Why did you start learning tarot?

[tarot_quest]

Hi guys!

Everybody started Tarot for a reason (curiosity, skepticism, somebody did teach you, fascination...)

So why did you start?

For me, I used to believe in magic and witchcraft during childhood. I started to try to see auras at 13 and I was surprised that it did work (even if I barely see them today...)

I remember one of my uncle doing a tarot reading when I was about 11 years old and it made me really curious. Also, I was trying to predict the future to my friends with playing cards So much fun! But then I started to believe that ''magic'' is not real and later on, after having a couple of premonitory dreams, the idea that there is something more out there entered the scene again.

So a year ago (or so), I decided to buy my first Tarot deck. I have to do a BIG confession here, I decided to register on AT because I was a bit skeptical...! But today, even if I am still fascinated and amazed by Tarot, I would say that the rebellious part inside me believes in Tarot (and yes it's working!)

*sorry my keyboard has difficulty with ''r''. So the question is: why did you start learning Tarot?

 

[Darkmage]

My mother gave me a deck she bought before I was born and a book to go with it. The deck was the University Press RWS (now a collector's item--I still have mine!) and Eden Gray's Complete Guide to Tarot in paperback.

She did this because northeastern winters are long (I'm originally from just outside NYC and have never lost the accent, though it's diluted) and power could be out for several days. No videogames made DM a very cranky little girl. She thought she was giving me a new toy. Little did she know she wound up teaching me a lifelong skill and passion that's opened more doors for me than I could ever imagine or count.

I'm now a collector and I do read semi-professionally. I say semi- because a good chunk of the Phoenix Goth scene is on my barter list because we've all known each other since high school. Strangers? Those get charged real money.

It's amazing what can happen when you can't go anywhere and your mother is sick of you beating her at card and board games time and time again. She unwittingly created a monster, but I don't think she minds...too much.

 

[Blue Fury]

My Mum used to read tea leaves occasionally and was interested in spiritualism so I grew up in a home which was very open to forms of divinity and spirituality. During one of our regular trips into the town library (when I was 12 yrs old - over 30 plus years ago now) I came across a book on fortune telling using a normal desk of playing cards and for fun I volunteered to do some fortune telling at the annual school fete. It was all very tongue in cheek. My older sister offered to help out, so we dressed up in (what we thought were) stereotypical gypsy-like costumes, I called myself Madame Kismet and away we went. I loved it.

Anyway, a short while after that my sister took me to a small tobacconist shop in town that also sold tarot cards and the lady behind the counter was good enough to show us a few of the decks she had on sale. She actually had the Thoth deck which she said some people found disturbing because of the Crowley association, but I thought it was the most beautiful deck of them all. For my 13th birthday my sister surprised me with a gift of the Thoth, which I still have, although it is showing its age now. It is still my favourite deck.

 

[Lareia]

I bought my first tarot, the Shadowscapes, simply because the art is so, so gorgeous. I couldn't afford to buy prints of every single card, so I did the second best thing and ordered the deck. (I know lots of people complained about them being too small, but I honestly don't see why- I think the size works even for that purpose...)

But when I had them in my hands, I thought, why not actually try to use them? At first I intended to use them as an aid for writing or just for fun, but I very quickly discovered that I could do more with them. (I still use them as writing help too, though.)

 

[bonebeach]

My mom gave me my first deck (Universal Waite) when I was 12 years old and I was clearly *expected* to learn. I was raised in a fairly unusual spiritual/religious environment, so it was just a thing I "had" to learn how to do. But I was into it because I was already a gothy little thing by then so it seemed cool.

But then I grew up and was an agnostic for a few years. I never got rid of my decks, but I didn't use them much either. Then, even later, I admitted I was a terrible agnostic. Still not willing to go full woo woo, I didn't get back into tarot until I read an article about tarot for skeptics written by an atheist who still found tarot very useful. I rebelled against the RWS for a while, and...bought a bunch of decks.

And here I am today, where I use tarot primarily--but not exclusively--as a tool for self reflection. Sometimes my explanation for how tarot works is "Jungian self analysis" and sometimes it's "I'm using my weird bird necromancer deck to commune with spooky things, leave me alone."

Plus, I enjoy tarot because it has just the right amount of esoterica. You can read intuitively, or get deep into the history, or get all into astrology and decans and whatever. However much research you want to do or don't want to do, there's an approach for you. And it's just cool to have 78 little works of art around you in piles. Oh, AND, if you want, you can get arts and crafty with it--blinging, trimming, edging, etc. So really, anything you're into? Tarot has a dimension of it for you.

 

[violetdaisy]

I was really really bored the summer after my 7th grade year and lived within walking distance of a pretty good library. It had a small metaphysical section and I was curious about taboo things. My mom was pretty open to letting me explore even though she doesn't believe in any of "that stuff" so I looked at all kinds of things - including tarot. I convinced her to take me to a New Age shop that had a decent selection of cards. I got Tarot of the Old Path and Morgan Greer and then "played around" until I went tocollege. Stopped, and restarted more seriously around 23. Been studying off and on since then (at some points in my life I suffered severe depression and didn't do anything but keep myself alive). I've been pretty dedicated for a few years now though - surrounded by disbelievers and one who thinks it's the devils tool, except I don't believe in the devil in a traditional sense lol.

 

[Frater Benedict]

As a teenager, a number of decades ago, I became interested in Western Esotericism, especially kabbalah, perennialism (without its pessimistic view on history), Christian illuminism of the Boehme-type and Graeco-Egyptian Hermeticism/Platonism. I then became interested in tarot as a comparatively late side-branch of Western Esoterica. My focus wasn't on any divinatory function, but rather the allegorical content. My first deck was a RWS - which was almost the only deck available in my part of Europe at the time - but I later understood that it was not exactly what I had been looking for. RWS is cute (a sort of Pre-Raphaelite style gone wild) and connects to a few artistic motifs also found in Traditional ecclesiastical art, but has, alas, removed itself significantly from the 15th century Italian decks and the 17th century French decks. Waite is admirable in several other respects, but hardly for his tarot deck. It wasn't his forte.

 

[Nemia]

When I was ca 18 and unhappy in love, I met a very good childhood friend of whom I had lost view after elementary school. We started talking, and she read the cards for me that evening. It opened up a whole world for me, and I never forgot that reading.

Many years later I saw a tarot book on sale and bought it (Spiritual Tarot). I was disappointed that the cards in the deck were so different from what I remembered, but I didn't know anything about different decks, and I liked the book's approach.

A few months later, I bought my own deck - spontaneously. I opened it and immediately found the cards that I remembered so well. It was the Thoth.

The rest, as we say, is history ;-)

 

[tarot_quest]

wow! I took my time to read all of your replies It is the most interesting post I started so far. I really like how all of your stories are unique and at the same time, there are some similarities!

I am surprised that for a lot of you, you started because of you parents, especially your mom!

Also, a lot of you mentioned ''Thoth'' Tarot. I don't know about it but I will take a look!

 

[ravenest]

It was in my blood. I have an Egyptian Jew and a Spanish Gypsy back in the ancestral line. A Spanish Great Granny card and crystal ball reader that I never knew about until much later in my life.

First book on an Hermetic subject I saw ... I'll have that ! (at 12)

First tarot deck I saw ... I'll have that ! - I didnt really think about it - natural.


..... Thoth Deck !