Well, I am one but stuck here in the South I don't get to say it even to my Mom...it is a secret. I feel so suppressed it isn't even funny. The funny thing is, being Wiccan...what endears me to the religion is the motto, "Harm ye none, do as ye will." I read tarot but don't sacrifice animals or people...the most thing I do is use herbs and crystals in my spells in my readings. I don't judge anybody so that I don't be judged. There are pentacles which is known to witches on the Rider-Waite deck so I do think that he could have been influenced by the occult in the rendering of the cards. There are just too many things that points to the good of using tarot cards for me to see bad in it, though. The pentacle is actually a sign of all of the elements that the universe is made from...we use it in our rituals. With the pentacle being on the Rider-Waite tarot deck I can see how people attribute the tarot to witches so it could be a common mistake if someone just doesn't know the choice of religion for that person. Some witches will never even tell you if they are a witch either because they are so secret about it. Actually the tarot was made occult when it came to America. It originally was a game played by people in India then when it was introduced in Europe they made it into a deck that could actually prophesy...then it came to America where it was adopted into the occult. So originally the tarot was not by witches at all. You can tell that to people who want to know if you are witch. There are so many new decks out there now that the original Golden Dawn tarot deck is almost extinct...and the one that was in India and Europe actually is extinct and isn't used anymore. I would have loved to see the original tarot decks.
After all, what is wrong with being a witch and loving tarot...you can be different without somebody trying to always change you as long as you don't push your belief on someone else. I am who I am and my beliefs are just something that I think about...as long as I don't hurt anybody or anything what does it matter? Satan is actually a character made up by the Christians. There is no Satan in Wicca. The Devil, as he is called, is often attributed to Cernunnos who is a Pagan God of the Hunt and is part animal at the bottom and has horns and the head of a man. In the afterlife, we go to Summerland where there is an abundance of everything and where there is good will to everyone. It really isn't that bad being Wiccan and a witch. There is freedom in the Wiccan religion to believe in whatever you want without there being something bad to happen if you don't believe in something or don't celebrate a certain way. You can even be a solitaire witch and be respected (in other words you don't have to go to meetings like Christians have to meet at a church and get together). You are usually not ostracized or criticized because of a certain way you think and you don't have to practice a certain way. There are some who even acknowledge that Jesus walked the Earth and that he was a great healer, as I do. They believe he was murdered by Pontius Pilate because of his religion just as the Salem witches were murdered because of their religion.
What you have come across is someone who has so much belief in one thing that he doesn't understand the beliefs of another. There has been alot of murder in the world because of intolerance of another's religion and someone that just believed differently. Is it really that wrong to just believe differently than another person?
Blessed be,
Von