Your own quirks, peculiarities, and habits...

- I shuffle and deal very differently depending on the deck. Most decks I lace, but I riffle Shadowscapes and my Lenormand (very gently, mind you, and never with a bridge - I've been riffling Shadowscapes for years and it's still pristine). Some decks I cut in hand, deal a card, cut in hand, deal, and so on; others I cut on the table and deal from three piles, and others I fan out and choose at random. If I try to use a different shuffle/dealing method, the reading falls apart.

- I personify my decks when I'm talking about them, but never when I'm using them - my Faeries' Oracle is an exception.

- I like as many people to touch my decks as possible: querents, friends, family, the lot. (I promise I don't accost strangers, though.) It's almost like I'm socializing them; the more they get 'used to' other people, the more confident I am that a querent can shuffle them, or not shuffle them, and I'll still get the right reading.

Some people look at me like I'm crazy while I'm reading because I talk to my cards during the reading. I know it sounds terribly inappropriate, and I've tried to stop, really. But it just feels wrong when I don't.

Mind you, I don't think anyone should be surprised at craziness involved with the Thoth deck.

I do not pick from the top of the deck, I close my eyes, and while holding the deck in my right hand, I use my left hand to pull randomly from anywhere within the deck.

I never order my deck.

I look at the bottom card as well as the top card after pulling the main cards for the reading, they have meaning in the way that I read.

I don't like it when sitters talk through my one very small period of needing quiet while I am asking the question in my mind and basically centering myself. I am not one who does new age-y things while I read, but that tiny moment of time when I am asking the cards/Universe/whatever to help me see what I need to see in the cards is rather important to me. I do tend to do readings in very lively places, so it is crucial for me to have one thing that helps me to remember what I am doing.

I also do not like leaving a negative card at the top of a deck, face out.

It's very easy to slip into what many people would call "superstitious" behaviors when it comes to cards, whether they are reading cards or poker cards. Well, and those folks who are using cards for gambling, I would say they are far more superstitious than we are!

ravenest said:

I think thats because some systems say to CHOOSE a significator for the person concerned. Anyone that first chooses a sig is going to be using a 77 card deck. I always used the first card drawn ... never chose the sig and always played with a full deck. I either watch for where it comes out in a deal, or find it in the shuffled deck and use the cards before and after it.

Click to expand...

This reminds me---I just thought of another thing I like to do. If I'm doing a Celtic Cross I let the deck choose the significator. In other words, whichever card comes first off the deck, that's the significator even if it isn't a court card. I don't think it's set in stone that a significator has to be a court card. (If it is, don't tell me, anybody, because it's working for me. )

Another thing I sometimes do if I'm not using a spread with a significator is to have the sitter put something in the center of the table that's got their energy embedded in it because it's with them a lot----a ring or a coin or something like that.

Before I put the cards away, I put a blank card on the bottom, or turn the bottom card face-in, so the pictures are sealed inside.

I cannot stop doing this

One of my shuffling habits is to shuffle until I "feel right" about how things are going in the deck, then cutting the deck into three stacks, then reading from the middle stack, always from the top. I also ask the question over and over in my head while I'm shuffling. Sometimes I re-word the question and get the querent to confirm that's what they really want to know.

I think these types of habits help me get into the right state of mind for a reading.

I've never really learned to skillfully shuffle the cards. I've noticed a lot of people can do the thing with two hands making the cards slide under one another; It doesn't work for me. So, I separate my cards by twos or threes across whatever surface I'm using which is usually a piece of card board that my RW deck had been delivered in years ago. Then I start laying one stack on top of another at random. Once I have the deck together I cut the cards again by just pulling cards out and moving them around until I feel as though I have adequately shuffled the cards.

When preparing for a reading I ask the cards the question while performing my little routine.

P.S. I never look at the front of the cards while shuffling so I don't know what is going where nor would I have knowledge of the catd being reversed.

My quirks are..

I cut the deck in 3s allowing them to fall into 3 different piles. If for some reason the cards "mess up" during this process like slip into 4 piles, I'll do the shuffle and cut all over again until they fall into 3 "neat" piles.

When the reading is over, I'll hold the deck in my left hand and replace the cards back in at random sections going backward from the last card that was drawn. While doing this, I'll take note of the card it gets placed next to. This to me clarifies the card's meaning which gives me even more info to the reading. I also feel this clarifier card grades my performance or confirms how I read that card.

I have to riffle shuffle for a certain amount of time, put my cards back after I'm done, and then always ALWAYS shuffle again before I put them away...I don't know why...lol

I do touch the deck to my third eye chakra and also my heart chakra on occasion, but I even more often hold it to my throat chakra... perhaps because they both align to communication. I shuffle, until it 'feels' right, and then split the cards into two piles, put the later split on top and tuck the earlier one below, and start laying out the cards. Once I've completed the reading, I hold them to my heart or throat chakra again, thank the cards, and 'blow' white light across the top of them before tucking them safely away.