Fanning Cards - Traditional but Necessary?

[Tanga]

The absolute greatest Tarot card fanning I have ever seen was performed by Eva Green in the first episode of Penny Dreadful. Sinuous, sensuous, and perfectly executed all with the tiniest of movements from her fingers and without taking her eyes off of Josh Hartnett - who could?

Aha! I'll have to watch that one now... and file under "greatest film moments".

We've had that discussion here before. I always tell them to shuffle overhand and give them a little demonstration.
...I might have them carefully "smoosh" them (sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it?) around on the tabletop and then reform the deck. My wife always handle the Thoth that way because it's too unwieldy for her.

I also do a demo - it they're shuffling.
...and you call it "Smooshing" haha. I like that word. I smoosh often.

@ Barleywine & Michael Sternback - I do have a "tingle method" when hovering my hand over a fan - or spread-out line of cards on the table. The sensation for me is like heat and magnets (similar to how people describe sensing energy fields). I suppose this might be a bit like how some people dowse. It only works if I'm not 'really trying' to do it - i.e. without attachment, heavy breathing, and tongue hanging out etc.
I also pick by what my eye just 'falls' on. This method's quicker - but referencing the same 'heat and magnets' sensation.

@ magpie9 - I do the "shuffle until I drop into a light trance" too.

 

[Barleywine]

I usually shuffle 9 or more times or until I drop into a light trance, whichever comes first.

I hadn't thought about it that way, but that's exactly it: I have a silent invocation that I repeat during the shuffle - kind of a mantric thing summoning protective energies - that serves to put me in a light trance. I also do this when someone else is shuffling to surround both of us with light. Just something I've always done, so I don't think of it as a technique so much as an expression or extension of spirit.