This episode is a subjective guide to picking Tarot cards that will speak to you. I'm answering seven common questions about Tarot decks for beginners:

Does your first Tarot deck need to be gifted to you?

Should your first deck be the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck?

Do you need to choose a deck that comes with a guidebook?

What books should you read if you're looking for a more comprehensive understanding of the Tarot?

Do you need to follow one teacher or "school" of Tarot?

What's the most important when choosing your first Tarot deck?

How to choose a Tarot deck if you're on a budget?

You can also read this episode as a blog post here.

Tarot decks mentioned in this episode:

Rider-Waite-Smith by Arthur Waite and Pamela Colman Smith

Tarot de Marseille

Thoth Tarot by Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris

The Green Tarot by Lida Pavlova and Pamela Colman Smith

Melanated Classic Tarot by Julia Goolsby and Oubria Tronshaw

The Textured Tarot by Lisa McLoughlin

Bird King Tarot by Lida Pavlova and Khvost

Midnight City Tarot by Jackie Gallina

The Gentle Tarot by Mari in the Sky

Tarot of the Holy Spectrum by Chase Voorhees

Books mentioned in this episode:

78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack

21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card by Mary K. Greer

Tarot for Your Self by Mary K. Greer

Radical Tarot by Charlie Claire Burgess

All of Our Stories by Beth Maiden

Tarot for the Wild Soul by Lindsay Mack

Some of the books above can be purchased as audiobooks on Libro.fm - an independent audiobook service that financially supports local bookstores and is a certified B Corp. It’s my affiliate link, which means that if you sign up for Libro.fm through this link, I will get a free audiobook at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

Host: Gosia Rokicka of Las Vistas Tarot & More

For a 10% discount in the Las Vistas Tarot & More shop exclusive to podcast listeners, use code PODCAST10 at checkout.

Disclaimer:

Tarot readers, healers and practitioners of "woo" can offer valuable support, but they’re not substitutes for licensed mental‑health professionals. Listeners needing therapeutic help should seek accredited counsellors.

Hello, magical beings and creatures of the forest.

This is Gosha, your host of the Tarot and More podcast.

And today we'll be talking about how to choose your first tarot deck.

So that's more of an episode for those of you who are quite a beginners in your tarot

journey.

So I'm trying to answer six common questions in my own subjective way.

So it's a subjective guide to picking tarot cards that will speak to you.

And yeah,

so you are on the lookout for your first tarot deck and you feel the irresistible pull of the

cards and maybe you've done some research,

but you're overwhelmed.

There are so many decks available,

some even advertised as perfect for beginners, but you're still not sure.

What if you don't understand what the cards are trying to tell you?

What if the imagery turns out too complicated or worse still boring or uninviting?

So keep listening.

I'll help you find your own answers to the most important questions so you feel empowered

to make a more informed choice.

Because the truth is,

no one is going to make this choice for you.

Which is the perfect segue to the first question.

Does your first tarot deck need to be gifted to you?

No, it doesn't.

Nothing about the tarot needs or has to be done.

To be honest, the rule,

and I'm doing an air quotes quote unquote rule that you should be given your first deck by

someone sounds hell of a lot like gatekeeping because not all of us have someone in our

lives who would be inclined to gift us the tarot deck.

We may get a pair of socks instead.

So be a self assured grown up and get your own deck when and how you want it.

Should your first deck be the traditional Rider Waite Smith deck?

Not necessarily.

Pamela Coleman Smith's illustrations are the most famous in the world and the vast majority

of tarot books and newly created decks.

So like decks that are being made and designed now,

they reference them heavily.

So in a way it is good to know the canon.

But if you don't vibe with them, if you don't vibe with fairly old fashioned imagery from

you know our perspective well, choose something else.

If you do feel though that you want to get really familiar with RWS imagery,

RWS standing for Rider Waite Smith.

But you are after something more contemporary.

You can choose from a variety of decks that reuse Smith's illustrations as they are now in

the public domain being published in 1909.

One example of such deck would be Lida Pavlova's the Green Tarot,

which combines Smith's illustrations with Pavlova's nature photography.

So they are actual illustrations.

It's not redrawn by anyone.

It is.

These are actual illustrations of Pamela Colmar Smith which can be reused legally

because they are in public domain and they are like superimposed on the photography of nature

photography which was taken by Lydia Pavlova.

Another example, a bit different, is melanated classic Tarot by Julia Goolsby and Aubrey

Tronshaw.

And this deck reimagines Smith's illustrations, taken quite literally,

but redrawn by the artists.

And the black people are the main characters

in this deck.

So they are replacing traditionally depicted

white Europeans.

Also, bear in mind that Rider Waite Smith deck, although undoubtedly the most popular,

is not the only known pattern of the Tarot.

There are at least two others that continue to widely influence the world of Tarot today.

I mean there is, there are more, but three of them, including Rider Waite Smith are the ones

that are actually in use still.

So the second would be Tarot De Massey,

whose roots can be traced to 17th century France and Thoth Tarot created by Aleister

Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris and published in 1943 in the UK.

And I just want to say I'm not sure whether I'm pronouncing Thoth Tarot correctly.

And the funny thing is that,

well, obviously the name of it comes from the God of God, Thoth,

from the ancient Egyptian pantheon of gods.

And we of course don't know how ancient Egyptians pronounced it,

but apparently we also don't know how Aleister Crowley pronounced it,

which is quite strange because he died in 1947.

So actually I'm quite surprised there are no recordings of him saying that considering

there's, you know, BBC radio existed since like 19, mid-1920s,

so.

Or even earlier.

Yeah, I think it was like 1922 or something like that, or 1925.

So yeah,

yeah,

I quite, I find it quite strange that there is no, there are no recordings in any apparently

of, of Alistair Crowley talking about it.

So yeah, I, I found that most people say Toth,

so I'm gonna stick with that.

So yeah,

both Toth Tarot and Tarot de Marseille are widely republished and still available to buy.

But, but they don't seem to inspire as many contemporary artists creating their own decks

now as the Rider Waite Smith Tarot does.

So if I were you choosing my first Tarot deck, I would have opted for one based on the RWS

order and concept of the cards.

And there are plenty of them.

Question number three.

Do you need to choose a deck that comes with a guidebook?

Now, that's the question I get asked quite a lot in my shop.

I'm a novice reader.

Does this deck have a guidebook?

I always give an honest answer because, contrary to what you may expect, not all of

them do come with a booklet.

But with a caveat,

the fact that there is no guidebook doesn't make it unsuitable for a beginner.

You would actually do better, in my humble opinion,

if you chose a good book about Tarot and learned from it,

rather than from a very concise booklet associated with your chosen deck.

Why?

For many reasons.

First of all, booklets tend to be tiny and extremely limited in their scope.

There are some exceptions, of course,

especially now when it's easy to create a downloadable PDF and,

you know,

that allows expansion without the additional cost of printing.

Because the problem is that printing elaborate booklets is costly,

so they are very often very, very abbreviated.

And secondly, not all modern decks are created by people who are truly knowledgeable about

Tarot.

So some guidebooks can be very simplistic and it's not something to criticise.

I'm not criticising people because I know that quite a few Tarot has become very popular and

quite a few artists who are creating Tarot cards, they are very interested in them.

They are artists, painters, illustrators, photographers,

and they are inspired by the imagery and symbolism of Tarot and sometimes they are

really depicting it beautifully, but they don't necessarily know that much about.

About all the decks.

They don't necessarily have the deep knowledge

and they haven't thought about it for a long time.

They haven't reached their own interpretations.

So.

Yeah, so sometimes.

Sometimes it seems like those decks have quite

simplistic booklets and simplistic explanations,

but obviously not always.

And also there are quite a lot of collaborations, like, for example, I mentioned

Lida Pavlova and she does collaborate with artists who are drawing cards and,

you know, she is providing the knowledge of the cards and the whole law of the deck and

explanations and descriptions of the cards and another artist is drawing them.

And that is how Thoth Tarot came to life.

And that is how Rider Wade Smith Tarot came to

life as well, because Rider Waite Smith was designed by Arthur Waite and the concept of it

and the concept,

how the pictures should look like and the explanations and interpretations of the cards

came from him.

And Pamela Coleman Smith was painting and illustrating,

and in the same fashion,

Aleister Crowley was designing Thoth Tarot cards And it does differ from RWS also in

order of the cards of the major arcana and the illustrations were done by Lady Frida Harris

and she, you know, both Colman Smith and Harris,

they co created this deck and obviously the art was actually Lady Frieda Harris put a lot

of her own spin on what Aleister Crowley wanted to convey.

So it is a collaboration but I think it's very often a very useful idea to collaborate.

Well, I'll get to it later, so I'll say I'll talk about about it a bit more in a moment.

So having said all of that, I was lucky with my first deck.

It was the textured tarot by Lisa McLaughlin which is now out of print and sold out.

And it's a shame because it's an amazing deck and I bought it before I read any Tarot

related books.

And Lisa took an interesting approach to the accompanying booklet in her own words.

This mini booklet simply provides researched words and phrases behind the meaning on each

card.

This will help ground you in their illustrated intention.

So how does this look in practise?

Let's look at words and phrases associated with the Knight of Swords for example.

I'm quoting now.

Strong and brave,

Charge fast against the wind.

Courageous,

headstrong,

swift actions with ambition.

Rational,

analytical,

direct,

intelligent,

bright,

tactical,

domineering,

outspoken,

chivalrous,

rigid, code of honour,

Protector,

self assured,

wild truthsayer.

Fighting in the name of love.

Argumentative impetus,

impatient,

controversial,

cuts off from feeling aggressive.

So as you can see, these are pretty much keywords, right in quotes,

showing many facets of this card's archetype but no clear cut interpretation.

And I'm actually very grateful that it was my first experience with a Tarot deck booklet

because it put me on the path of looking for my own meanings and understanding.

From the start I kind of saw that,

you know, I have to think by myself because some of those actually in the case of Knight

of Swords,

those phrases and let's call them keywords are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

But in some cards they are just showing like different aspects of,

of the personality of this archetype.

But in some cars they just seem to be quite

mutually exclusive because obviously Tarot cards are very, very broad in what they are

representing.

And of course some guidebooks present the whole lore of the deck.

They are often beautiful and elaborate,

such as for example Lida Pavlova's whom I mentioned before,

your cryptic guide to the Bird King Tarot that comes as an over 200 page downloadable PDF

accompanying the bird King Tarot deck.

But this is pretty much a Tarot book,

albeit not a deckless one, but strongly connected to this particular deck and its law.

So this is a book about this deck.

But that doesn't mean that you cannot read with this deck without ever even opening this

guidebook.

To be honest, you can still, if you are

intuitive reader or if you are following teachings of someone else, you can very much

use this deck, this deck with.

With your own interpretations.

Another good,

although much smaller guidebook is one that comes with Jackie Galena's Midnight City

Tarot.

And it's because this deck is anchored in New York City and it was heavily inspired by

actual places in New York City.

So the guidebook offers a beautiful background of the artwork and the exact locations that

inspired each card.

Okay, next question.

So what should you read if you are looking for a more comprehensive understanding of the

Tarot? Like more comprehensive than in the booklets?

So here are my subjective recommendations of books that I find inspiring and disruptive of

a traditional, often exclusive narrative.

So the first one is Rachel Pollack's 78 Degrees of Wisdom.

And this is an absolute classic, often described as the Bible for Tarot readers.

And quite a few of the concepts in reading Tarot cards which are quite popular now and

quite widespread.

They were first popularised by Rachel Pollack.

Next, two books were written by Mary Kay Greer.

And these are 21 ways to read a Tarot card and Tarot for yourself.

And both can also be defined as classic literature.

And provide very practical advice on reading the cards.

And from the more recently published books.

Because like Rachel Pollack's book is from I think 1970s and Mary Kay Greer's from 1980s.

But from the more recently published books I would recommend two that are contemporary,

inclusive and very refreshing in their approach.

And one of them is Radical Tarot written by Charlie Clare Burgess.

And the other one is all of Our Storeys by Beth Maiden.

And of course, I would have been amiss if I didn't mention an upcoming book by my teacher,

Lindsay Mack, Tarot for the Wild Soul.

And I know it's going to be a must read and is now available to pre order.

And that is where I want to come back to this idea of people collaborating.

A writer, a Tarot reader and an artist collaborating on deck, because Lindsay's book

will be accompanied by a deck which is called Soul Tarot.

And that was written and prepared and conceptual.

Conceptualised by Lindsay,

but was actually drawn by Chelsea Granger, who is an illustrator.

So yeah,

I can't wait.

I only saw just some previews of them and the cards are beautiful and the book, I'm sure is

amazing.

And by the way,

if like me,

you like listening to audiobooks,

Cheque out Libro fm,

it's an independent audiobook service that financially supports local bookstores and is a

certified B corp.

It's an American company.

But you can choose,

I mean there are many bookstores around the world who are collaborating with Libro fm.

So you can choose a bookstore that is perhaps near where you live.

That's what I what I chose.

I chose an independent bookshop which is in

East London.

And when you purchase audiobooks, they give a part, a small part of their of their profit to

this bookstore which you chose to support.

So I think it's quite cool and in my humble opinion, more worth supporting than some

monopolists on the audiobook scene.

And Libro FM has Tarot for Yourself by Mary Kay Greer and Radical Tarot by Charlie Claire

Burgess and Tarot for the Wild Soul by Lindsay Mack,

the last one in obviously as a pre order at the moment.

And Radical Tarot and Tarot for the Wild Soul are read by the authors, so it's quite cool.

So yeah, I do recommend Libro FM and all the links to everything to all the books and

everything I was mentioning are in the show notes and also in the post blog post which I'm

linking in the show notes for.

So I mentioned Lindsay Mack as my teacher.

Which brings me to the next question.

Do you need to follow one teacher or school of Tarot?

No,

and certainly not at the beginning.

You should shop around, so to speak,

and cheque out whose approach vibes with you the best,

the most.

A good way to start is to listen to various podcasts, look up Tarot related content on

YouTube, Substack, Medium or any social media if you're actively on them.

Follow people, read, watch and listen to their content and get to know them a bit before you

commit to joining someone on their path.

Although I totally recommend Lindsay by the way.

And Lindsay has a podcast,

Tarot for the Wild Soul and the substack and courses and everything.

What they put out is amazing.

Okay,

so I think we have last two questions and so penultimate question is what's the most

important when choosing your first Tarot deck?

And I'm not going to be original here,

choose a deck that resonates with you,

one that has artwork that you love and characters that you identify with.

And by the way, they don't have to be people if you, like me, feel more connected to non

human animals and nature.

It's perfectly fine to pick a deck that does not depict people.

To avoid initial confusion, it's probably best to stick to a deck that uses traditional

naming of cards and suits.

So wands, cups, swords and pentacles,

as well as colours.

Face cards with their traditional code card

names.

So pages, knights, queens and kings.

These names are generally used in books and texts about Tarot.

So if you're completely new to this, your life will be easier if the same names are written

on the cards you're using.

Because some contemporary creators change these names for various reasons and sometimes

to divorce card meaning from the oppressive social structure.

For example, by renaming code cards into something nature related,

such as in the Gentle Tarot by Mari in the sky, for example.

Another example is the Hanged man in Chase for his Tarot of the Holy Spectrum.

The Hanged man became the Tethered One.

And Chase explained why in the interview I did with them.

And it's episode number number three.

Yeah, episode number three of this podcast

conversation with Chase Voorhees.

And he talks about the Tether One, the

Tethered One, and the origins of its name.

So if you feel strongly about names for whatever reason and you are, you object

against,

for example, using cold card names or,

I don't know,

something bothers you in the naming of the traditional naming of the cards,

go for a deck that uses wording that you are comfortable with.

But if, like me, you are okay with the fact that the names don't have to carry the same

meaning they were given centuries ago,

choose one that uses the traditional card names just for simplicity.

Once you're more familiar with the cards, you can always switch to another deck or several.

Yeah, I was one of those people who swore I would always stay faithful to my first deck.

Now I have 20 and no sign of stopping.

And going back quickly to this notion of renaming the cards,

actually in Charlie Cl's book Radical Tarot,

there is,

it's, it's a very cool idea to actually every.

Because every card is described in this book

and talked about in detail and there are several potential names that the card could

have which would maybe offer a better naming in the modern times,

which is really cool.

Some of them are.

I really like.

And it actually inspires you to think about your own names because you know Charlie's

ideas is one.

But you may, you may have some other

inspirations and understanding.

So it's quite, it's quite cool.

But it's a good thing to at the beginning, stick to the deck that has the names, which

are also commonly found in books and teachings about Tarot.

Because otherwise it just gets very, very confusing.

Okay, so we have the last question left.

Last but not least,

how to choose a Tarot deck if you're on a budget,

because I get it.

Good quality decks can be pretty pricey,

especially if they are independently published without a big publisher's financial backing.

If your budget is limited,

do thorough research.

And once you pick a deck you really love,

perhaps you can ask your friends and family to chip in for your next birthday or other

occasion so you can buy a gift you really want.

And actually that would be a bit of like you are getting a deck from someone else, right?

Or maybe you can find a second hand copy in a charity shop or a thrift store.

And no, it's not bad luck if you use a deck that belonged previously to somebody else,

unless you believe it to be,

because obviously you do.

You.

In which case, you could perhaps start with a traditional copy of the original Rider Waite

Smith deck,

which is now in the public domain and therefore often printed very cheaply.

So you can find them in pretty much any shop that sells something related to magic.

You will find a cheap edition of.

Of traditional Rider Waite Smith.

They are, you know, they are very often quite flimsy cards because that is also part of the

price is the quality of,

of the cardstock.

But also there are obviously royalties to the artist and the author.

And in the case of Rider Wade Smith, that's.

That's not the case anymore.

So whatever you do,

do not buy fake copies of indie decks.

That is pure and simple theft of the

intellectual property of their creators who are very much alive and need to make a living.

So if you really love a deck, you should want to support its author.

Right?

So also,

buying counterfeit decks brings proper bad luck.

Yeah, as the certificate of authenticity in the Bird King Tarot says,

beware of fake copies.

And that goose with a knife.

And a goose with a knife is a character from Seven of Swords in this deck.

And you can see the picture of this card on the blog post which is linked in the show

notes.

So this is it for today and I shall see you or hear you or you will hear me in the next

episode,

which I'm not sure yet what it's going to be about, but I have some ideas, but it's going

to be another solo episode,

so.

Yeah,

in the meantime,

stay magical.

It.