Types of Cards

Angel cards offer healing and guidance and messages from your guardian angels.  Angel readings are not intended to provide you with timings or specific details of people or places.

Oracle cards provide Yes and No cards and straight forward messages. They’re great to use alongside tarot cards, so you can provide more detail and specific messages.   

Tarot cards give a more in depth reading to a situation. With tarot cards you build up on the story and the situation with each card you draw. Using tarot cards is always a good starting point when providing a reading, once you have experience of the tarot, it will make it much easier for you, when you move onto using Angel or Oracle Cards.

Picking a Deck

For Angel and Oracle decks you go on your intuition, do you like what they represent? Do you like the colours? Do you like the messages or maybe they visually please you?

If you are looking for a tarot deck I would pick a universal deck if you’re a beginner such as the Rider-Waite, the reason for this is that each card has a name, number and image, which provide clues to the meanings.  There are now so many different packs for tarot I don’t think I could list them here for example the Tarot of Marseilles cards which date back to the 16th century do not have images on some of the cards making it tougher to read.

Cleansing, Clearing and Empowering the Deck

You would cleanse and clear your cards if any of the following has occurred other people have touched your cards, they’re new, you’ve done a particularly draining reading or the client was quite negative, your cards haven’t been used in quite some time, you feel the need to reconnect with them or they’ve fallen on the floor or there’s been an accident with them.  

There are a fair few ways to cleanse and clear your deck from pagan rituals to simpler methods, you may even find this in the little book you receive with your cards.

Here’s one example:

1. Take the deck out of the box, ensuring all packaging has been removed if they’re brand new;

2. You can then smudge the cards using palo santo or sage be very careful when doing this remembering the fire hazard of paper and fire and only smudge once the flame has gone out!!!

3. Once you feel that they’ve been smudged enough and are happy to continue, take the pack and put them in between the palms of both hands and say something like the following: 

Universe (or your creator) please clear and cleanse these cards of all negative energies;

4. At the same time you can them empower your cards with Reiki or just by setting the intention and say something like:

and fill with universal life force (if using Reiki), divine light,safety, protection and love.

Caring for your Cards

It’s important that the cards we choose are cared for as we would care for any other item that we work closely with such as crystals, wands or any other sacred tool you might use.

You can do this by either:

• Placing them in a special box;

• Keep a clear quartz with your cards;

• Wrapping them in silk or other natural fabric; or

• Placing them at an altar or sacred place.

Connecting with your Cards

It’s important to connect with the cards that you will be using for an energetic imprint, so they know you as much as you know them! It’s about the intention we set for our cards to see how they will work for us. Here’s what you can do:

• Keep them under you pillow or next to your bed;

• Regularly get the cards out and study the pictures, look at the meanings;

• Bless the cards, this adds a little extra to them with an imprint from your heart;

• Shuffle the cards;

• Go through each individual card and touch them leaving your thumbprint for energy;

• Visually meditate with the cards;

• Pull a card daily.

Protection 

If you’re doing a reading for a client and you feel the need to protect yourself you can do so. I like to visualise being engulfed in white light going into my crown and working it’s way through my body and then surrounding my aura in a bubble with golden tree roots going into the earth from my feet to ground me. 

If you feel drained after a reading you can do a few things such as:

• Stamp on the ground with bare feet 5 times;

• Smudge yourself, the area and of course your cards;

• You can use crystals such as black tourmaline or smoking quartz, you can keep these around when doing a reading. 

Blockages

Sometimes when we do a reading our client may not associate with any of the cards that are being presented, this could be that the cards need clearing again I like to do this slightly differently as when I would if I got a new deck:

1. Smudge the deck;

2. Knock 3 times on the deck;

3. Shake the deck 3 times by an open window or door.

Shuffling and Cutting the Deck

There’s no right or wrong only what feels comfortable for you.  Whilst shuffling the cards a question can be thought of, for example, I ask my Oracle cards “What do I need to know today?”. 

Some people don’t allow others to touch their cards, it’s all personal preference. You may decide that if you have a client who is highly emotional you can shuffle and pick their cards for them ensuring that whilst you’re shuffling you ensure that the question is focused for them.

Once the cards have been shuffled it’s time to cut the pack you can do this by any of the below:

• Simply just use the deck as it comes from the client; or

• With their left hand, cut once anywhere in the pack and place to the left, go back to the original stack and cut again and place to the right. You will then pick up from the middle and place on top of their left, pick all those up and add to their right stack so you now have 1 pile. 

In either of these cases you might then want to fan out the pack and ask them to select however many cards you need to complete the spread, I usually do this when I’m reading tarot cards.

Spreads

You can do a simple 1 card pull just by asking a question and seeing what you pull to give you an answer, this is also a really good way to connect with your cards and learn the meanings of each card, for example in the morning I would ask what the day would bring and then pull a card, I’d think about the card (you can take a photo) and what it could mean, when I got home I would read the meaning and see if that was an accurate assumption of the day it’s a really helpful way to learn your cards and how each one makes you feel.

3 Cards for the Day, lay them out left to right:

1. What is most important today?

2. What needs attention today?

3. What do I watch out for?

Ending a session

Disconnect from the person you’re reading for and finish a session by thanking the cards, guides, angels and any other entity that showed up to help guide the cards.