So I have some tarot cards

[Dorothy]

Does Catholicism hold that the bible has some demonstrable power inherent in it? I’m not familiar with any such doctrine.

Anyway, there aren’t even any words on tarot cards- they’re just a form of playing cards that some “mystics” decided to make up some significance for. If I look at a picture of a tarot card, am I in danger? If not, is it the act of printing the card that imbues them with demonic power? If I draw my own and label them as “king”, “tower,” ect, did I just perform some sort of ritual?

The book cover, paper, and ink of the Bible has no power. It is the words that we learn about the Word of
God from (Our Lord Jesus Christ) that has power to transform us if we allow it to happen with His Grace.

The Lord is present in His Word, and in the Eucharist. That is why at a Catholic Mass we have the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Our Lord is present in both. The Eucharist is He Himself that comes to us personally. The more faith we bring to His blessings, the more He gives us.

Tarot cards are spiritually harmful when a person goes to someone and asks them to use them for direction in their life.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is God, and He can and does give us direction for our immortal souls.
He gives me peace, joy, love, and can bring me through suffering and difficult circumstances if I allow Him to.

Learning about evil and where it came from and how God uses it to draw us closer to Him can come from prayer and studying those origins.

I pray that all people come to know how much they are loved by God, and want to respond by loving Him back and loving and caring for all people. (With His Love!)

 

[Dorothy]

I agree it’s sinful. Anybody who tries to use thins like tarot cards is basically saying “God isn’t good enough I need more” but we’ll have to agree to disagree on whether or not is actually does anything.

Many testimonies have been written by people who have been deeply involved with various occult activities that opens doors and causes them spiritual, emotional, and physical problems. Not necessarily all three at once, but that is not my call.

I believe the Lord allows them to go through this so that they may realize they need Him most of all, so as to repent, depend on Him and follow Jesus. He is the Deliverer.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

.

Tarot cards are spiritually harmful when a person goes to someone and asks them to use them for direction in their life.

Why would it be any different than flipping a coin? The result is just as random.

 

[Gricken]

Many testimonies have been written by people who have been deeply involved with various occult activities that opens doors and causes them spiritual, emotional, and physical problems. Not necessarily all three at once, but that is not my call.

I believe the Lord allows them to go through this so that they may realize they need Him most of all, so as to repent, depend on Him and follow Jesus. He is the Deliverer.

And while I’m sure that it is very moving for those people personal testimonies aren’t the most reliable way to measure results or truth when dealing with the paranormal

 

[FrankLJ]

I think there is a clear warning: no occult activities. Full Stop. But I don’t think you can engage in such activities without consciously willing it. Since the cards have a legitimate, or at least non - forbidden use ( playing card games), can it be wrong as such to have them? See Dummet’s ‘History of games played with the tarot pack’(2004) for more detail. Incidentally, Dummet’s says they were invented in the early 15 th century, but no account of use for fortune telling surfaced untill a few centuries after that.

Of course, if you have a problem with using the occult, or even playing cards when you should be doing something else, that makes the cards an ‘occasion of sin’ as they say, so better dump them. But that seems like your problem, not the cards.

 

[FrankLJ]

Let me ask you this: Of all the tarot cards that have been made, what percentage of them do you think have actually performed some supernatural feat? Executed an effective curse? Gave the user true knowledge of or power over the future? Not very many, I would guess. I can easily believe that many people have damaged themselves spiritually by using tarot cards, but in most cases the damage was due to their evil intentions - not due to the cards themselves. If a cult suddenly arose where the cultists were using ping pong balls to tell the future or to invoke Satanic power, does that mean I should stop playing ping pong? It is really the same thing.

Good point. You can actually use ping pong balls to cast the I Ching; there is no difference in principle to using Yarrow stalks. Or coins, which is another method.

Regular decks of cards can also be used for fortune telling. Ban cards, coins and ping pong balls - it sounds like one of the tracts handed out by that obsessive woman in Wilkie Collins’ Moonstone - ‘Satan Under the Tea Table’, ‘Satan Behind the Looking Glass’ and my favourite ‘Satan Among the Sofa Cushions’.

Here is a list of things that can be used for occult purposes - better ban them all, just to be on the safe side.

phrontistery.info/divine.html

 

[Cristiano]

It is important to remember that tarot cards were in use for playing a few centuries before they became popular for divination, I think that originally they were a visual teaching tool. When I grew up as a kid I knew that tarots were used for a 3 players card game and nothing else, only as an adult I learned that some people use them for fortune telling.

 

[FrankLJ]

To speak to one point made by an earlier poster; many modern tarot decks do,indeed, have occult symbolism on them. As there is a flat ban on any use of the occult, you should probably not be using that kind to play with. The ‘Rider’ deck,very popular in the USA, is one example of this type deck. Examples of the type I think are ok are the types used in Bavavia and Northern Italy to play games like ‘Tarocci’.

Even if you only use an occult- oriented deck to play with, you will constantly have its symbolism paraded before you, and made acceptable by long usage. People don’t do this in other areas of life. Take a secular example; someone could design a Nazi deck, with Goering as an overweight King of Clubs, Goebbels as a truly knavish Jack of Diamonds, Roehm as one of the Queens (hah), all the big SS men as various Spades (as the gravediggers of Europe) and so on. Do you see this as being widely used at bridge parties all over the USA? Exactly.

As someone said earlier, I would not use ping pong balls with occult symbolism on them. Anymore than I would use swastika balls that said ''Morgen die Ganze Welt!". I was making a little fun of the ‘ban everything’ attitude, earlier, but I do see some of the concerns that prompt it.

 

[esieffe]

Using that logic, one could also say the bible is nothing more than a mass produced book, made of paper and ink, nothing more, or Ouija boards are nothing more than cardboard…

Thats all they are in the physical sense, but all of them have hidden ‘power’

We pay extra money for Rosaries blessed by the pope. We go to the trouble of having our houses blessed. Who is to say if certain objects are not blessed in a “not so positive way…”

 

[FrankLJ]

We pay extra money for Rosaries blessed by the pope. We go to the trouble of having our houses blessed. Who is to say if certain objects are not blessed in a “not so positive way…”

I do not know much about this. What is the actual Church teaching on the existence of such items? References to the CCC or quotations from Church official documents would be useful, if anyone has them.

 

[Dorothy]

We pay extra money for Rosaries blessed by the pope. We go to the trouble of having our houses blessed. Who is to say if certain objects are not blessed in a “not so positive way…”

A slight correction for your first sentence: Blessed objects are not to be sold, no matter who blessed them. We bring them to be blessed after we buy them.

(However, I believe I am understanding the point you are making.)

It is very good to invite our parish priest to our home to have it blessed. Blessings are powerful. And, then, hopefully, those who live in the house start to pray together as a family.

I do agree about items that can be “not so positive”. Some people innocently do not see the harm in certain objects. We are here for each other to learn and teach.

 

[ClearWater]

1. I used to collect tarot cards for the pretty art, and have a bunch of them stored in the garage. I kind of need some cash to pay off some bills - would it be permissible to sell them?

Before you answer “no, I should burn them all, because someone might use them” keep in mind, tarot cards’ original principal purpose was for card games, that was adapted over time into fortune telling. (I collected them primarily for the art/card games)

1. Now change the tarot cards in question #1 into handguns. Now keeping how you answered #1 in mind, is the answer still “no, because someone might murder someone with it” despite having handguns having about as wiggle room for various purposes as tarot cards? (self-defense, sport shooting)

In one sense, you have something right about the gun analogy in that you seem to, on some level, recognize tarot cards as being at least potentially lethal.

However, otherwise, some other analogy would be better, more like that of, say, radioactivity. However, even radioactivity falls short of it, as well. Well, radioactivity can only kill your body, NOT your soul.

Tarot can not only help take your soul but anyone who comes into contact with it.

So, although these cards could bring some welcome money, I think you are being given a choice as to which is more important to you, God or money.