Pick the card.

I shuffle them, while concentrating on the question, and stop when it feels right to me. I never second guess it. Depending on if and how a card might jump out I will either ignore it, look briefly at it, or incorporate it into the reading. I then pick all my cards from the top.

So it seems to me that each method works fine.
Good to know.

Like so many things in tarot, I think how the cards are picked depends on the reader. I don't think there's a wrong way to do it. All depends on what you are comfortable with.

As for me, it depends on the spread I use. Most often, I'll cut into three piles and draw the top from each. If I'm using a 5 or 7 card spread, or (more rarely) a CC, I'll usually draw straight from the top.

For some reason, no matter how I shuffle the cards, I always seem to need to cut the deck. Must be a carry-over habit from my college days, when I play WAAAAAAAAAY too much euchre

Usually I just shuffle the cards until the deck feels "ready." Sometimes it takes a long shuffle, sometimes the deck feels ready almost instantly. Like HearthCricket, I never second guess it either, I've learned to trust my intuition. I've noticed that if I second guess, and happen to use the Thoth, the deck throws a temper tantrum and refuses to cooperate.

Then I usually just deal from the top, but sometimes I feel like dealing from the bottom, and when that happens, I'll follow my instinct. So, I may end up dealing some cards from the top, some from the bottom.

Sometimes, if it's a big spread, I shuffle the deck and cut it into three piles. I select one of the piles with my left hand, eyes closed, feeling the energies of the piles, pick the one with the strongest energy (warm, tingling sensations), and deal from the top of that pile.

Cenz said:

I'm wondering how people choose the card when doing a reading.
Usually, after fanning it out i would close my eyes and let my hand choose it based on my guts.
How do you guys do it?
With your eyes opened or clsoed?
If it's with closed eyes, do you choose the card based on any sensation you felt with your hand?
I hope i don't confuse you guys, my english is crappy.

Click to expand...

I often do it just like that but with my eyes open. My hands feel that the cards are warmer in one particular part of the fan and I hover there until my hand knows which card to pick.

Sometimes instead I will shuffle a few times and then sit with my eyes closed and pass cards from the top to the bottom of the deck in small chunks or single cards until I feel a change (with my hands) in the deck and then I deal cards from the top. I do this with the Secret Forest deck as it has images on both sides of the cards.

i am still in the novice stages but so far i've always fanned the cards out and have found that some cards seem to sort of flash and appear to 'move' which draws me to them. Have to say that though it's been pretty accurate sometimes it can be quite slow going picking them this way but maybe it'll start to work faster as i progress.

There are some threads in Using Tarot Cards which cover this. Have a look at the first post here in the index, where there is a section on choosing the cards.

I'm a complete beginner and started off by shuffling and fanning out the cards then running my finger along each one. However, I'm useless at fannning the cards and it took me an eternity to settle on a card to draw. I never felt that "PING!" moment where one card felt like the right one. This method just never felt right for me.

Now I just shuffle and shuffle then I'll cut the cards a few times until it feel right and then pull the one on top.

I shuffle for awhile, cut the cards in three sections, restack them and deal off the top. This is just something I have been doing forever (probably since Junior High School when I read a book that said that was the way one was supposed* to do it.) So, it became a habit.

*p.s. There is no way one is "supposed" to do it. You do whatever feels right for you. The rule is, there is no rule. Once you learn to trust that the right cards will come, the rest doesn't really matter. IMO.

I just shuffle until it feels right, then deal off the top of the deck. Once or twice, I have had the experience where it just never feels right. I have switched decks, and found that it then feels right. My decks each have different ways of communicating and sometimes it just seems a certain deck will answer a question better than another.