Eight ways to cleanse your tarot cards

I cleanse my deck at least once a month, and any time it has been used for readings. I keep a crystal on top of it when it is not being used. When I am reading there are candles going, and I pass the cards through the flame after each reading for a quick clean. On a full moon the deck goes outside, and the rest of the time it sits on the windowsill.

If you do not cleanse your cards, they start to play up. They get dirty. They hold the readings you have already done.

That is the part people miss. A deck that has not been cleared is not just carrying a vague mood — it is carrying every question you have already answered with it. So when you read, you are not only reading what is in front of you. You are reading it through everything you have read before, and it gets confusing. The readings turn to mush. The deck is not working at full strength because it is fighting its way through all of that.

That is why cleansing has been around as long as it has.

You will know when it is time

• when a run of readings has finished
• when you come back to a deck you have not touched in months
• when a deck is new, or secondhand
• when a reading felt muddled and you cannot say why
• on a full moon, if that appeals to you
• after a big change in your own life
• or for no reason at all, which is as good a reason as any

There is no rulebook checking your work. If what you are picking up is other people rather than the deck, that is a different problem — Energy Vampires and Protection is about that one.

1. Shuffle

The oldest instinct and the simplest. A long, thorough shuffle, or a messy pile shuffle if that is your style. It mixes the cards physically, and it moves along what they have been holding. If you read with reversals, turn a few as you go.

Some people say a line while they do it — I am letting go of what this deck has been holding, and making space for what comes next. The words do not matter. The intention does.

2. Hold it

Deck between your palms, and sit with it for a minute. No ritual and no words. Feel the weight of it, the texture of the card.

Then ask plainly: what have you been carrying? You will usually know.

3. Look through it

Go through the deck card by card and actually look at it. The artwork, the symbols, the details you stopped seeing years ago.

This is the one to use when you have drifted from a deck you once loved, and it is also how you find out something is missing before the cards tell you themselves.

4. Moonlight

Leave the cards where the moon reaches them — a windowsill will do, which is where mine lives most of the time. When it is a full moon, put them outside.

The moon has meant renewal in folk tradition for as long as there has been folk tradition, and a full moon is the one night a month the sky is properly lit. Bring them in before the dew gets into them.

5. Smoke

Sage, rosemary, or whatever you use. Pass the cards through the smoke a few times, then do the same for the room you read in.

I used smoke for years and I do not use it now, because there is no smoking in this house any more on health grounds. That is the whole reason. If you do use it, mind the fire — never leave a burning bundle unattended, and never set it down on something that will catch.

6. A crystal

A stone left on the deck between readings is the least effort of all of them, which is why it is the one most likely to actually happen. Mine sits on the deck whenever the deck is not in my hands. Selenite for general clearing. Smoky quartz or black tourmaline for the heavier stuff. Clear quartz to hold an intention. Amethyst if it is calm you are after.

You do not need a collection. One stone you like the feel of is enough.

7. Visualisation

No props required. Picture the deck wrapped in light that is calm and clear.

Some people picture themselves reading well at the same time, and that is not a distraction from the job. A lot of what feels like a muddled deck is really a scattered reader. Settle the reader and the deck follows.

8. The four elements

Earth, air, fire, water — the same four that run through the tarot itself.

Touch the cards to something natural, a leaf or a stone, for earth. Wave them through open air, or take them outside for a minute, for air. Set a bowl of water nearby, not touching them, for water. Keep them a safe distance from a lit candle for fire.

It is the slowest of the eight and the most deliberate. For some people that length is the whole point.

The one I use most, which is not on the list

A candle. I have candles going when I read, and when a reading is finished I pass the deck through the flame — quickly, at a safe distance, close enough to feel it — before I put it down.

It takes ten seconds and it is the thing that keeps the deck clear between the monthly cleanses. If you read several times in an evening, it is the difference between starting the next one fresh and starting it on top of the last one.

What a deck feels like when it has gone wrong

Not long ago I was reading on Twitch and I picked up a deck that was not my usual one. My Sacred Circle was put away and I used the other, and it felt strange from the start. I could feel it in the cards.

I finished the readings, and then I counted the deck. Three cards were missing.

The deck was not haunted and nothing had been done to it. It was incomplete, and I could feel the gap before I could name it. That is what I mean by a deck that is not working at full strength — it is not always atmosphere. Sometimes it is three cards in a drawer, and the reading is being done with a hand that is quietly short.

Everything on this page is about closing that gap, whether it is a missing card or a year of other people's questions.

There is no test to fail

None of these is more real than the others, and doing all eight is not a requirement for a working deck. Some readers cleanse before every session. Others go months without thinking about it and notice nothing. Both are normal.

If your readings start to feel unclear, pay attention. But it is not evidence that you have done something wrong, and it is never a reason to doubt your own hands or your own reading of a card.

Trust what you pull. Cleansing keeps the deck clear so that what you pull is the deck and not the last six months of it.

Try one thing this week and see how it feels. You do not have to overhaul your practice at once, and there is no wrong place to start.