Are Tarot Cards Demonic? [Truth vs Dangers]

This is one of the questions I’ve got more than I ever expected when I first started with the Tarot. Are Tarot cards demonic? Is there a danger to using them?

The short answer is if I thought the Tarot was in any way demonic I wouldn’t be giving away free Tarot readings on Tarot Guru.

First, the cards themselves cannot be demonic. Tarot cards are images on paper that were created in the 1400s in northern Italy to play a game that is the ancestor of bridge. They were created by artists, who like most artists in Renaissance Italy were Catholics. There is a Devil card in the Tarot, but this is because it is the first card in a series of trumps that are based on images from Revelation, and the Devil has a prominent role in Revelation as the villain whom St. Michael overcomes. The Biblical theme is most obvious in the next-to-last trump, which depicts an angel awakening the dead for the Last Judgment. We can also find other Catholic images in the trumps, such as the Pope and a holy hermit.

Tarot cards can be used for divination, but all cards can be used for divination as well as dice, sticks, other forms of lots, and dreams and visions. In fact until recently, (the last 100 years) regular playing cards were more popular tools for divination than the Tarot. These are simply tools for developing intuition and all societies have used forms of divination throughout time. We even find divination portrayed approvingly in the Bible. In Exodus the ancient Israeli priests are said to have used the stones Urim and Thummim for divination. In Genesis we find that Joseph used dream divination to win the favor of the Pharaoh. Joseph also had a cup that he used for scrying. Even in Catholic stories about the lives of the saints we find divination. St Francis, we are told, received his calling in a dream, and when he wanted to clarify the meaning, he used a form of bibliomancy in which he opened a Bible and pointed to a random passage. Later the Pope receives a dream telling him to approve Francis’s order.

There are many mentions of divination in the Bible but predominantly they have been renamed as prophecy, which is just another name for foretelling the future. In fact, Christianity is based on the belief that Christ is the fulfillment of a prophecy and therefore on divination. When the Bible denounces fortunetelling it is not actually condemning the practice of divination itself. It is condemning the practices of rival religions. It is proselytizing in the worst possible way; by condemning its competition as demonic. I feel that this practice is evil and has been the excuse for cruelty practiced in the name of religion for centuries.

This question represents a lot of the misconceptions and misunderstandings spread about the Tarot — sometimes by readers themselves.

Obviously belief plays a big part in this but I’ve been giving readings for years and I’ve yet to see a single problem.