Newbie question: me+my deck=bad vibes?

After reading everyone else's replies I might stand alone on this one



One thing I have always felt is to cleanse a deck after i get a new one. Whether its with incense ir a white light visualizing cleans helped me with my past decks.



I also think that in order to read well the cards must be attune with you energies/aura. This being said its kind of like a break in period and could take a couple weeks of playing with them and just focusing on them while just shuffling and no reading... Or at least that's how it was in my experience.

Chthonic said:

Hey! I am completely and utterly new to the forums and tarot, literally just bought my first deck a few days ago and am posting for the first time, so possibly this is just a newbie fail situation. But with that in mind...

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Welcome!
I'm Dee, I'm relatively new to tarot and the forum as well! These guys gave good advice....don't panic and try to bond with your cards. Are they brand new? I have four decks. Only one of them was brand new and to be honest, I was paranoid about "bad energy" so I know how you feel!

But like Nisaba said, just hang out with your cards, get to know them, YOU are in charge of the relationship you have with them.

For peace of mind, I just cleansed mine with crystals, and also just burnt some incense, ran them over a candle and said something about aligning my energy with theirs and working together only if it is positive and right. Got that from a youtube vid.

Even now, I haven't used all the decks so I'm still building a good relationship with them. Not feeling any bad vibes though so that's good - maybe you were just freaking out or over thinking it. or you said you had a bad week, maybe your energy was a bit out of whack and then so were the cards? Just stick with them and you will see whether it's the right deck for you or not. The fact that you were attracted enough to buy them (?) is a good thing

All the best of luck! Message me if you want to do exchanges or anything to learn seeing as we are both newbies

Oh my goodness! You guys are all so helpful and supportive, this is amazing. I don't even know where to start...

EmpressArwen said:

Sometimes when we are going through really tough times, reading is not the best idea. I went through a tragedy with a friend and had to give up reading for an extended time because all I saw in the cards was death and evil. Really they were just reflecting back my state of mind. Tarot, at least for me, is like a mirror that reflects the positives or negatives inside. Sometimes that deep introspection needs to be put off until we gain a bit of distance from the issue.

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I think you guys are totally spot-on that it would be better for me to just take some time getting used to the cards and letting all the negativity of this week clear out before I try anything substantial, and that's a really nice thing to know. Sometimes it's hard to notice by yourself when you're too stressed to be effective, you know?

happyfish said:

Hi Cthonic...just out of curiosity, which deck do you have?

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I do have the basic Rider-Waite deck (wanted to go with the most basic thing to start off with, for several reasons) and the colors are a bit glaring--I'm hoping I'll get used to them, although I hope to acquire pretty decks eventually too, of course.

Bookwight said:

In other words, just try to have some fun with the cards. Get to know them in a way that isn't too serious. (Just until those bad vibes go away. You can always get serious again later.)

nisaba said:

Have you just *played* with the deck?

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Fun fact about me: I tend to sort of throw myself off the deep end without noticing sometimes. I've messed with it a little, but I think I'll definitely spend a lot more time just getting comfortable with it and playing around and looking at the pictures before I try anything else!

sld123 said:

After reading everyone else's replies I might stand alone on this one

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Noooo, but rituals are helpful, rituals are good for your brain, rituals are comforting and introspective! So thank you.

I feel so much better! I will definitely keep hanging around here and absorbing the knowledge while I play with my cards and spend time calming my week down so I can do better when I'm mentally equipped to take on something new. You guys rock.

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dee89 said:

Welcome!
I'm Dee, I'm relatively new to tarot and the forum as well! These guys gave good advice....don't panic and try to bond with your cards. Are they brand new? I have four decks. Only one of them was brand new and to be honest, I was paranoid about "bad energy" so I know how you feel!

But like Nisaba said, just hang out with your cards, get to know them, YOU are in charge of the relationship you have with them.

For peace of mind, I just cleansed mine with crystals, and also just burnt some incense, ran them over a candle and said something about aligning my energy with theirs and working together only if it is positive and right. Got that from a youtube vid.

Even now, I haven't used all the decks so I'm still building a good relationship with them. Not feeling any bad vibes though so that's good - maybe you were just freaking out or over thinking it. or you said you had a bad week, maybe your energy was a bit out of whack and then so were the cards? Just stick with them and you will see whether it's the right deck for you or not. The fact that you were attracted enough to buy them (?) is a good thing

All the best of luck! Message me if you want to do exchanges or anything to learn seeing as we are both newbies

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Hey, hello, this made me feel much less anxious and weird and neurotic! So glad to know that I'm not completely making stuff up and other people have felt a little strange when starting out too. Nice to meet you!

Chthonic said:

Hey! I am completely and utterly new to the forums and tarot, literally just bought my first deck a few days ago and am posting for the first time, so possibly this is just a newbie fail situation. But with that in mind...

The deck gives me bad vibes somehow. I've done a few of the 'new deck' spreads that people recommend, and the answers all seemed kind of excessively dire. Tried to sleep with the deck under my pillow, and literally twitched and felt anxious and had muscle spasms until I moved it away, whereupon I fell asleep almost immediately. Something just feels off.

I'll be the first to say I don't know what I'm doing--could this just be beginner nerves? I'm not thoroughly comfortable or confident about spirituality yet, that might be affecting this somehow. I'm also completely inexperienced in the world of rituals, but if anybody could recommend any that might help me connect better in this situation, that would be wonderful. I'm not sure what I believe yet, but the psychological element would help a great deal while I figure it out, and I'm pretty openminded.

...yeah, basically, somebody give me advice, 'cause I don't know what I'm doing and I am very anxious and self-conscious about the whole thing!

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From what you have said, I am pretty sure it's not the deck. It's your fears and concerns coming out. I heard you say your are not comfortable or confident about spirituality yet. Tarot is a tool that enhances spirituality. Or at least it can if you use it that way. But it does, at any sense, force you to think about and come to terms inside you with what it is that is answering you through the cards. Because something is and Tarot does work.

I honestly don't think the deck is giving you bad vibes. I think your discomfort is coming from inside you and it affects whatever you do with the cards. Sleeping with anything that you connect with nerves and uncomfortable feelings is not going to be a good experience.

Tarot is a beautiful. amazing, magical thing. It is going to enhance your life in ways you can't even imagine yet. There IS nothing to worry about about it.

Imho Tarot readings are not meant to be dire. Tarot is a tool to help people feel better about themselves and about their life situations. It is made to be positive and uplifting and to help solve problems, give confidence and point the way to the best path.

If you are getting dire readings, part of that is likely inexperience since you are so new to it. But also, fortunately or unfortunately our personalities come out in readings. I don't know if this is true for you or not. But more pessimistic people tend to get more dire readings and more optimisitic people tend to see more hopeful answers. Our view of the world and life view affects what we see to some extent.

IF your deck is a used deck, it might also be possible that there might be some bad vibes left in the deck from the last owner. But otherwise I think you could maybe just be infusing the deck with any concerns of worries you may have related to Tarot or Divination.


Also, it is true that not all decks are for everyone. If it is a deck wtih a lot of negative images in it (a dark deck), the cards images do affect what we see in the cards also.

Babs

Let me tell you a story.

I performed my first Tarot reading late one night just a few days before leaving home for college. I had been idly reading about Tarot cards online for a few hours when I decided, just for fun, to try out this whole "divination" thing. I wrote out the names of all the cards on strips of paper, thought of a question, and laid them out in a Celtic Cross spread. The spread answered my question with perfect accuracy.

And I freaked out.

I just stared at the spread for ages, comparing the cards I got to the meanings given for them online. I could not believe the reading actually made sense. It had to be a mistake. Surely any combination of cards would appear to relate to my question--I was just finding patterns out of nothing. I immediately thought up another question and laid out a second spread with completely different cards. But the result was the same: everything seemed to relate perfectly.

By this time I was shaking from shock and terror. I never imagined Tarot readings could actually work. I was terrified that I had inadvertently called upon demonic powers (I grew up in a strict fundamentalist Christian household, and my fear of hell and the devil was still very strong).

I put away my homemade cards for the time (still got them, though ), but fascination soon overcame my fear. Only a few weeks after starting college, I started doing readings with my homemade cards on a regularly basis. Not long after, I bought my first Waite-Smith deck. Looking back now, it's hard to believe I was ever afraid of my lovely cards!

The moral? Almost everyone is scared at first. With all the advice and support everyone on here has to offer, I'm sure you'll be feeling more comfortable with your cards in no time

Welcome Ok, here is a piece of advice that I've always found valuable, and it comes from the friend that introduced me to tarot some years ago: everytime you think your deck is mocking you, trying to demean you or "hurt" you, think that you are actually mocking/demeaning/hurting yourself. Your very reactions to a "bad" spread are much more telling than the spread itself about your inner ghosts, which is why tarot is so useful in the process of inner growth. As for the rest, never forget that your deck is a mass-produced set of 78 plastified pieces of paper -is there even any paper left, I wonder?- which are, in line of principle, not more interesting than the air that surrounds them. And NO amount of use, incense or new agey spells is ever gonna change its composition, what it is and what it can do.

Welcome again

A very warm welcome to the AT Forum,

I can't say anything that all these beautiful people haven't already suggested and reassured of tarot. They are all exactly right and tarot, once you relax into it, is an amazing exciting and beautifully vibrant journey to travel. It's a personal journey and different for all of us, but we all seem to experience the same wonder and enjoyment and interest which makes this community work.

The cards are just cardboard with ever so pretty pictures. They aren't imbued with bad spirits, or draw them in. But the cards do very well reflect a person's inner anxieties. This is why I don't read when stressed, it's futile. There is a lot of negative hysteria about tarot and it's plain ignorance sadly. But here in the forum you have a safe supportive foundation for learning and chatting with like minded people. I am sure you will have lots of fun.

About Tarot and spirituality, I'd true you don't need to be spiritual to enjoy tarot. But if you are discovering a spiritual sense, you can or choose not to incorporate your cards into that. Personally I do, however they are still just a tool, as crystals are, or incence. And my spiritual quailies find these tools useful to express my self in readings, groundings or rituals. But they are just that tools.

You can create your own cleaning rituals or habbits if it makes you feel better and you can learn all this on here.

I wish you the best of luck and enjoy this new exciting experience. Hope to see you around on the forums

Mags x

cardwitch said:

Let me tell you a story.

I performed my first Tarot reading late one night just a few days before leaving home for college. I had been idly reading about Tarot cards online for a few hours when I decided, just for fun, to try out this whole "divination" thing. I wrote out the names of all the cards on strips of paper, thought of a question, and laid them out in a Celtic Cross spread. The spread answered my question with perfect accuracy.

And I freaked out.

I just stared at the spread for ages, comparing the cards I got to the meanings given for them online. I could not believe the reading actually made sense. It had to be a mistake. Surely any combination of cards would appear to relate to my question--I was just finding patterns out of nothing. I immediately thought up another question and laid out a second spread with completely different cards. But the result was the same: everything seemed to relate perfectly.

By this time I was shaking from shock and terror. I never imagined Tarot readings could actually work. I was terrified that I had inadvertently called upon demonic powers (I grew up in a strict fundamentalist Christian household, and my fear of hell and the devil was still very strong).

I put away my homemade cards for the time (still got them, though ), but fascination soon overcame my fear. Only a few weeks after starting college, I started doing readings with my homemade cards on a regularly basis. Not long after, I bought my first Waite-Smith deck. Looking back now, it's hard to believe I was ever afraid of my lovely cards!

The moral? Almost everyone is scared at first. With all the advice and support everyone on here has to offer, I'm sure you'll be feeling more comfortable with your cards in no time

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I am pretty sure this is all very true.

Tarot terrified me the first time I used it. Now I can look back and laugh, but at the time I was really scared.

I did my first spread, naturally the Celtic Spread too. I did not yet understand the card meanings but I laid them out and was going to look them up.

Up came the Death card and I almost screamed. I was sure it was saying I was going to die. Don't know why I was so silly, but I almost threw the cards across the room.

I could not bear to look at them, gathered them up pretty fast and put them away FAST. I did have the presence of mind first though to write down which cards had ended up where.

I felt like I had to look up the meanings. I tried every day to work up the courage to do it. It literally took me about 10 days to pull up enough courage to lay the cards out again in the same positions they had landed in and look them up.

I knew i had to know, but I did not want to hear I was going to die! LOL

Finally I did, I was pretty well tremblign when I looked them up. And OF COURSE, the cards were saying nothing like what I had imagined. And in fact what they had been saying was very accurate.

But yeah that really scared me. That and also seeing that the cards work goes counter to how most of us were taught the world works. They contradict our view or reality and that is scary. We take reality for granted. It's scary when you find out what yu believed was what reality is, is wrong.

But the new reality is so much more beautiful, once you adjust.

Babs

SunChariot said:

But yeah that really scared me. That and also seeing that the cards work goes counter to how most of us were taught the world works. They contradict our view or reality and that is scary. We take reality for granted. It's scary when you find out what yu believed was what reality is, is wrong.

But the new reality is so much more beautiful, once you adjust.

Babs

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^THIS. Having my understanding of reality turned upside-down was just as upsetting as the possibility of demonic intervention. But once you get used to it, it's a whole new world, and the possibilities are endless