Though I first started out my professional tarot journey as a reader, I came to realize that I love teaching tarot more than giving readings.
Students who come to me to learn tarot are enthusiastic and are excited about picking up this new skill.
After teaching several sessions, I’ve seen some patterns that I’d like you to avoid so you can have a smoother tarot learning journey.
Mistake 1: Insisting on buying only a tarot deck that comes with a guidebook
While having a guidebook can help with your learning journey, you don’t have to be fixated about only getting a deck that comes with a guidebook.
It’s much easier to find tarot meanings on the internet versus carrying a book around so you might as well just get a regular deck.
This issue came up with a potential tarot deck buyer asked my opinion on a deck that comes with a guidebook and a non-guidebook deck I was selling.
I’ve heard bad things about the print quality and card stock of that particular version of the cards the buyer was interested in so I dissuaded her from getting it.
However, she was determined that getting the guidebook is necessary and kept asking me leading questions to confirm her idea.
In the end, I told her to do as she like, and that she doesn’t need another person’s confirmation if she was already fixed about getting the tarot with a guidebook.
Mistake 2: Leaning on the guidebook so much you don’t actually learn the meanings
I had this same problem in my own tarot learning journey.
My first deck came with a guidebook that had answers for different types of questions. Though I read the book from cover to cover, I wasn’t actively learning the meanings.
Every time I did a reading, I would reach over, grab the book and read it off the book. Sometimes the explanations didn’t even make sense but I just brushed it off.
As a tarot reader, what is most important is your intuition and your ability to interpret the cards based on the situation. A guidebook’s meaning might not apply to your situation.
Mistake 3: Believing you must memorize all the keywords and meanings
If you believe that you must have every keyword etched into your brain, there’s a higher chance that you will feel discouraged when your mind goes blank during the interpretation of the cards.
Don’t panic when this happens. Sometimes a card appears in a position that doesn’t make sense to me too.
What I start doing is describe what’s happening in the card. Slowly, my intuition kicks in, and then I’m able to see the picture more clearly.
Mistake 4: Thinking a card only has one meaning
A card can be interpreted in many ways. When you memorize only keywords, you might be stuck at looking at the card only in one way.
If you happen to be reading for others and they look up keywords on the internet and insist on applying more traditional meanings to the cards, let them know that as a reader, you’ve taken into taken into account the question and the surrounding cards for a better interpretation of the card.
If you’d like to learn tarot, here are some blogposts to help you get started.
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