Cleansing A New Tarot Deck, Is it really necessary? Options

Is it really necessary to cleanse a new tarot deck?

The deck I recently purchased was an Atlantis deck and was pre-owned (although never used). I did a couple of readings for myself which, now upon thinking about it, gave quite confusing outcomes. Should I have cleansed the deck before smudging it?

In the process of smudging I made up a sigil and burned it in the traditional Chaos Magick manner (an oxymoronic statement if ever there was one), i used the smoke form the sigil to smudge the cards.

I'm now thinking that I should have performed a proper cleansing and put the deck under my pillow to make sure it was clean.

Any advice?

Is it really necessary to cleanse a new tarot deck?

The deck I recently purchased was an Atlantis deck and was pre-owned (although never used). I did a couple of readings for myself which, now upon thinking about it, gave quite confusing outcomes. Should I have cleansed the deck before smudging it?

In the process of smudging I made up a sigil and burned it in the traditional Chaos Magick manner (an oxymoronic statement if ever there was one), i used the smoke form the sigil to smudge the cards.

I'm now thinking that I should have performed a proper cleansing and put the deck under my pillow to make sure it was clean.

Any advice?

I cleanse and consecrate any tool to imprint my own energy and the energy of it's intended purpose onto it. If it were a deck handed down through a couple generations of teachers/students who all put good intentions into it, then I would at least consecrate it to my own use.

One method is to communicate with the deck itself. Ask if you can work with the deck in its current energetic state, shuffle and pull three cards. If the overall message is positive, then take that as a yes, and if it's an overall negative then take it as a no. If it's a no, clear and consecrate, if its a yes, I would still consecrate as a means of forming a personal relationship.

I'm sure i'm preaching to the choir if you have a shamanic bent to your practice, I personally treat all of my tools as though they were living and conscious beings, and simply communicate clearly my intentions and their purpose, set ground rules and then stick to my taboos. I don't read with my deck unless I have my mercury pantacle, incense to burn, and anise oil to annoint my temples and forehead (I am mostly ceremonial in my practice), because that's the agreement I made with my deck. The readings that I did without any of those elements come out garbled and confusing, so I apologize, reconsecrate, and then stick with the taboos afterwards.

But, you don't have to get that involved, and I employ mercurial spirits with my deck as well, so there's an added element. If you wanted to find a spirit guide to communicate through the deck, I highly recommend it, and spirits of the mercurial sphere are excellent, but so would be mama whale, brother owl, brother wind, or even old coyote (though, he tends to poke fun of you). The divinitory spirit guide will color the general mood and tone of your readings, so have a care, and if you establish taboos, STICK TO THEM. If you're going to invite a guide into the deck, you definitely want to 'clean house' and 'put down some nice carpet' - cleanse and consecrate.

peace

Tarot is kind of a tricky tool, each card works with one another to form a group consciousness but still retain their independent minds so a deck tends to have more upkeep than most tools. The biggest thing with a new deck is deffinetly cleansing, which can be used with smudging as long as you mix in your energy and have spoken with your deck and kind of learn it's way of working. Talking with and treating your cards well is really important, other wise they may not give tou the reading you need. That's kind of the other thing with tarot, if you want it to be a productive tool you have to make sure your accepting of it's not so sunny messages. If your deck thinks all you want is a sunny outlook, then it will give you inaccurate readings to give you just that. If they aren't treated well, they will give you awful readings, "your mother will die and everyone is going to hate you forever no matter what" kind of thing. They can be temperamental and rrreeeaaaalllllly require to be worked with in the manner that the two of you set down together. Hopefully that helps bro.

Thanks guys, that helps heaps.

I guess I never really thought of treating the cards as helpful 'entities' as opposed to tools that can be used to pick up on universal vibrations.

I'll definitely change the way I look and think about them from now on.

Tom.

Glad to be of some help!