using a box with salt

Silver Crow said:

I think that when you start labeling peoples BELIEFS as myths is when the defenses go up...

Please people, we all believe in something intangible here. Not agreeing, or believing or whatever in what someone else does is great, but making fun of it, or turning it into a "myth" because it's not what you believe is just as harmful as the person who said you must do it or else.

Sorry I got so upset, but I deal with this a lot and I didn't expect to have to deal with it here.

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I think the problem here is the word "myth". I, and I would guess most people here, use the word in the academic sense, but you are hearing it in the colloquial sense. That is you are taking it to mean "a false story or something untrue." Where others are using it to mean "a sacred story or a belief", without judging it's truth or falsity.

I use it in this sense when I talk about any religious groups beliefs (include my own), they are a myth - "a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature."

A tarot myth is a belief, not a false story. You may believe them or not. But they are not a necessary part of tarot practice. You do not have to keep your decks with salt, or wrap them in silk, or expose them to moonlight, or any of the hundreds of other myths. You may do them and find it works for you, in which case I would recommend that you keep doing them. But if you don't do them, your tarot cards won't suddenly stop working.

Myth does not equal lie. Myth means a belief. No-one meant to insult you when describing the use of salt as a myth. They just meant that it is a belief that is optional.

FS

I always lay mine in sea salt when I am doing parties between clients. Cleans the cards in my mind

If this is a deck to read for others

Silver Crow said:

The people I know who put salt in their storage boxes usually put the salt in something, they don't let the cards sit in it and the salt doesn't actually touch the cards.

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If the reader was discussing fortune-telling LeNormaand decks used to read for others and is an old time reader, likely the reader has an idea of what works in their belief and reading ways. If a small plastic or paper sealed package of salt is used in a gauze or organdy bag instead of a stone as a charm, it seems less expensive and handy. But only if you are inclined so. If I felt the need for such things, it is a handy tip.

Cleansing in an external small act may be beneficial to the mind and if so, may be a good thing for a reader. If I or you choose differently, that is fine!

It sounds like someone was sharing a folklore tip and how you choose to deal with it or not is a cheerful option. Since the original posting noted the type of box to store it in was not remembered, it really sounds like this folk wisdom does not apply in all cases.

Cerulean

Baroli said:

ETA: Btw, I know someone who will store his decks with lavender. (Love that smell).

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Oh! What a lovely idea! I LOVE lavender...
Perhaps a bundle with lavender, sea salt, cedar, cinnamon and a drop of patchouli oil and a drop of lemon oil (on the mixture, not the cards)? Oh my, what heavenly smelling cards! Plus, I think all of these have antiseptic properties, which might keep bugs out of the cards in damp spaces?

My infamous box of lavender scented candles is used regularly whenever I get a smelly deck.... It works wonders.

Faolainn Storm hit it on the head with the problem with the word "myth," which struck me on about the second page. A myth is not necessarily a lie; it only became used that way when people started to look at myths not their own (and yes, everyone has myths) as superstitions at best and diabolic at worst. The academics even speak of the "Christian myth"! So, as has been said, a myth is a body of beliefs.

Of course, in the referenced thread, we all got to using "myth" in the popular sense, didn't we...?