Your Very First Time .......

My first deck was the Destiny Tarot, bought in 2003. Being a recently converted Pagan at the time I had the idea that some kind of divination would be a natural next step and basically bought the first deck I came across in a local bookstore.

I barely got through the first couple of pages in the companionbook before I discarded the whole idea. There was just way too much to learn. I couldn't give up without a reading though, so I tried one and the result was actually pretty good. That was about all I did with it. It's not a very appealing deck(to say the least), so I tucked it away at the back of a shelf never to be seen again.

Oracle decks were much more interesting. I bought my first at Barnes&Noble during a trip to the US: Doreen Virtue's Goddess Guidance Oracle. That was way more fun and it's one deck I still use even to this day.

Come 2006 and I accidentally stumbled over pictures of the Tarot of Dreams here on AT. Needless to say I fell head over heels and have been using tarot ever since(well, more or less...the collector's bug didn't really kick in until last January).

first deck would have been purchased...somewhere around 2000-2002, can't exactly remember. i was dabbling in wicca at the time, this being before i realized i was just incapable of any real faith/def an atheist to the core...a standard Universal RWS....not sure why I went with the traditional deck, as I got it in Barnes & Noble and others were def available...maybe I thought I 'should'? Who knows. Anyway, I studied it, read the standard meanings...never could connect with it too deeply though, the imagery was just off-putting...

my interest in tarot waned for a while, then grew again. Around dunno, age 15/16 i got really interested again, and began looking for a deck I could really connect with...eventually found and got me a Gilded, which I adored. I gave away the first, at this point since I thought i wouldnt ever want to read with it anymore now that I had shiny new one. (kind of wish I'd kept now, for nostalgia purposes, but not enough to be tempted to get another RWS of any kind).

Started slowly gathering more decks...more recently especially, since i have a full time job now, sort of....I ended up giving away the Gilded too, when I got my Legacy of the Divine, since I have an aversion to keeping decks I KNOW I wont read with and for me, after setting eyes on my LoD deck, the Gilded just didn't compare...

but yeah, Universal RWS was my introduction to tarot, Gilded the deck that really drew me in.

First one owned was the Dee/Barker set. Because it was cheap at the remaindered/used bookstore next door to the new age shop I didn't have the nerve to go into, a few weeks after I'd first had my cards read by my then-sister-in-law.

But what I consider my first "real" deck was the Universal Waite, which I bought in a used bookstore a few weeks later, after trying to reconcile the images on the Dee/Barker cards to the cards I'd seen and found online.

Rider Waite ... In about 1975 from Adyar Bookshop...I loved the Magician and Temperance (even though I was chronically intemperate at that time)... Like Flaxen, though, the swords really disturbed me, as did Death and the Devil... The swords must have hit home too closely... So, they were eventually mothballed, and years later I bought myself a fluffy deck, which I simply cannot enjoy anymore... And those sword cards no longer give me quite the chill that they once did... and the Death card, I've come to enjoy!!

My first deck was an Aquarian given to me by my first boyfriend when I was 15--he was 19 and had a Camaro and long hair and listened to Led Zeppelin, so of course I was stupendously in love and thought this was the most brilliant gift ever I couldn't make heads or tails of the thing, however, and after faffing about with it for a while I lost interest.

Fast forward a few years, and on a whim I bought myself the ubiquitous yellow-box RWS and made a stab at memorizing the meanings in the LWB, which didn't really appeal, did a bit of looking around online, and eventually got into TdMs and historical decks. And that is where I am now

My first deck was a miniature RWS, which I bought at the Shambala Bookstore in Berkeley CA in 1969 (or thereabouts).

I love all these stories.

My story

This is such an interesting thread, I've just spent an enjoyable half an hour reading everyone's stories.

My first brush with the Tarot was when I was 13/14 when I acquired a 1JJ Swiss, I tried so hard to learn all the meanings, but it just wasn't sticking. Then I read a silly article in a magazine about how a woman had a Tarot deck but that it was "evil" and "haunted" and bad things kept happening to her. This more than freaked me out at the time (oh how I laugh now!), so I promptly walked into town and put the cards in a bin! I wanted them as far away from me as possible!

Fast forward a couple of years to when I was 16/17...I got interested in Wicca, had a little part time job waitressing and thus money to spend! I was perusing Amazon and saw the Druidcraft, which I was sold on and bought. I was excited when they arrived! However again I just wasn't ready to start learning the Tarot, so they sat unused in my wardrobe for a couple of years. They eventually got thrown out as well, as I was moving 240 miles to move in with my bf; who didn't know about my esoteric tendencies. I convinced myself I could leave it all behind and just be a boring, good "normal" gf (my bf is the epitome of a normal man lol!).
I did try for a few years, but I felt there was a gap missing in my life. I was miserable. I became depressed, and went into a very bad place. I nearly lost everything in the space of 6 months, had to have counselling and even go on anti-depressants.
By this time I had been off work for a good couple of months with "stress" and getting no-where fast. Then one day my boyfriend took a week off work to be with me, we went for long walks up on Dartmoor visiting some of the ancients sites up there, and just immersing myself in nature. I finally found peace, and began to feel like my old self again. I realised what I needed back in my life, and that I had just had my spiritual rebirth.

I went home and went online, I ordered a couple of my old Wiican books I used to have to get me back into the swing of things, and whilst I was on Amazon I stumbled across the Lo Scarabeo deck. I thought it looked beautiful and I simply knew NOW was the time to start learning to read Tarot. Although my bf still thinks it is all a load of hogwash he is fully supportive of me and doesn't mind that I have Tarot cards stashed in various places about the house, or like to pray in front of candles, or meditate in the park or the back garden!

Sorry it was such a long story but it feels really cathartic to finally tell my tale! I've been reading seriously now since August 2010, and my lust for decks sky rocketed when I joined the forums in November (thanks you lot!). I have not looked back since, and reading has come so naturally and almost easily for me third time around (3 is my lucky number lol). My Lo Scarabeo has a very special place in my heart, and I still use it regularly, especially for deeply personal readings. It is the only one I trust for those.

Eyebright

Wendywu said:

Which deck was your first? And what was it about that deck that drew you further into tarot?

Mine was the RWS, and I didn't exactly love it but studied it nonetheless. I appreciate it now, and think it was an ideal learning deck. Indeed, I bought the Pixie lenormand because of its RWS imagery - feeling that if I could learn tarot with that art, maybe I could learn lenormand with it too

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My first deck was the Haindl. For me too it was the perfect learning deck. I originally got it because the artwork drew me in when I saw it here on AT. I am a visual person by nature, and the more Iearnt how to read, the more that comes out.

After, I got it and started using it though, what drew me was the beauty of the meanings, how much the deck talks about the importance of treating the planet well...a lot of the concepts behind the cards really clicked well with me. Also i was fascinated by the stories associated with the Courts.

What that deck had that made me the reader I am today...it was non-traditional and in fact is closer related to a Thoth than a RWS. The online course I was taking when i started out was RWS based. A lot of the meanings were very different from what my deck had to say. That gave me a healthy disrespect for book meanings and a desire to learn to find and invent my own way of reading. I cannot be more grateful to the deck for teaching me that.

Babs

Eyebright said:

my lust for decks sky rocketed when I joined the forums in November (thanks you lot!).

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<takes a bow> Always happy to Corrupt the Innocent.

Eyebright said:

I have not looked back since, and reading has come so naturally and almost easily for me third time around (3 is my lucky number lol). My Lo Scarabeo has a very special place in my heart, and I still use it regularly, especially for deeply personal readings. It is the only one I trust for those.

Eyebright

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Your story is really heart-warming. Incidentally, your bf isn't the epitome of "normal" (whatever that is) - he didn't freak when you let your spirituality back into your life!

I'm happy that he's able and willing to accept the changes in you.