I had a tarot card reading in October 2016 and I’d completely forgotten about it until recently. When I looked back at what it said and to where my life is at now I couldn’t help but think it got it right.
I would like to preface this whole thing with the fact that I am a skeptic. I don’t believe in horoscopes or fortune telling. Maybe you will have heard of the Barnum Effect. It’s the theory that people will believe statements about their personality are specific to them when in fact they are general and vague and anyone and everyone could relate to them in someway. I think that this is true for most cases. But I’m also a hypocrite and I am an ENFP, Hufflepuff, Enneagram 7. So rather than dismissing Tarot straight away as bullshit or going in blind believing that it’s perfect and true, let’s go in with our minds open to a bit of nuance.
My experience with Tarot was slightly different to other horoscope/personality quizzes because first of all it’s not putting you in a box. You can do Tarot many different times in your life and ask it different questions and you’ll get different answers. It’s less about inherently who you are and more about certain situations so it’s more flexible.
So in October I went on a Trek America trip around the Deep South and I made a video about it here. Our tour leader, Sara, had Tarot Cards and asked if she could give me a reading and I thought why not! We did a past/present/future draw rather than a full spread but I would love to have my full spread done at some point. Why does this sound dirty to me as I’m writing it?
Anyway, the way it works is that you have to think of a question before you draw the cards. The cards aren’t meant to give you any answers or predict the future. They are simply a stimulus to potentially make you think differently about a situation, help you gain a new perspective and help you come to conclusions about your question yourself.
I asked about relationships. It had been a couple months since a break up and I knew I was ready for a relationship but I still wasn’t meeting anyone I was interested in or if I did they were very unavailable. I was a bit confused as to what it all meant and felt like I needed some help in that area.
The cards I got were:
Past – Page of Wands
Present – The Hermit
Future – Three of Coins
Luckily, I wrote about it in my diary so I have evidence of how I felt about the reading at the time.
Page of Wands – creativity, curiosity, exploration, confidence. I interpreted this to be about my single sex/dating life.
The Hermit – need for solitude, retreat. I interpreted this as my current feelings and thoughts around needing to take a break from work/people and have a holiday. Or maybe draw stricter boundaries for myself.
Three of Coins – materiality, a project, goal about to happen. This didn’t really resonate with me. Could be about the book? A relationship with Chris? But it doesn’t predict the future. It’s just one possibility.
First of all. Chris is not my boyfriend. He was a guy I was interested in at the time.
So how do I feel about all this now?
The main thing I noticed is that I deviated from my original question in my interpretations because I couldn’t see the answers loud and clear and that frustrated me. I probably should have just accepted that I didn’t understand what it means, especially the future card. Because it’s the future. No-one knows.
With hindsight, it makes a lot more sense. Now, I believe The Hermit wasn’t about taking a break from work (although I’m still planning on doing that!), it was about taking a break from men/relationships. Around that time I had nothing really going on. I had a bit of a complicated situationship with a crush but that was never going to amount to anything and I was alone after a break up really thinking about what I wanted and what I needed.
Two months later, I met my now boyfriend. “Materiality, a project, goal about to happen”. Well it happened!
I’m not saying that my Tarot Card reading accurately predicted my future. Whatever it would have pulled out I bet 8 months later I would be writing this same blog post but with the details slightly changed. But there is a part of me that thinks it’s kind of cool.
I love shit like this and if the opportunity ever arises again, I will definitely do another Tarot Card reading! Have you ever done one? Can you do them? Do you think it’s all bollocks or there’s something there? Let me know in the comments!
Oh that sounds so cool. I’m a very skeptical person but I love the idea of getting my future predicted, it seems like a really fun thing to do !
interesting! i’m a skeptic myself but at the same these things seem like a lot of fun if you don’t take it too seriously. i would love to go to a fortune teller for a palm reading or a tarot reading, i just need to find a friend who’ll come along 🙂
In the past, My mom would always get tarot card readings and I always flirted with getting a reading but I haven’t so far.
Like you, I’m a bit Skeptical about not only tarot cards but ouija boards, aliens and ghosts. Only because I’m a hard evidence kinda of fellow. That almost kinda sounded dirty too 😂
I tend feel there’s a lot of generalized statements that could fit anyone’s life
Situation but I’ve been opening up my mind these days to the magic and mystery that surrounds our daily lives that goes unnoticed or gets dismissed & reassigned easily as something more logical.
Omg, I can talk about this for days.
Not to drift off topic, I’ve tried a Ouija Board last summer and although I can’t be definitive about the results of what I saw but it was definitely somewhat interesting.
Who knows maybe by chance I’ll stumble upon a chance tarot card reading and expand my thinking in the areas of my life.
Have you ever thought of trying to study tarot cards and perform readings for yourself or others? That would be a twist wouldn’t it 😊😁
I’ve had my first reading a few years ago and I went in there as a huge sceptic. Everything the reader told me was relatable and true, so it sparked my interest, and last year for christmas I got a deck of cards myself. I don’t believe the cards tell you the future or anything. What they do is give you a new perspective. They make you think about things you were avoiding to think about and learn a lot out of that. A tarot reading is a bit like a therapy session. I’ve found it really helpful with decision making, and I’ve surprised a few friends with the accuracy of the readings I did for them. So I’m a huge fan of tarot.
This is exactly how I use my tarot cards! Anytime I feel unsure about something I just do a reading and most of the time everything feels so much clearer. I totally get the therapy session vibes.
I grew up in a really conservative evangelical christian home in the Midwest of the states with a healthy dose of fear for the occult (no Halloween or Harry Potter or anything of the like (not that this was occult but my mom wasn’t taking any chances with my soul)). When my partner first started to bring up Tarot as a possible addition to his spiritual practices, I was mortified. I had visions of dark forces fighting their way into my house, or worse, discovery of the practice by my parents (whom still live close by). But, as often happens, the deck (Wild Unknown specifically) brought me something I needed exactly when I needed it, when it was least expected. Now cards are a part of my own daily practices and many decks fill our shelves. If you’re interested in checking out a non-hokey approach to this ancient practice I highly suggest checking out littleredtarot.com, the creator, Beth, is a wonderfully light-filled person always guiding me to a new perspective or a beautiful new deck.
Tarot is interesting, because there is always some truth to it, but the thing that worries me is the question of where that truth comes from. I’ve never had mine read before in part because I’d rather not allow unknown entities to look into my future. I don’t know if that make sense outside of my brain, but it makes sense to me.
(And just to be clear I’ve no problem with other people getting tarot cards read or other fortune telling things, it’s just not for me.)
To me it has always felt like talking to my subconscious, we tend not to listen to that part of ourselves or our intuition so the cards to me are just like a medium to get in contact with that part of myself. I don’t know, that just makes sense to me.
That’s so cool! As another open minded skeptic I love these things. I’ve had. A few of them done and thought they were interesting. I wish I was a diary writer then I could go back and see if they are accurate. 🤔
I’m an Occultist and have been so for many years. This weird idea that Tarot is a form of “blind belief” needs to die. Occult practices are not like fundamentalist, Abrahamic religions and the narrative of Atheists for the longest time has been a misinformation campaign. I do tarot and I love it. I don’t just use it for divination, I use the cards as spell props. One important thing to do with Tarot or any other item you intend to use for Occult workings is to charge that item with your own energy. Heck, I once read a story about a real life Occult shop that refused to sell to Harry Potter fans because they only sell to serious witches. This shop understands the energy element very well. If you purchase a wand from them they take you in the back room to do a ritual to remove the wand maker’s energy from the wand and recharge it with the new wand owner’s energy. If you don’t charge a tarot deck with your own energy, it’s just a deck of cards with no power.
My favorite deck is the “Ghost Tarot” (not to be confused with the “Ghosts And Spirits” Tarot) and my second is the “Vampire Tarot of The Eternal Night” (not to be confused with the “Vampire Tarot”.)
Good content! For me, the 3-card tarot spread is suited to those who practice Tarot at the first time. You just lay out the card from left to right, and then find out their meanings on the Tarot guide book or online tarot. I apply and succeed! Thanks for sharing!
I’ve dabbled with tarot a lot; I’m glad this is such a positive post. i still remember the first reading that came true, but it’s too personal to share I’m afraid. It really pushed me on a long journey of discovering tarot and how it works, it’s history and how it’s changing recently. I’ve never been to a ‘professional tarot reader’ and I believe anyone can perform a reading if they know. It’s a skill, not an inherent talent, I believe.
My favourite spread is the five card spread; ( http://www.tarot-explained.com/spreads/five-card-spread/ for example). Every time I do it, I feel it sort of turns my life into a game. Okay here’s me, here’s my goal, and heres what I’ve got to do to get there.
Really liking the blog Hannah, and this is my first time here, I’ll be sticking around
I think you can take from it whatever you need to, but I have done magic and mentalism and mind reading and the like for a few years – very, very convincing results, but all the techniques I use would fall under scientific testing.
At the end of the day, if you have a positive result from this, then that’s great, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go again if it helps – I’d definitely say keep the openess and the cynicism though, as when the prices go up it becomes more of a business