Oracle Cards: A Beginner's Guide
Oracle Cards are a wonderful gateway into the world of practical magic.
Beginners who are intimidated by the woowoo-ness of tarot, divination, and all things “occult” can discover, through oracle cards, that shuffling cards doesn’t have to be a scary, esoteric thing meant for a chosen few.
Whether you’re a newbie with your first deck of cards, someone who’s card-curious and doesn’t know where to begin, or a long-time reader whose relationship with the cards needs a bit of a refresh, these simple how-to’s can make your initiation (or journey back) into the practical and magical world of oracle just a little bit easy-breezier.
But first, what are oracle cards?
For the purposes of this post, I’m defining an oracle as any method of “divination.” If you go back to mythology, oracles foretold the future and did it in a very vague, allegorical way. Given this, oracle cards are pieces of paper that are used to figure something out, to answer questions, and to gain insight or knowledge.
The framework I stick to in Practical Magic is one that replaces fortune-telling with forecasting. You know how companies conduct feasibility studies before launching a product, or how engineers do site surveys and geodetic studies to figure out how to best design a building’s foundation? That’s what divination is to me. You’re using the cards to survey what’s going on so you can make wise and informed forecasts, which are particularly important when making decisions, understanding yourself, and—as with oracles—figuring something out, answering questions, and gaining insight or knowledge.
Tanim is a Filipno botanical oracle deck I designed with illustrator Cynthia Bauzon-Arre. These oracle cards are based on fruits, shrubs, vines, and trees native to the Philippines.
So, putting two and two together: oracle cards are pieces of paper with illustrations and phrases on them to help you gain insight in order to move into the future more mindfully and with more awareness.
Simple enough? Whether you’re innately woowoo or an alpha muggle, chances are you do want to head into your future—whatever it may be—as intelligently as possible. And if you use oracle cards for precisely this purpose, then they’ll be extremely helpful and useful to you.
If you want to know dig deeper and learn about the difference between oracle and tarot cards, head here for another post I wrote.
So, how to begin?
Start with a question. The only question any oracle beginner needs to ask is: “What do I need to know today?” This prompt works for everyone because at any point in time—no matter where we’re at or what we’re going through—opening ourselves up mindfully to useful information is a good thing. Asking this question indicates that we’re curious, open to receiving feedback, and eager to make the day better. When you ask this question, you’re sending a message to yourself / the Universe / God / your general environment that you want a good experience and are open to advice about how to make things happen.
You don’t need to cook up a special ceremony, ritual, rain dance, prayer, or whatever else to pull an oracle card from your deck.
You can, if you want to (you do you!). But know that it is not necessary. All you need to do is earnestly and sincerely ask, in your mind (or out loud if you’re that kind of person), “What do I need to know today?” and you’re primed.
You can put as much drama into how you shuffle the cards, how you pick a card, how you flip it over as you want. I am personally no nonsense when it comes to this. Some people superstitiously pick up any cards that fall or “jump” out of a deck while shuffling and believe it has special meaning—that’s something fun you might want to try. There are no rules when it comes to how many times you shuffle your cards, how many times you cut your deck, or if you even want to cut your deck at all.
You don’t need to complicate the pulling of a card. Unless you want to.
The #NoFilter oracle deck is a humorous, sarcastic oracle deck I collaborated on with creator Mikko Sumulong.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, what do you do when you now have your chosen oracle card in your hands?
Notice the first thing that pops in your head the minute you look at the illustration or read the words on your card. This is your intuition / gut / higher self / instinct / conscience / subconscious talking straight to you. If you want a deeper experience with the cards, jot it down—in sentences, phrases, single words, or doodles. (I find that writing down what enters my head always helps me digest the messages better).
Oracle Cards will not always make sense.
At least not right away. The minute you force “meaning” into a card, your rational mind / logic / ego is entering the picture and juxtaposing what it thinks you need to know vs what your gut is telling you. We already spend all day talking to our rational minds—you don’t need another avenue for it to impose its opinions on you. This is why it’s so important to notice the first thing that comes to mind—even if it’s not what you think you should know that instant.
For example, you could shuffle and ask “What do I need to know today?” thinking about how you really want a promotion at work. And then you pull a card and it says “Magic Bubble Ride. Protect Your Energy” (this is card #16 from the Quiet Mystic deck that I collaborated on with Wiji Lacsamana). The message could make you feel wary, uncomfortable, and very vulnerable at first glance. And then your mind starts talking, telling you, “But nope, that has nothing to do with my job. Oracle cards are sketch!!!”
Give the message time to sink in.
You could automatically dismiss your card and give up on it, or you can let that message linger with you all day. Suddenly you begin to realize that you’ve been super stressed out at work and you’ve been working 60-hour weeks just to get that promotion. Doesn’t protecting your energy resonate with how you’ve been approaching your job? Will a promotion mean you're able to spend your energy more wisely or will it make you expend even more?
The Quiet Mystic is an oracle deck collaboration between myself and Wiji Lacsamana.
Sometimes, your card’s meaning may come to you later in the day or retrospectively, after a day, a week, or a month.
Know that sometimes, the meaning won’t come to you at all.
And that’s okay too. Learning to read oracle cards is an exercise in connecting with your intuition, and being able to let go in case that connection just doesn’t come through. It happens to all of us (myself included). The important part is to attempt to understand and to learn to let it go when nothing comes up. This doesn’t mean your cards are faulty, that you don’t have intuition (WE ALL HAVE IT), or that something’s wrong with you. When this happens, I believe what we’re meant to learn is that we can chuck the practice and throw it in the bin if it’s not working.
Oracle cards and their messages are not the be all and end all. So if they’re stressing you out, relax, and know that you have the option and right to disregard them when they’re not working for you.
That said, there is a difference between ignoring an oracle card’s message because you don’t get it and disregarding it because you don’t like what it says.
Oracle cards won’t always tell you what you want to hear.
But most of the time, you’ll find that they do tell you what you need to hear. The thing about our ego is that it wants us to follow the path of least resistance all the time. This is fine in some cases, but not all. Pulling oracle cards enables us to cut through what our rational mind wants us to do (usually, this is the easy way out) and remind us of what we owe to ourselves to investigate, confront, or embark on.
For example, you’re going through a difficult fallout with a friend, so you decide to pull an oracle card and ask “What do I need to know today?” Your Tanim deck, then delivers the message “Pumukaw / Stir” and this, naturally, upsets you because the last thing you want to do is stir the pot and create more conflict. You could very well let go of this message and forget all about it; or you could try and figure out why you’re so uncomfortable about disrupting the status quo. Perhaps the energy of “stirring” makes you uneasy because you know it will raise tough issues that you’d rather not discuss with your friend / frenemy. But just maybe actually confronting the issue and stirring the pot can help you cut through the drama and come to a resolution instead. You’re not always going to be happy about whatever resolution may come, but it’s still a resolution (as compared to an endless fallout limbo).
On the other hand, there are times when oracle cards will absolutely, completely, fully validate you.
When your oracle card pulls affirm what you’re feeling or thinking, celebrate it.
It’s a lovely experience to be feeling one thing and then pulling a card that reflects exactly that. Let’s get our little doses of magic wherever we can!
At the end of the day, oracle cards are a means for us to connect to our intuition. They’re designed to help us stay curious, be open, and welcome guidance from within (and without) so that we become better people, have better experiences, and live more meaningfully. If we approach our cards this way, then we learn that divination can be a practical and a magical thing. We begin to understand our present selves and circumstances a little better so that we can take steps forward and co-create the future we want.
If you’re just starting with your oracle journey, I hope these tips help you out! And if you’ve been reading for a while now, I hope this helps you root back into the foundations of your practice and inspires you to start pulling practically and magically.