Why Oracle Cards Could Be A Great Beginners' Alternative To Tarot

It's never too late to pick up a new skill, however mystical and mysterious. I’ll never forget sitting around my friend's dinner table as her older sister read our tarot cards, none of us really sure she knew what she was doing. But what are oracle cards? They may sound very similar to tarot cards, but oracle cards are actually a little different.

According to Elite Daily, oracle cards tend to be easier to learn and are more free-flowing. While a deck of tarot cards always has 78 cards and are split into suits, oracle decks have their own set of rules, can have any number of cards between 36 and 64 or more, and often don’t have suits. Cards may have their meaning printed on them and often come with a guidebook to help you get the hang of reading them.

Due to the fact that oracle cards are more fluid and can be used for different things, you can use more than one deck to double check or reaffirm what you’re reading. Oracle expert Colette Baron-Reid explains on her website that, “when choosing a deck, a few good pointers are do you vibe with the author? Do you feel your values align with the authors? What level of expertise and background does the author have? That said there are great decks out there by first-timers too so keep an open mind and follow your heart.”

Thanks to their more fluid and free-wheeling nature, when it comes to reading oracle cards there are fewer rules. It’s about learning to trust your own intuition. Some examples of phrases that might be on the cards are let go, you’re going in the right direction, or reconsider and it’s up to you to apply that to your life or the person who is being read.

In a post on her website about what to do when you first get a pack, psychic and medium Corbie Mitfield advises: “I would spend time just looking at the artwork, shuffling, and dealing out the cards in various formations, until the cards made it very clear how they’d enjoy working with me, even suggesting specific spreads to help me find answers and paths to support my clients’ Earthwalk.”

If you feel ready to get in touch with your intuition then there are so many places you could get your hands on oracle cards. Etsy is a great place to start as many sellers let you read the messaging on the cards, as well as look at the pictures. Similarly Free People, the Holistic Shop, and Psychic Tree have a range you can look over.