one thing we did for fun was to go to various readers: I recall tea leaves and someone who used a crystal ball in particular.

My reading improved at my next job in Whitehorse (this is in the Arctic region of Canada, fairly isolated) where I met two friends. One of whom read and one of whom liked to be read for. The one who read actually used a semi-Lenormand pack, which I only found again and acquired recently. Those images really stuck in my mind! And it took ages to discover the actual deck.

I got married to a rationalist though, and while I continued my studies I tended to hide it. I discovered the I Ching when we moved into rural Nova Scotia and I met my fey neighbour. She really knew her I Ching and it helps to have others with you on these quests. At least I am not that great at going it alone.

After my divorce in 1996, I was able to be more open and discovered the Robin Wood Tarot and her book and that really opened tarot up for me in a way that it had not been before. I joined ATF in 2001, and meeting people here has made my skills blossom.

In that "AT Monsters" thread I think I would have to list every person that I have ever read for or been read by, everyone who has posted something that touched me and everyone who understood what I was saying in return and responded in a way that moved me ahead.
Marion

I have always been drawn to the occult, from witchcraft, to ghosts, tarot, palmistry, ESP - ever since I could read, that was the kind of stuff I read. My sister had a pack of tarot (witchy) that I read with a couple of times but when I got onto the internet and could get hold of the relevant information, I started learning properly and made my own cards.