OccultForum.org

Original post: Hiro_Tsukasa

Hello, this is my first actual post, I believe, on here. I'm very interested in magic and the occult but haven't really tried much, one of the few things I have tried is using tarot. I've been working with tarot for several months now and I'll admit at first I was skeptical to divination working. Just to try it out I would read cards for my friends and stuff I read would always relate and my predictions, for the most part, ended up being true. As I said before I was kind of skeptical so I rode that off as coincidences. After a large number of coincidences I started to realize maybe there was something to it. I know that I would probably perform divination alot better if I could get rid of my doubt of it working. A big thing that aided in a loss of doubt in myself was a reading a did for a girl at my school. One of the things I read was that news of a baby would arrive very soon, it scared the crap out of her and I tried to calm her down and explained that news arriving didn't mean it would actually be her. Now, not to delve to much into talking about her but the girl and her boyfriend were always very careful to avoid the chance of her getting pregant. Not two weeks later I find out she did in fact get pregnant.....something about that just made it really hard for me to say, oh..that was a coincidence too.

I'm still working with tarot and looking into some other forms of magic to try out, I was hoping to get some answers to a few questions I have, sorry if they've been answered in previous topics.

1. What deck would you reccomend using from your own experiences, alot of people tell me the Thoth deck, what would you suggest?

2. Almost 85% of the time I do readings for myself, I come up with off the wall stuff and nothing I predict ever comes true, whereas when reading for others I've had at least decent success I guess, any ideas why this happens?

Thanks:D

Original post: Dracophoenix

The deck I'd reccomend first would be the Soul Cards/Souls Cards 2 these are excellent decks. The reason being s that none of the cards are named. Plus none of the cards have something to tell you what each card means that you need to memorize. Since we don't all think alike we're all going to see things differently. You CAN NOT misinterpret these cards because it's what ever you think the pictures on the cards should mean. The Toth deck is an excellent deck don't get me wrong. I love the copy I own

I started off with a deck I made myself because I couldn't find a deck that I liked at the time. I have have had many interesting experiences with my cards over the years. This one reading I did for this lady was seriously cursed. She was having problems with her husband, her job, her son was very ill and she didn't know how much more she'd have to take. Even when I asked for the best possile outcome it was still not a nice reading. Thankfuly she didn't get upset with me That was my first proffessional reading and she became a regular client. I explained that with the present path she was on that the reading was for the most possible outcomes. Eventually once she got rid of her husband found a better doctor for her son and got a new job the readings I'd do for her greatly improved. My readings were dead accuate for her because I was gettng visions while doing readings.

I have many other interesting experiences with my decks.

As for doing great readings for others and not yourself. It could be the dek doesn't want to be used for personal readings or perhaps as with some of tarot readers I've known they just can't do readings for themselves but only for others. If the deck you might want to get a another deck just for yourself or make your own deck just for personal readings. You might want to trying ordinary playing cards too for personal readings. Also don't put your hopes and fears into your readings. Simply ask your deck to tell you the truth in a situation. Luckily I've warded all my decks so that they aren't swayed by my own emotions, hopes and fears. Plus I'd advise not using your deck while certain planets like Mercury are in retrograde. It can affect the effectivness of you deck.

Original post: Hiro_Tsukasa

Ah, cool story and thanks for the info, that actually helped alot...I've been getting better recently at moving away from guides and such.

Original post: DMCunningham

[QUOTE=Hiro_Tsukasa]
1. What deck would you reccomend using from your own experiences, alot of people tell me the Thoth deck, what would you suggest?
[/QUOTE] As much as I wish I could give you an end-all answer, I can't. The truth is that the best deck is the one that you find that speaks to you from your heart (or what ever magickal energy zone that you choose to claim).

For a long time I had two decks, and one always seemed to work better with me that the other one. Years after I became comfortable with a new deck that seemed to sing to me as I did the readings. The biggest difference was the images.

Years after that I had found another deck that really got to me. The images were great and the way that the cards felt were perfect.

Every time I bought a new deck I was reluctant to do so since I already had a good deck that I used. On occasion I would find a deck that really worked with me. Sure, I have went through several decks with some winners and a good amount of losers, but I have learned a large amount about myself, divination, and the Tarot by buying decks whenever they called out to me.

Now I have my decks custom made, and at $750 a deck I can't recommend that you take that route, but when you get real good you may just find yourself doing something very similar.

[QUOTE=Hiro_Tsukasa]
2. Almost 85% of the time I do readings for myself, I come up with off the wall stuff and nothing I predict ever comes true, whereas when reading for others I've had at least decent success I guess, any ideas why this happens?
[/QUOTE] From my experiences and from those of others, this may be due to you being too close to the question or situation at hand. When I started out, many years ago, I too had the same sort of issues pop up. When I spoke with friends and magickal mentors they ashured me that a lot of people go through the same thing. As I progressed with my divination abilities, I have found that by my confidence in my abilities and the ability to separated myself from my personal reading, I was able to have great readings.

Even now I will have someone else do a reading for me when I have issues that are so strong that I sense that I may have a hard time separating myself from the issues at hand. I recommend this to all of my magickal students as well.

I hope this helps.

Sincerely,

David Michael Cunningham

Original post: Hiro_Tsukasa

That also helped alot, especially on my second question, thank you.