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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

DD using tarot cards

316 replies

silverjackal · 18/02/2021 14:08

I've made it very clear to my DD that I don't approve of her getting involved in tarot readings, divination, etc. and I certainly don't want her bringing home tarot decks. She went ahead and bought three (!!) decks without my permission, using the money I gave her for emergencies.

This happened a couple of months ago, but she only told me she bought them last week. According to her they "help her" and she's using them to inform her A Level options of all things! (I genuinely don't know if she's joking.)

I told her she has to get rid of them and she reacted very angrily, but I honestly don't know what else she expects? She bought them without my permission, using her emergency money, and seems to have an unhealthy dependency on them.

If anyone has advice I'd appreciate it.

OP posts:
Devlesko · 18/02/2021 19:55

@JessesGirl

I’ve never had any tarot cards, this thread has made me want to buy some!
If you do, the best deck to start with imo is the Rider Waite. There are so many different kinds, if you look on Amazon there's tons.
MarmedukeDuke · 18/02/2021 19:56

Why are your beliefs more important than hers op?

I have far more misgivings about Christianity than tarot cards tbh.

RufustheSniggeringReindeer · 18/02/2021 19:58

My friend does angel card reading

(Seems similar to me but I’m not say that to her)

Welikebeingcosy · 18/02/2021 20:05

They're all metaphors. Death means an ending of something, the hanged man is about waiting without action and the devil is a symbolism for anything addictive. All of those things are a part of life- it sounds like you're more afraid of those things than anything and projecting that fear onto your daughter.

Sparklfairy · 18/02/2021 20:09

BOO Grin

DD using tarot cards
AlwaysLatte · 18/02/2021 20:16

What's wrong with a pack of cards? They can't do anything, they're cards.

GrolliffetheDragon · 18/02/2021 20:23

If you do, the best deck to start with imo is the Rider Waite.

It's a classic, but for a more recent deck can I put a word in for the Light Seers. Lovely, lovely deck.

BillMasheen · 18/02/2021 20:28

@MedusasBadHairDay. I have a Thoth variant. The minor arcana have keywords on the bottom. I think debauchery is one of the Cups. But as ever with tarot, each card is open to many interpretations. Before the OP panics.

Also loving the afflecks palace reference. I damn near lived in that place, years ago. Along with the corn exchange.

MirandaWestsNewBFF · 18/02/2021 20:30

@silverjackal

I can see I may have overreacted, then - clearly tarot is more accepted than I thought it would be. DD is 16 and she doesn't usually get an allowance, but I'm still unhappy with her spending the money like this and I'll definitely be asking her to pay me back.

I have read a bit more about tarot, and it's not even the imagery per se that I dislike, it's using cards like this to influence your decisions. One of her decks (I think it's the thoth) includes cards like lust, debauch, cruelty and ruin. That's hardly helpful or appropriate to see when making decisions.

I'll let her keep them but I'm not at all happy about her using these.

You can see lust, debauch, cruelty and ruin in the soap operas, any night on TV - and probably depicted more harmfully than a mere picture on a card.

Your daughter’s won’t be solely influenced by tarot reading anyway, but more likely to be what her friends think, what she’s reading or watching on TV, etc - it’s not in a vacuum. Trust her, and keep talking to her. If you shrug your shoulders at it and help her address her exam worries in more practical ways, the importance of tarot will soon lessen in her life.

At 16, your daughter needs to have money of her own to budget for herself. Give her at least a basic allowance and let her spend it as she sees fit - she won’t learn to manage money any other way. I left home at 18 permanently so wasn’t much older than she is now - she needs to be learning how to manage money and what to spend on. You mention that you’re giving her money when she needs it but she needs to be able to budget effectively as an adult rather than waiting for you to provide.

KarensChoppyBob · 18/02/2021 20:30

Tbf the Tower does scare me quite a bit.

MarmedukeDuke · 18/02/2021 20:34

@Sparklfairy

BOO Grin
Grin all the best cards.
MedusasBadHairDay · 18/02/2021 20:35

I read something interesting about the woman who illustrated the Rider Waite deck on twitter the other day twitter.com/OnThisDayShe/status/1339858953912676355?s=19

Yogabear1 · 18/02/2021 20:44

What is a good deck to start with & how do you learn. I’d love to get into it but worry it’s too complicated.
I’ve never had my cards read before either .

rawalpindithelabrador · 18/02/2021 20:46

@user54328876

If I were you, I would seriously wonder what it was about my parenting that made me teenage child go looking for answers in a deck of tarot cards.

Bit of an overbearing narcissist maybe?

It's quite normal for teens to be curious about such things.
CandyLeBonBon · 18/02/2021 21:22

You're being utterly ridiculous op.

Devlesko · 18/02/2021 21:52

@Yogabear1

What is a good deck to start with & how do you learn. I’d love to get into it but worry it’s too complicated. I’ve never had my cards read before either .
Rider Waite are imo the best to start with. I've have numerous and I always use these for readings. It's not complicated at all. Wish my channel was up and running I'd pm a link, but not quite there yet. I've been reading years but spent quite a while away. You soon pick it up, don't buy books though, yo end up like a student and it's supposed to be fun. Good luck, let me know how you're doing.
GrolliffetheDragon · 18/02/2021 22:10

[quote MedusasBadHairDay]I read something interesting about the woman who illustrated the Rider Waite deck on twitter the other day twitter.com/OnThisDayShe/status/1339858953912676355?s=19[/quote]
Pamela Colman Smith lead a fascinating life, and sadly died in poverty. Her name wasn't even on the deck of cards she illustrated - it was known as the Rider Waite for many years, these days it's the Rider Waite Smith (RWS), or just Waite Smith so she a least gets a bit more credit!

Worth reading up on her life, there was a biography published not so ling ago.

Devlesko -
You soon pick it up, don't buy books though, yo end up like a student and it's supposed to be fun.

Unless you like that, in which case there's lots to get your teeth into - history of playing cards generally, history of the Marseilles decks, early, more pictorial decks, occult societies in the UK such as the Golden Dawn (and there you have Aleister Crowley, William Butler Yeats, Arthur Machen...), there's astrological correspondences, the Kabbalah, symbolism generally...

Or you can just read what you see in the cards. That's the beauty of it really.

RozHuntleysStump · 18/02/2021 22:16

Give the poor girl some spends. My 15yr old gets 20 a week.

MariLwyd · 18/02/2021 22:18

Honestly almost every teenage girl I’ve ever known has owned a set of tarot cards. A few boys too but it does largely seem to be a teenage girl thing from my experience. It’s harmless fun.

Neversleepingever · 18/02/2021 22:31

Can someone do me a card reading. This thread bhas made me so intrigued I'd love to find out more!

rawalpindithelabrador · 18/02/2021 22:32

@RozHuntleysStump

Give the poor girl some spends. My 15yr old gets 20 a week.
Mine got a tenner a week but she also had a little job, and bank account. I didn't monitor what she spent it on, if she ran out she had to do without. Now she has a Monzo account and budgets really well (she obtained caring qualifications on top of her studies and works in a care home at weekends).

Your daughter is 16, not 6.

Yogabear1 · 18/02/2021 23:05

Thank you, I had a quick look on Amazon & there is so much choice.
I definitely want to get some but think I’d just sit looking at them and have no idea what to even do Grin

PersimmonTree · 18/02/2021 23:19

It's a shame there's so much suspicion about tarot cards. When used correctly, they are a great way of interrogating your subconscious mind and getting to know yourself.

Artistic or highly visual people are often drawn to them because they express their thoughts in pictures.

I encourage my 17yo to use them, she occasionally asks me for readings and then goes away and has a think about things, before making decisions.

rawalpindithelabrador · 18/02/2021 23:22

@PersimmonTree

It's a shame there's so much suspicion about tarot cards. When used correctly, they are a great way of interrogating your subconscious mind and getting to know yourself.

Artistic or highly visual people are often drawn to them because they express their thoughts in pictures.

I encourage my 17yo to use them, she occasionally asks me for readings and then goes away and has a think about things, before making decisions.

Is there a thread in Philosophy/Spirituality about them, to get started? Had an old deck from my teen years but can't remember much.
GrolliffetheDragon · 19/02/2021 00:15

@Yogabear1

Thank you, I had a quick look on Amazon & there is so much choice. I definitely want to get some but think I’d just sit looking at them and have no idea what to even do Grin
Shuffle them, lay a couple of cards, maybe just two or three. Look at the pictures. Write down your thoughts, any particular part of the image that jumps out at you, how does the image make your feel, can you see a story in the cards. Then look in the book if you want - but see what they say to you first.
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