I recently did a Tarot reading for one of my clients, and she told me that I was the third reader she had visited in the past month. I was surprised that she was so eager to consult the cards that often. So it got me thinking is there any limits to how often you should use tarot cards?
There are no limits to how often you can use tarot cards. However, if a person consults the cards daily or weekly on the same subject. In that case, it can create more confusion than clarity for a person seeking answers. It is essential to allow time to pass and things to change between readings.
I like to use tarot cards for many things, and I tend to turn to them whenever I have something new in my life that requires some sort of analysis. In the following, I gathered some thoughts on what could be exessive usage of tarot cards. Read along, and please tell me what you think in the comment section below.
Can you use tarot cards too much?
Tarot cards are helpful little things. For many of us, tarot cards are like friends, who you can turn for advice or when you have a sudden need to pour your soul to someone. They can give you feedback on your past, current, and future issues.
When the cards are folded on the table on a tarot spread, the card positions, symbols, and images form a playful game. Even without a more profound knowledge of the card meanings, you can start seeing things related to the subject.
The images start to turn into a story that makes sense. Suddenly they open up perspectives that you couldn’t otherwise see. They allow us to look at the subject from a new angle. They take away the mental blocks that have blurred our ability to see some things.
All of a sudden, you are looking at things with new eyes. You have a clear vision and a peaceful mind. Your intuition is solid, and you feel that you can trust it. You know what you need to do to achieve your goals. The tarot cards did their job and helped you again.
If you go through a process like this, it can be easy to get “addicted” to this kind of help. Who wouldn’t want to indulge a tool like this if it is readily available?
Personally, I don’t see any harm using tarot cards as much as you want if you have a healthy attitude towards them. What I mean by this is that I am not obsessed with the reading outcome. I use tarot cards daily for many things. I practice reading and interpreting them every day, so I do readings for myself, friends, and clients. I also consult the cards on ideas that pop into my mind. I use the cards for introspection and to help me see things from various perspectives.
Using them like this is entirely ok, as long as you have a positive and nonobsessive look. If a person has an addictive-like obsession with the cards, there is a danger of overdoing things.
When something gets addictive, you start giving them the power, and in that exchange, you usually lose. If you give too much power to the outcomes of a tarot reading, you might start to lose your trust with your everyday intuition.
It might start feeling like you can’t make up your mind on anything without consulting the cards. If this happens to you, there is a couple of things that could affect you negatively.
Firstly, if you are a person who goes to consult others for a reading, it can get quite expensive if you have to rely on someone to read the tarot cards every week.
Now for some people, this is not a problem if they have plenty of cash in hand. And I think it is great that people with money use services to employ people and keep the economy going.
But, if you are a person that is tight on cash, I am sure that there are better uses for the money than overspending it on consulting sessions.
Secondly, primarily if you are consulting on the same subject over and over again, it will take away the benefits of having a reading done in the first place.
Having various readings done on the same topic will give varying results. If an outcome is presented in a reading, it usually requires some action to be taken. If you don’t feel like taking action towards the tarot reading outcome, it might be a sign that the reading result wasn’t something you wanted in the first place.
So rather than doing another reading, you should take the action that takes you towards a goal that you wanted. But use the reading outcome as a guide. It helped you see what you didn’t want so you can take a step towards another direction.
My advice will be to not consult the cards again if you haven’t done all the things that need to be done for your life to go into the direction you want. Choose to control your own future instead of letting the cards just tell you about various outcomes.
Thirdly, if you are a person doing readings to yourself, you need to remind yourself that in the end, it is you that is giving the cards their meaning.
You make the interpretations of the card symbology and positions related to other cards. It is your own consciousness that is speaking when you make the interpretation.
It’s not the cards, it’s your intuition. You already hold the knowledge within yourself, and you should learn to trust it.
How often should you get a tarot reading?
There is no exact time to tell you what you should take between readings, but it’s good to take some time to reflect on your reading and allow changes to occur. If you are looking for a number, think how long it might take for the issue to realize if you really worked on it.
Some events in life take more time than others. If your reading was full of Major Arcana cards, which represent more significant events or lessons in our lives, those take longer to realize. Minor Arcana cards represent the daily events in our lives, and those naturally tend to take a shorter amount of time.
But if I still need to tell you a number, I think the absolute minimum is one month between readings. As mentioned earlier, even if the cards tell you something you don’t like, the reading can help you realize the action to take. Allow yourself the time needed to take action and change to take place before you go running to another reader.
Are tarot cards dangerous?
The only “danger” I see with Tarot cards is that you misunderstand what tarot is about and take the readings too seriously. One of the most common misconceptions is that tarot is an art of fortunetelling. Although tarot cards can show us possibilities and what we want to happen in our future, it doesn’t predict it.
Another thing that worries some people is that there are cards like the Death or the Devil. Their meanings are not literate deaths, or that person will be under the spell of the devil.
They are symbolic meanings, like the death card representing the loss of interest or passion for something. The devil represents addiction or overabundance of luxury.
These aren’t serious issues, but there is always someone who might take the meanings too seriously. To this, I again want to remind us that we are the ones controlling our fate no matter what the cards tell us.
Your free will is more powerful than any card on this planet. So don’t get too hung up on the reading outcomes. If you don’t act on it, most likely, nothing will ever happen.
But if you hear or see something you like in your reading, then you should think of the steps you need to take to reach that outcome. With the tarot, you will always have the power to change.