What influenced you to go and buy your first Tarot deck?

Barleywine

I started fiddling with cards very early. But nothing serious, I used poker cards and had the mayor arcana of RWT when I was about 10.

There where many superstitions surrounding tarot in my environment, like one needing to be a certain age to properly start learning and reading cards, no readings to people that are younger than 16, Thoth tarot is filled with negative energy....yadiyadida.

I got my first deck at 18. A Thoth deck, of course. But it did not last long due to superstition.
Then I switched to RWT.

I hear you on the Thoth backlash. I was at a dinner party one time back in the '70s and we were talking tarot. One man (who seemed at least superficially savvy) heard me mention Crowley, and said in a loud, very offended voice "DO YOU KNOW WHO HE WAS?" I said "Of course I do, that's why I bought his deck." End of conversation.
 

Isobel Gaudie

I hear you on the Thoth backlash. I was at a dinner party one time back in the '70s and we were talking tarot. One man (who seemed at least superficially savvy) heard me mention Crowley, and said in a loud, very offended voice "DO YOU KNOW WHO HE WAS?" I said "Of course I do, that's why I bought his deck." End of conversation.

Perfect shotgun answer! I need to admit that I never dealt much with Crowley. As a former convent schoolgirl in one of the most catholic countries I was very prone to get spooked out by gloomy superstitions and lets not forget about the guilt. ;)
 

Richard

I was interested in esotericism long before I purchased my first tarot deck. In fact, out of curiosity, I read Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot about fifteen years before I bought my first deck, an Albano-Waite, which was an impulse purchase while browsing around an occult bookshop in Berkeley. I have never had a burning interest (or even a firm belief) in fortune telling. I had studied I Ching a bit (which I discovered in reading Jung), but only for introspection.
 

lantana

In senior year of high school I started reading an author who talked a lot about how tarot had helped them deal with trauma. I had just gotten out of an abusive household, and was starting to get into magic and polytheism (and had at this point been interested in astrology for years) so I thought "Hey why not", bought a Rider deck at the local metaphysical store, and the rest is history.
 

akatlikenoother

After becoming interested, I ended up waiting awhile to get a physical deck(though I was using the Galaxy Tarot app for months) because I don't have much disposable income and I didn't want to end up buying something I'd use once and get bored of. But I was kind of of the opinion if it was meant to be it would be... and then I discovered I had enough reward points on my credit card to get an Amazon gift card that covered the cost of pretty much any deck I wanted and thought "WELL THEN". So I ended up getting the Tarot of Pagan Cats!

And now I want... so many decks... jeez.
 

Alta

I was 4,500 km from home starting my first job, very lonely and disoriented in a strange city. Everyone at work was 20 years and more older than me. I haunted bookstores especially a sadly now defunct one called Duthies. It was the best bookstore, high shelves with cast iron winding stairs. I found a copy of the RWS and the Pictorial Key to the Tarot, as well as one of the Eden Gray books.

At my next posting I met a woman who taught me a modified Lenormand. My tarot path was rather erratic and sometimes broken for years until I found ATF.
 

nisaba

Anyway, that was my original start, my original inspiration with tarot. Can anyone else share their "origin story" of how they got into Tarot?

I really can't remember. I bought my first deck, a RW, as a teenager in the early 1970s, I think. Can't remember buying it, or why. I certainly wasn't given it.

My first "taste" of Tarot was a lot earlier: my mother had this weird idea that I should be friends with the daughters of her friends, which never worked. I was trapped in the bedroom of one of them once (one of hte daughter's of one of my mother's friends), and at a loss to entertain or engage me - she was as reluctant as I was - she pulled out a mini-RW and did a book-definition reading for me. It was entirely forgettable. It was certainly not a moment of falling in love with Tarot at first sight - I only remembered it in retrospect after I bought a deck.

But I've been completely hooked ever since getting my own.

My first *paid* reading was more memorable: I was just telling the forum-members who came to today's meet about it. It was 1981, and I was working in the finance sector. I had a daytime customeer who mentioned that she had some problems or a decision to make, and I said I had a Tarot deck at home and would she like to come over for a reading. She said yes, I spread some cards around, and said some words. I don't remember much about it at all, but she was so impressed that she forced on my a *huge* amount of money, especially given the purchasing-power of the dollar back then.

At that moment I suddenly realised: "I'm GOOD at this!" I was certainly better at it than working in finance, which came to an abrupt halt with the September 1987 stock market crash.
 

rylla

You know how they say: you don't choose your cat, the cat chooses her human (it was true for me). In a way the same thing happened with tarot: I went to a garage sale and there was a brand new Servants of the Light kit. I never had encounter with tarot before so I was curious. I bought it and the rest is history.
 

Magrataya

When I was about 13 or 14 years old I spent a lot of time after school in "the city", a 30 minute bus ride away from the small village away where I grew up. In the center there was a really big shop that stored all things spiritual, new age, alternative and generally "woo woo". The owners even had their own publishing house and published a lot of titles which were sold in the shop. I guess I had been lured imside by their vast selection of crystals :) I had been intrigued by Tarot for quite some time and one day I decided to get a deck. It was a mini Rider Waite and I still have and occasionally use it, 20 later! As to why I got it, I really can't say. I always knew this "spiritual" stuff would be for me, that I "could do this" although I had no proof e.g. spirit sightings, a grandmother skilled in cartomancy etc. I was a very normal child and teenager. I just knew and acted according to it and the universe seemed to say "alright then, if you want this, here we go then!"

I just checked online - the store still exists! Too bad I don't live in that area anymore.
 

RavenLuna

As a pre-teen in the late 80s, I was fascinated by anything metaphysical. I started with Astrology, but as I lived in a village just outside of a small town, there weren't many books I could get my hands on. I remember saving articles by Mystic Meg (!) in fact, I still have some of them :D It was she who made the link between Astrology and Tarot, so in 1990, when I finally saw a used tarot deck at a flea market for a fiver, I snapped it up. It was a 1JJ.