"Deactivating" a deck
Tanga
Hi,
There is a deck I would like to use for reference and I would like to deactivate them so they are just cards. Any ideas on the best way to do this, or is there a certain method? Or not
What you mean is (my interpretation) - is there a recommended ritual that you can use to deactivate your link/mindset to this card deck as a "working deck" - thus reducing it to a "just reference" deck.
Hmmm. Interesting question - I've never thought of that. For me - card decks become "just reference", when I first look at them and think "Oh well - that is nice, but I'll never read with it due to x and y that I've discovered since unpacking it..." etc.
Or, I have some decks that I originally bought because of what they were (several versions of the RWS for instance) - the "go-to" standard for my "formal" Tarot training was the RWS - but for many years I never actually liked the deck at all. So several of my RWS versions spend most of their time being "just cards for reference". I have less attachement to them because I like the artwork less.
But I've never felt that the two uses have to be separated.
Those have just somehow "fallen" there.
If you've got them in a fancy silk with box or bag etc. - you could change all that for a boring linen one or something? - so that the deck is "changing hats" as it were.
... Huh. You could invent your own Moonlit ritual to "deactivate" them...(and here I'm just inventing on-my-feet now):
Lay out a 4 element circle space, cleanse and purify, ground and meditate etc.
Place the cards in the centre and having called on whatever spirits/deities/forces you hold dear to witness - thank the cards for their previous use and baptise them into their new one. Make up a spell/ditty - something like: "by North of Earth, East of Air, South of Fire and West of Water (which ofcourse may differ according to your belief/hemisphere/spiritual indoctrination), I charge your release from your former call. Recharge, Transform, be renewed into a new service of x!" (thank everyone for attendance before you close and dispel the circle - if you believe in that).
Well... you did "ask" a Wiccan, so that's my answer to the problem.
Good luck.
tarotbear
You could also sleep with them down at the foot of the bed for about a week - wrap them in an old, used sock - this will negate you having slept with them under your pillow to activate them.
Barleywine
A little more "foot humor." Not very helpful but amusing. You could do what my wife did when she went into a snit over her Thoth deck: throw it in a heap on the floor and stomp on it! It's sure to get insulted and go into hibernation all on its own.
Tanga
Sweet and simple! ...feet could be seen as disrespectful though...
<gasp!!! horror!> :-D such a sacrilegious suggestion!
Them Thoth cards may bite her in the bum when she sleeps at night (?)
Lol.DugSkullery, you could try sticking them inside a Tarot reference book and leaving them sitting in there on the shelf for some-time...
tarotbear
You could put them in a Bible opposite any one of these anti-witchcraft verses/quotations: click here. There is almost one for each card!
Barleywine
My turn to <gasp> !!! They might start bleeding (or worse) from every orafice like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Either that or your Bible will start speaking in tongues and never be useful for anything else ever again. Personally, I wouldn't do that to the only Bible we own, a rare Salvadore Dali-illustrated, leather-bound relic of my wife's Catholic past. On second thought, the deck might be humbled by proximity to the mighty Dali, and take a vow of silence. Mission accomplished!
tarotbear
WELL! Hell-o, Dali! 
earthair
Moth-ball it for a month or two. 
Annabelle
I wouldn't think any special process is necessary to "deactivate" a deck; the deck has always been paper and ink, and will remain paper and ink, though you are using the cards in a different way.
That said, though . . .
If you view your "working deck" of tarot -- i.e. the cards you use for readings -- as a magical tool, and if that deck is something that you initially charged in the moonlight/on an altar, etc., then I can see how some type of ritual would be useful to you in terms of changing how you view and use that magical tool.
To that end, you might deactivate the deck by wrapping it in black cotton cloth and placing it on your altar on the dark moon, and lighting black candles (or brown, or white, or whatever color signifies for you that you are changing this deck from a magical tool to a mundane tool).
One more thing, just a tip -- If you are going to use it as a study deck, you may find it worth your time to scan all the cards at a high resolution. I find tarot SO MUCH EASIER to study in detail when I have big, high quality digital copies to look at. It's easier to spot the minutia that I wouldn't see on the physical cards in hand.
That said, though . . .
If you view your "working deck" of tarot -- i.e. the cards you use for readings -- as a magical tool, and if that deck is something that you initially charged in the moonlight/on an altar, etc., then I can see how some type of ritual would be useful to you in terms of changing how you view and use that magical tool.
To that end, you might deactivate the deck by wrapping it in black cotton cloth and placing it on your altar on the dark moon, and lighting black candles (or brown, or white, or whatever color signifies for you that you are changing this deck from a magical tool to a mundane tool).
One more thing, just a tip -- If you are going to use it as a study deck, you may find it worth your time to scan all the cards at a high resolution. I find tarot SO MUCH EASIER to study in detail when I have big, high quality digital copies to look at. It's easier to spot the minutia that I wouldn't see on the physical cards in hand.
