Welcome to the Tarot Blog Hop
This post is part of the Tarot Blog Hop, in which tarot writers from around the world join together to discuss a particular topic. Our theme this time is “gifts,” gifted to us by Arwen of Tarot by Arwen. All of us have psychic gifts. But not all of us know how to work with them. In this post I give you six suggestions for how you can open your gifts.
PREVIOUS | MASTER LIST | NEXT
How Do You Open Your Gifts?
I had a client who at the beginning of her reading would always request, “Please don’t just read the cards. Use your gifts and share any information you get.” I didn’t want to waste time from her session by explaining the absurdity of that statement, so I just dismissed it as one of her odd quirks. Reading the cards is a skill that I’ve spent decades of study and practice to develop. Gifts are beside the point. they are the purview of amateurs who don’t have the discipline to learn the system of tarot. On the other hand, I do have psychic gifts, we all do. And they do come out in my readings. And they’ve increased over the decades too. So, do tarot readers use psychic gifts? And if so, how do you open your gifts?
First of all, tarot readers don’t need psychic gifts. So if you feel that you don’t have any, don’t worry! You will go a long way just learning the cards and practicing readings. However, what tarot readers can truly benefit from, and most don’t consciously develop, is connection to Spirit. The deeper your connection, the more profound, relevant, and motivating your readings will be. Ironically, the more you open to Spirit, the more you open your gifts. So the real question is, how can we connect to Spirit?
Connect with Spirit to Open Your Gifts
Here are six ways you can connect to Spirit in order to bring more clarity to your readings. As a side effect, you’ll find that your psychic senses increase as well. Use these techniques to connect to Spirit and open your gifts!
- Divination
- Transformation
- Meditation
- Invocation
- Conversation
- Initiation
Divination
The simple act of using our tarot cards connects us to the Divine. Any system of divination will work. By looking for answers from something beyond ourselves, while at the same time using our own personal tools and personal resources to connect with and understand this information, we recognize a larger world. Every beginning reader has experiences that remind them there is more to life than our day-to-day reality admits. Have you ever turned up the same card repeatedly? Or saw something in the card image that literally answered your question? Or did the cards make no sense, only to have new information come to light that you had no way of knowing at the time you pulled the cards? These experiences augment our sense of what is real and what is possible.
Transformation
Personal growth is one of the top uses of tarot cards. By using their imagery to explore our psychology, we come to understand ourselves better. This personal development allows us to become more confident and calm in ourselves and curious about, not suspicious of, the world around us. Personal growth leads to spiritual transformation as we step more confidently onto our path in life. Transformation comes from seeking our own betterment, whether through healing, knowledge, self understanding, rising to challenges, or anything that allows us to reach beyond our limitations.
Meditation
Many people love using their tarot cards because it’s “me time.” The more you can turn off the outside world, and then tune out the noise in your head, the more you can connect with your cards and your own intuition. If getting into this space is a challenge for you, learning to meditate might be a solution. Do you have trouble meditating? Guess what, just looking at your cards is a great meditation! If you’d like some specific techniques to try, consider these tarot based meditations or the fourfold breath with tarot aces guided meditation.

Invocation
Simply acknowledging a higher power and inviting it into your reading space is a very powerful way of connecting with Spirit. You can use religious prayer to ask for guidance from the deity or spiritual adept of your choice. You can call your guides to come and aid you in your reading. You can ask relatives or ancestors who have passed over to share your tarot time with you. You can invite angels to watch over you when you do your readings.
The angel of tarot is HRU. One of the names of God used in classical times is IAO. To call upon this angel, take the cards in your left hand, cover them with your right hand and say the following traditional prayer:
“I invoke thee I A O, that thou wilt send H R U, the great Angel that is set over the operations of this Secret Wisdom, to lay his hand invisibly upon these consecrated cards of art, that thereby we may obtain true knowledge of hidden things, to the glory of thine ineffable Name. Amen.”
Conversation
One of my regular tarot practices when I was starting was journaling. I would sit with a notebook, write down my question, and have a conversation with myself through my writing. I always found a great deal of help and insight in this practice. It also helped me see what was really bothering me so that I could ask the right question of the cards. Once I had gotten the junk out, I was able to better focus the reading, lay the cards out with a clear state of mind, and have more communicative readings. Taking notes on your readings after you’ve laid them out is also a good way to converse with your cards.
But we don’t have to limit our conversation to talking to ourselves. We can converse with the Divine or with spiritual beings. Author and tarot expert Paul Foster Case describes the Temperance card as the Holy Guardian Angel. He says that to connect with the Holy Guardian Angel, we simply ask a question. Then sit silently. An answer will rise to the surface. This answer, he says, is from the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA). The HGA only responds — you must reach out by asking the question. But when you ask, the HGA will always reply.
Initiation
One of the biggest spiritual growth spurts I had was when I first received the Reiki initiations and began practicing this healing modality. The healing itself is an example of spiritual transformation. But the methods, sometimes called attunements, used to enhance and clear our connection to Spirit, provide a quick and intense boost to our spiritual connection. Later, I belonged to a Golden Dawn order, and went through the elemental grades. Not only did I receive the initiations in these two systems, but I also learned to give them. Similarly, an intense form of connecting to Spirit is receiving a blessing from a priest or spiritual adept.
Open Your Gifts
On the most practical level, you’ll find that using these six techniques for connecting to Spirit will produce better readings. But over time, you’ll discover that your psychic senses have increased as well. No one needs to remind you to use your gifts when you read the cards. Instead, the Divine will open your gifts even if you never ask.
Hop On
Thanks for stopping here on your way through the hop! But before you go, I’d love to hear how you connect to Spirit in the comments. And then it’s time to hop on to the next blog to see what gifts are offered!
PREVIOUS | MASTER LIST | NEXT
Love this! Especially the part about journaling. I am learning to do automatic writing as well.
Oh, nice. I’ve tried that, but without much luck. Although just writing for me opens up some surprising things sometimes! I’ve always been fascinated with automatic writing.
Autonomic writing, like scrying is an acquired taste and art form, you can never be sure if its just you or something else going on, I think that is part of the fun.
This is another beautiful piece of writing Joy, always love your take on things. Thank you for being your awesome self 🙂
What I loved about this was the teaching. Thank you. And yes yes YES to Tarot being me time. I had never really labeled it that so thank you.
Lovely post! I especially liked your comment about the guardian angel replying when you ask a question and wait for an answer. Even though I find that “sitting silently” part can be extraordinarily hard! 🙂