File created: 2026-04-19 Usually, when you unseal a brand-new deck of tarot cards, you find them arranged in a sequential manner the twenty-two Trumps (0-21), then the Aces, Court Cards, and Small Cards of the four suits-all in a tidy, consistent order. This fresh-from-the-factory, perfectly arranged deck could be viewed as representing the way things truly are in the universe When you simfile that pristinely ordered deck, though, you aren’t slauf lling the miverse you we shuffling yourself and the clouded perspective from which your defective powers of perception are currently obliging you to see and interpret your existence and what you mistakenly believe is objective reality.
Shuffling
Shuffling can be a hotly debated topic among Tarot readers believe it or not. Some people like to reset their deck after a reading. Personally, I do not. My deck was in order only once: when I bought it. After that, it has remained as is. I do still shuffle, to introduce an element of randomness, but that only builds upon the randomness of previous shuffles and readings.
Why?
Because life cannot be set back in order once it has begun. Once you have begun to make decisions, for good or ill, they are things that have happened, and it is a fool’s hope to think that we can truly “start fresh,” as it were. There’s a reason the fool only appears at the start of the journey and makes no other appearance.
This holds true for when I shuffle the deck for other people. To read someone’s Tarot, in my experience, is rather like giving one therapy. I don’t often make declarative statements, but begin by asking questions. What’s more is I believe that meeting people makes them a part of my own life story, and so I do not reset the deck after reading for them.
For the same reason, I don’t care if other people touch my deck or handle it. Even granting the possibility of some superstitious energy or what have you that may enter the equation, this is no different to when you encounter someone. Their presence in your life may make a good or bad difference, or it may make no difference at all. Amor fati, I suppose.