What lead you to Tarot Reading?

[Dagda Moon~Lily]

I was just curious how everyone was drawn to the tarot?

After I had my first Tarot card reading, near age 18/19 I decided I was definately interested in the tarot, but never thought I would be able to read the cards. So, about 5 years later I finally broke down and bought my first deck, but was only reading periodically and "by the book". It would be another five years or so before I took a really active study of them. .....and here I am! :D

[Myst]

I'm not really sure. I think it was more or less something I wanted to pick up because "Pagans do it", and I saw a really nice deck. A few years later here I am with 4 more decks and having given that first one away. :)

[melantha]

curiosity at first - I started reading the aeclectic forums and getting a feel for it, while playing with an online deck. then, when I saw the Legend deck, I HAD to have it - so I used my graduation money :D

[Flaire-FireStar]

I probably saw it in a movie.....that got me fermiliar with them.. Then this girl in one of my classes had a deck and had them out, showing them around n'stuff (I'm not sure if she could read them or not...heheheheh).... And finally, the "Miss Cleo" commercials where you pay big bucks to get yours read... So I figured "Why can't I do this for myself?" :) And so here I am. :lol:

[Kiya]

Silver read for me over a year ago, and was eerily accurate (she barely knew me at the time), so I was fascinated. In the intervening time, I've really spent time with the cards, and I'm beginning to get a connection with them.

[Sequoia]

hmm. . . My mom did tarot, but I was never really into it. . . then I doodled a deck of my own. . . found out it was a useful tool. .. started hanging out in here! hehe and I've just bloomed from there! I got my first "real" deck for christmas (don't tell my doodles that though! They're real too!).

^__^ I wuv tarot

[Lavender]

It was actually this forum here that got me into tarot reading. I had a deck I never used & didn't care for. I started lurking in here & decided to give it another try. You guys made it sounds so interesting. I bought my current deck & have been loving it ever since. It's true what people say about how important it is to connect with your deck.

[StormCloud]

It was probably in 93 - I had just 'found' Wicca :) , and a new-age store in a town near here. Spent many weekends there just looking at all the stuff that was available, picking things up out of most sections. And they had a pretty well stocked Tarot section. The deck fell on the floor as I was looking at the shelves - the Old Path. Got 3 more decks that year, then dropped it 'till last year. Don't really know why I picked it up again, just time I guess.

[Echohawk]

Not really 'in' yet- but hopefully soon! I've heard some about Tarot for quite a while, but it wasn't until you all were kind enough to read for me (and I poked Puma Hime into reading for me) that I really knew anything about it.

BTW- this is Puma Hime's friend Eliad. . . thought I'd register! :D might not say much, but what's another screen name? ;)

[Sequoia]

:D !!!!!

[The Suckling]

Originally I was only interested because I wanted to create my own deck as an art project, but to do that I would have to learn the meanings wouldn't I? I then began an intense study of the cards and bought a deck just for refference. Then I got a deck as a gift and decided I might as well try them out. To my surprise, they worked!

[Angelwulfe]

i got interested through my readings about pasganism i also had friends who read them. at first i was like there too expensive i won't understand them any way. then last yule i decided to get a deck because i liked the illustrations. i started doing readings and bought more decks, i've been hooked ever since.

[Silver Venus]

Hey Eliad, great to see you here! :wave:

Ive loved everyone's begining's with Tarot! :)
Kiya Im so pleased that your still really into your cards, you read really well when you trust your inner voice.

I really dont know or cant remember how I got into Tarot myself, I can remember having a deck from when I was about 14 and reading for everyone I met on holiday on the beach, lol it was so funny because me and my friend met these two guys then I read for them and all the bad cards came up, sure to say they turned out to be really pigs!
I guess I heard about them and then saw them in a shop and decided to buy them, Ive always been into art so I can remember being really into the major arcana and doing an art project on them at school too.

I like to believe that my (then undiscovered) spirit guide lead me to them :)

[WynnJera]

I was given a deck and asked to read them by my Ex MIL ~ So I did and she said I was very intune with them ~ have been doing it ever since ~ No have 16 decks and counting ~ Not too obsessed ~ lol ~ BB ~ WynnJera ~

[singer]

My grandmother taught me to "gypsy read" with a standard deck of playing cards.

Years later I saw an actual Tarot reader (sometime in the '70s) and I realized the two were pretty similar, so I dug in and did some pretty serious studying.

This was very cool because it lead me to all sorts of deeper understandings and studies in other esoteric subjects (Astrology, Kabballah, Runemal, etc...)

Funny how that can happen eh?

singer

[Mnemosyne]

I think that I grew an interest in the Tarot because of a dear friend of mine. She would read for me when I was younger. I thought the messages were so positive and enlightening. For me, a major point of life is trying to realize who you are. And in my opinion, the Tarot gives me such great insight on that perplexing question.

[Kalm]

My mother gave me her tarot cards when she and my father divorced, maybe it was a goodbye present as I dont have much to do with her now. Much later on, when I was going through a bad patch, I got out her cards, I noticed the Sun card was missing and then threw them away, since then I have had two tarot decks but prefer the enchanted tarot by Amy Zerner and Monte Farber

Love Kalm

[Keron]

Yeouch... you threw out a deck. *grin*
Me? I was doing a school project on religious study-- hoodoo, voodoo, e.t.c. the part i got was abt spells, so i went online and checked. Then I really got into wicca and I bought the book What the Cards said by Isobel Bird and went out and bought The Golden Rider. It was a toss-up between GR and RW-- Robin Wood. At first, I regretted my decision like crazy and kept putting down my own deck, saying it sucked e.t.c... *guilty look at aforesaid deck, sheepish sorry*. Then, when I finally accepted it and started to like it, I practiced less-- a lot less. A week ago, when I did a proper reading for the first time in weeks, it came out accurate-- very accurate. :D HaPpY. I've also been interested in the tarot anyhow-- i don't really know where the interest came from, but I've longed to be a "witch"-- the spells aspect and the mystery :) -- and to use the tarot ever since i was... seven? eight? haha... then I learnt more about wicca, and in the end, i'm still a witch.

[maya]

I can't remember when I WASN'T interested in things like tarot. I started doing research on paganism when I was 12, before there was an internet. After that I spent quite a lot of time trying to discover a christian faith that would work for me and trying to deny how I felt about things like tarot and magick.

Then last year I gave in to my desire and borrowed a deck of cards from a friend. He collected for the art on the cards but didn't really know how to use them. After using his cards for three days I gave them back and bought my own deck. I'd been doing tarot for about three months before I decided to try paganism.

After I learned the initial meanings of the cards I stopped relying on books. I've always been fairly intuitive when it comes to interpretation of random images; even in school my friends would always ask me for dream interpretations. Every now and then I'll get a card I'm not sure about but for the most part I just do it and the meanings come to me. Unfortunately, I'm sort of at a stage where I don't really want to ask anything about myself but I really want to use my cards. I'm hoping I'll be able to help out here with some readings.

~Maya

[SapphireDragon]

i cant remeber when i got into tarot really.... i think i knew about it, and as i became more interested in wica and paganism i just decided to give it a go. unfortunately i dont think my deck was right for me anyway, but it worked. now i have a new deck, the celtic dragon tarot, and i love it to bits :)

[Earthcup]

Buying a deck was the Pagan thing to do! :lol:

I wanted to work on my intuition and the tarot seemed the best way to do that. I really enjoy it, it always helps me get a fresh perspective on things!

I've got a Rider-Waite but I use my Mythic deck more....

[tangerine]

Long before I even knew what Paganism was, I was introduced to the Tarot by my 8th grade English teacher. She had brought her cards in one day and read for any of her students that wanted her to. I was fascinated and learned how to read them for our end of the year project. I haven't stopped since!

Now I use my Soul Cards often for readings and have learned Runes. I still read traditional Tarot cards as well. I love them!

[cybadiva]

I think I got my first deck (the Swiss 1JJ tarot pack - not too pretty!) when I was about 14 just out of interest. I toyed with it for a long time then got my beloved Cat People cards. I consider myself a learner tho'!!:)

Like Earthcup, my main interest in the Tarot is to gain a deeper connection with my own intuition, and maybe even help a few people along the way (Goddess permitting!:sunny: )

[Strawberry Bounce]

I got a college catalog in the mail. Inisde were some quotes. One of the quotes was by Osho Zen. I thought is was interesting so I looked him up on the internet. That led me to the Osho Zen Tarot deck.

[AuroraSilvermist]

My sister-in-law gave me a tarot deck for Christmas. The only time I'd ever met her was once when she and my brother visited after they got engaged, and then once again at their wedding (they live in Colorado and I'm in Wisconsin). I thought this was a pretty odd gift from someone I barely knew, but Serena insisted that she "just felt I'd find it intriguing."

For a week or so I ignored the deck and book she'd sent me (the Albano-Waite deck and Tarot Made Simple by Nancy Garen). Finally I couldn't resist. I read up on how to do a simple three-card spread and I asked a question and laid out the cards. The answer was insightful! From that point on, I was hooked. That was three years ago, and I've been studying the tarot ever since.

Thanks, Serena! :lol:

[AuroraSilvermist]

Long before I even knew what Paganism was, I was introduced to the Tarot by my 8th grade English teacher. She had brought her cards in one day and read for any of her students that wanted her to. I was fascinated and learned how to read them for our end of the year project. I haven't stopped since!

Now I use my Soul Cards often for readings and have learned Runes. I still read traditional Tarot cards as well. I love them!

Wow, I wish I'd had a tarot-reading teacher in school! My teachers probably would have considered tarot "creepy occult stuff." I'm sure there would've been complaints from parents proclaiming that the teacher was introducing their kids to "tools of Satan" or some such thing...and I don't even live in the Bible Belt. :whatgives

Still, that's VERY cool, tangerine. :reading:

[SilverClaw]

Mine all started due to a scratch and draw tarot reading, (and I even still have it) and anyways due to the accuracy of that little reading I wanted to learn more and there ya go...I also find it funny that it was in Disneyland by the Penny Arcade, I came across a fortune teller type thign and Iw as really atracted to the deck of cards she had ebfore her ...

[SweetIsTheTruth]

I hadn't touched a deck, nor looked at one, for almost 20 years. Back then, when I first looked at them, it was a, "oh kewl, magick!" kind of reaction. It is so different now. I see the symbolism of the tarot as archetypal symbols, which our subconscious understands. There is nothing magick about it, but is simply a statement of fact. We dream in symbols, and those symbols may not make immediate sense to our conscious minds. The tarot symbols are the exact same as our dream symbols. Now, I want to understand these symbols and meanings consciously, as well as subconsciously. It is so different to come back to it now. So many cards, like the Tower, are so startlingly obvious in their meanings now.

[MoonWeed]

I would have to say that I started reading cards about 6 years ago,to get in back touch with my instincts & intuition as a woman.I needed to have my own feelings and also have a way to ground myself and see things from a different direction.To really take the time to think about things and make better decisions. And they have always shown me hope and strength.And also to rely on my feelings and to also know that things may not be as bad as they seem when you look at your options laying in front of you with your energy in it.
PS I still use a book and I only read for myself.The book is necessary as to missing memory cells LOL But I would love tips on how to jsut go totally from my gut...
:fpeace:

[AdNoctum]

My best friend got me into it. She did a reading for me once, about a year ago, then a short time later, I bought a deck for myself... and then rarely used them. Then, a couple weeks ago, she did another reading for me, and I'm suddenly interested again, even more so than before.

[zakzekezedd]

You know, I really don't know. I got my first deck when I was in college (a few hundred years ago...), and never really did much with it. I got interested again in the '80s while living in Tulsa. Bought a couple of decks, but again, never really did much with it. Then, about 6 years I ago, I finally
got a deck that "clicked" and have been learning and reading ever since then..

[colusaskye]

believe it or not - YM magazine.
in 7th grade they had an issue with tear out major arcana cards, plus some basic meanings. i think i still have them somewhere in my room!
i kinda forgot for a while, got immersed in school stuff, and in college i remembered and started looking into it again. :)

[shiris_t_wytch]

Hi folks,
I first got in to the tarot after i went to a discussion at a festival, the speeker there was brilliant and after listening to him i cought the bug afterr that i did an on-line tarot course with a friend of mine and i just clicked with the cards, i was told by tef (my teacher) that i was a natural, and ever since i have been reading, and i love it, my colection of cards is growing to 5 decks and counting the last deck i got was for my birthday and they are the tarot of the new vision and as with all of my decks i seem to yet again to be able to read them, i'm not saying i'm a brilliant reader but the readings i have done have went very well and i haven't had any complaints so far.

Gentle Breezes,
shiris :broomride

[cartweel]

When I was 11 or 12 I went to the local fair and a woman did a reading for me. I sort of brushed it off until she told me (though I don't know how she ever came to this conclusion) that two women from my past would soon reenter my life. The next day two past girl classmates of mine visited town; one from the other side of the state and one from Italy!! I was so creeped out... she also told me that I would live to be 72.... *starts counting*

That was my first real experience with Tarot. I was always fascinated with them but they were held to be "satan's toys" around where I live. So it wasn't until I started practicing Paganism that I revisited the idea and WHAM!, here I am.

[Moonshine]

I was just browsing in a bookstore and I saw a tarot deck for the first time... Out of curiosity, I picked up the pack and opened it... I did not know how to use tarot or really even what it meant, but I got strangely drawn to it (yeah, believe me!). I did not buy it that day because it was expensive and I did not even know what to do with it..But that deck kept on haunting me.. literally!! It started occuring to me again and again that I must go and buy the deck.. By the way, it was the Rider Waite deck, the pocket size version... Then after a few weeks I decided that I was going to buy the deck.. During this time I read up some information on tarot... Finally I went ahead and shelled out enough money to buy me the Original Rider Wait deck... I had conflicting thoughts in my mind even as I got it home.. wondering how / if it works etc... But now there is no doubt in my mind that it works...
Best wishes,
mm