Can You Buy Your Own Tarot Cards? (Spoiler: Yes, You Can!)

Why you can buy your own Tarot Cards

If you’re just starting out with tarot and you’ve heard the whisper: “You must be gifted your first deck,” then you’re not alone. This superstition circulates widely, even today, and can stop spiritual seekers from embracing their own tarot practice with confidence. At The Empress & Wolf we love mythbusting this idea in store so felt it was time to write about it.

A Brief History: From Medieval playing cards to esoteric tool

The tarot deck didn’t originate as a divination tool, it actually began as a card game! The first tarocchi decks emerged in Northern Italy in the 15th century, based on existing playing cards with additional trump cards called trionfi.
It wasn’t until the late 18th and 19th centuries that tarot became widely associated with occultism, divination, and symbolic meanings.
The notion that you must receive a deck as a gift is relatively modern. This myth began circulating in 20th century U.S. spiritual communities, likely rooted in fundamentalist Christian superstition, gatekeeping, and the New Age idea that a deck must arrive pre charged with “right energy.” 

Why people believe you can't buy your own Tarot Cards

• Tarocchi used to be rare and expensive. The oldest surviving decks were commissioned by wealthy medieval families. When the cards started to be used for divinatory purposes, these skills were often passed on in family lineages and tightly guarded due to the good money fortune telling could bring in (and also due to potential persecution from Christian authorities). Decks would have been passed down in families, along with the ability to decipher them. Knowledge about tarot, and the ability to buy an affordable Tarot Deck is now available with a simple web search anywhere in the world, so this idea of passing down is no longer relevant to most people today.

• Some Christian influenced communities in the 20th Century U.S. spread cautionary stories about buying your own tools as a method of control and a way to stop people buying and getting into esoteric practices they wrongly saw as evil.

• Online spiritual circles and forums gradually amplified these “rules,” making them feel like universal truths, even though they aren’t.

The Truth: It’s completely fine, and often better, to buy your own tarot cards

Personal resonance matters more than who bought your deck!

• By choosing your own deck, you select art, symbolism and energy that calls to you which builds a stronger intuitive bond.

• By choosing for yourself, you’re not waiting for someone else to initiate your path, you’re taking ownership of your spiritual journey.

• Gift-only beliefs can become a barrier to practice. What happens if no one gave you one? You’d be stuck.
  
  

Empower yourself with Tarot

When someone asks us “Should I wait for a gift?”, we say

• If a loved one wants to gift you a deck and you feel good about it that's great!

• But if a deck calls to you, trust yourself and buy it.

• Focus on the deck that resonates with your intuition, not an arbitrary rule.
  

Tarot is about connection, intuition, and meaning. The origin of your deck doesn’t determine how much insight you’ll receive. Your relationship to the cards and your intuition and dedication the craft of tarot reading will greatly enhance any insights from the cards more than anything else. So pick the deck you’re drawn to, charge it with your intention, and welcome it as your companion. Superstition doesn’t hold the magic, you do.