Cleansing a tarot deck means clearing whatever the last reading left behind, and the simplest way to do it is also the oldest: sort the cards back into order, shuffle them properly, and begin again. You do not need smoke, a full moon or anyone’s permission, and if you wanted to know how to cleanse a tarot deck in a single sentence, that was it.
Shuffling is the practical half of the same job. It mixes the cards so the draw is honest, and it gives your hands something to do while the question settles in your head, which turns out to be most of what any ritual is for.
What cleansing is actually doing
The cards are cardboard, and nothing stays in cardboard. What does stay is in you: the order the deck was in when you put it down, the card you keep thinking about, the mood of the last reading, which was probably a heavy one, because nobody feels the need to cleanse after a pleasant draw about a weekend away.
So cleansing is a way of drawing a line under one reading so that the next can start clean, and it works on the reader rather than on the deck. That is not a reason to skip it. Ten minutes spent putting seventy eight cards back in order, the Fool through the World and then the four suits, is a thorough way of leaving a reading behind.
How to cleanse a tarot deck, held lightly
People knock on the deck three times, leave it on the windowsill under a full moon, rest a piece of clear quartz on top of it overnight, pass it through smoke, or simply breathe out over it once. None of these do anything to the cards, and all of them do something to you if you let them, because each one marks a moment, and marking the moment is the whole point.
Pick the one that takes two minutes and does not set off the smoke alarm, and do not buy anything for it. If you like the moon version, the moon phase page will tell you when the next full one is, and the windowsill does the rest. And if a deck has started to feel as though it is against you, that is a feeling about the readings rather than about the cards, and it is a good reason for a week off rather than a bonfire.
How to shuffle tarot cards without bending them
Tarot cards are bigger than playing cards, and the riffle shuffle, where you bend two halves and let them fall together, will crease them along the middle within a month. Use an overhand shuffle instead: hold the deck in one hand and drop small packets into the other, over and over, until the order has gone. If your hands are small, spread the cards face down on the kitchen table and swirl them about with both palms, then gather them into a pile and square it up.
Forty seconds is usually enough. If you are still shuffling three minutes later it is rarely the cards that are not ready, and it is worth asking what you are putting off. If you read reversed cards, turn half a packet around now and then as you go so that some arrive upside down, and if you do not, keep everything facing the same way and turn any accidental reversal the right way up.
A deck someone else used
A deck from a thrift store, a friend’s spare, a deck that belonged to somebody in your family: nothing is wrong with any of them, and nothing of the previous owner is in the cardboard. The question of how to cleanse a tarot deck that has a history has the same answer as any other, with one extra step at the front. Count the cards first, because seventy seven is a common number in a secondhand box, then sort the deck into order once and shuffle until the order is gone, and it is yours.
If it belonged to somebody you loved who has died, keep it, and read with it when you are ready and not before, since a deck resting in a drawer for a year is not a failure of anything. And if it came from somebody you would rather not think about, it is allowed to go back to the thrift store, and so is the guilt about that.
When to do it, and when not to bother
Cleanse after a reading that stayed with you, after the deck has spent months in a drawer, and when you have been given or bought a deck that has lived with someone else. Not before every draw, because a ritual repeated every morning stops being a line and becomes a chore, and the daily card works best when it takes two minutes at most, as the daily card page describes.
The habit that does more for your readings than any cleansing is a notebook with one line per draw. Tonight, take the deck out, put it in order once from the Fool to the King of Pentacles, and shuffle it until the order is gone. That is the whole ceremony, and it is enough.
Questions people ask
Do you need to cleanse a new tarot deck?
Not for the cards’ sake, since a new deck has been sitting in a box and nothing has happened to it. Doing something with it once before the first reading still helps, because it marks a start. Look at every card, then shuffle well, which also breaks the factory order that would otherwise deal you the whole suit of Cups in a row.
How do I shuffle tarot cards without bending them?
Use an overhand shuffle, dropping small packets from one hand into the other, or spread the cards face down on a table and mix them with both hands before gathering them up. The riffle shuffle that works for playing cards creases tarot cards along the middle, and a creased card becomes the one you notice every time it turns up.
Can I use a tarot deck that someone else used?
Yes. Count the cards to check that all seventy eight are there, sort them into order once, shuffle until the order is gone, and the deck is yours. Nothing of the previous owner stays in the cardboard. The only thing worth pausing on is whether you want their deck at all, and that is allowed to be a no.