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Does anyone here perform any Tarot card effects in their magic? I know there are a couple of effects in Rick Maue's The Book of Haunted Magick, but in The Black Hart's Tarot Made Easy course, he advises against using Tarot cards in magic. If you were going to perform tricks with Tarot cards, then perhaps a bizarre style of presentation would probably be more suitable and even then I think you would have to be careful, especially if you also do Tarot card readings. In fact, is it advisable for someone who is known to read Tarot cards to also perform magic tricks with those very same cards? What do you guys think?

well it depends of how you dress the whole matter up. you are right - bizarre presentations are easier to do with tarot cards. with some fantasy you can dress up almost any card trick to be worked with tarot card and have a "logical" explanaiton why it works. people also usually dont think in terms of card tricks when you pull out tarot cards. so ou can easiely embedd 1-2 card tricks in a reading session

on the other hand with proper presentation you can use normal cards for "divination" or whatsoever and sneak in some tricks in your performance and noone will smell a rat.

so my answer to your question would be that you definetly can use tarot cards to do tricks but you have to have proper disguise for that. and it has to be meaningful and make sense. so basically as long as they think that everything is decided by the fate, spirits or whatever and there is no helping hand from you i see why not actually you can increase the impact of the reading.

greets

PS why do i always want to watch blade runner when i see your icon? hmmm

If you use Tarot cards at all, be prepared to speak knowledgably about them and to do a couple of readings for your audience.

Otherwise, you will be considered just some bozo who found some "funny looking" cards somewhere.

I may have posted this elsewhere but a few years ago on TV there was a magish who did a comical routine using Tarot cards, he'd picked a very attractive young lady to assist, she shuffled and dealt cards and he then turned the cards over one by one to do a 'reading'. The patter was along the lines of - Death Card - the young lady would be finishing with her current boyfriend, - the Chariot - she would go on a journey, - The Magician - meet the magician and - The Lovers - they would become lovers. There was a lot more to it than that and several of the major arcana were used. It was truly funny to watch this guy make comically dismissive faces at the boyfriend as he said he was out of the picture - all done in a very amusing and inoffensive way. I suppose it'll be on YouTube somewhere....

Black heart do a nice marked set of major arcane cards with tricks included, I wonder if they have enough information with them about the cards to be used for a proper reading.

I use runes for most of my readings and one of my sets just happens to be a on half dollar sized material with some extras like copper /silvers so I can use my coin boxes and sleights with them when doing a psychic evening session.

I think it all depends on what your act is.

I think Black Hart's advice applies to the context of readings. If you handle the Tarot deck like playing cards or do a plot-based 'trick' with them, it will undermine your credibility as a reader.

As far as I'm aware (and I could very easily be wrong), Rick Maue doesn't do readings, so his Tarot-based effects aren't in conflict with any other side of his performance or persona.

I also think care should be taken with the types of effects you apply to a Tarot deck. Tarot Card On The Ceiling would just be plain silly (and expensive in the long term).

Tarot Card On The Ceiling

Ah so it WAS you !.....

F x

I have thought about this, but I'd never use my reading deck for tricks so have bought a second deck to experiment with.

I guess it all depends on the trick and the presentation that you're using but I've never really found anything that works well. In my opinion it just seems to cheapen the tarot and lessens the reading that you WILL be asked to do with the later.

I like to keep my cards seperate and treat them as if they're something special. I think that if your specs see you treating your cards with respect, it adds much more weight to your readings.

My feeling is that tarot decks can work for magic - but it would have to be in a storytelling-type context. And by that I don't mean Sam the Bellhop!!

I would shy away from performing actual "tricks" with tarot cards for the simple reason that your average person in the street is not at all used to seeing tarot cards. Whereas correctly divining or producing a chosen card such as the Ace of Hearts is a nice little trick, producing the same card from a tarot deck, the Ace of Cups, will have less impact because for all your spec knows there might be a dozen Ace of Cups in a tarot deck. They have no or very little point of reference.

However one rather splendid "trick" I have used in the past involves tarot. It is really very simple. Using only the major arcana, pass the cards to your spec and ask her to choose a card which she feels most drawn to. Have her place the card between her hands and concentrate on it. By this time hopefully you will have been able to divine the card using your "favourite method" (there are lots of ways to do this, mark my words...).

I would then give the spec a good 5 minute reading based quite genuinely on the card she held in her hands. Then I would say "..and for that reason, I think the card that you have been drawn to is the High Priestess (or whatever)!"

This routine can be done close-up or from a stage. Sounds simple but it's quite powerful if presented well.

Cards I would recommend for this kind of routine would be the Carnie tarot from Outlaw or Cardshark has a rather splendid deck - just use the major arcana only.

That's a really nice idea, I like that alot

Lady of Mystery wrote:That's a really nice idea, I like that alot

Oh I'm full of 'em!

Paul, that sounds like a fantastic idea. I like the fact that it doesn't come close to being perceived as a trick due to the presentation; coupled with the mini-reading, this is great. I'm no Tarot expert, but that sounds like the perfect Tarot "trick" that isn't really a trick, if that makes sense.

I think the Cardshark deck you mentioned is the Medieval Tarot Deck. Lovely deck, that.

memorire wrote:PS why do i always want to watch blade runner when i see your icon? hmmm

Cos it's the bestest film ever.

Replicant wrote:Paul, that sounds like a fantastic idea. I like the fact that it doesn't come close to being perceived as a trick due to the presentation; coupled with the mini-reading, this is great. I'm no Tarot expert, but that sounds like the perfect Tarot "trick" that isn't really a trick, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it's very similar to what you saw at Oxford but seems different enough to use them side by side (which I have done in the past - anything for an easy life! )