Here’s How To Cleanse Your Tarot Cards Of Bad Energy

Tarot is a practice everyone can enjoy, whether or not you’re spiritual. If you want to get the most out of your cards energetically, you may choose to cleanse your tarot cards every once in a while. This isn’t at all a necessary practice when it comes to practicing tarot, so you should only do it if you feel it would help you connect more closely with your tarot cards.

A few times in which you might choose to clean your tarot cards could be after someone else has used them, during a full moon, after they have reached a certain number of uses, or when you feel disconnected from your cards.

Certain cleansing practices are considered ‘closed’ practices, which means that they are culturally or spiritually significant, and you shouldn’t practice them if you don’t belong to the closed practice. However, tarot itself is an open practice – anyone can do it – and there are plenty of ways to clean your tarot cards that you can complete no matter what the tarot cards mean to you.

Saying a mantra while shuffling the deck

You may choose to reset your tarot deck by stating your intentions while reshuffling it. Touch each of the cards and repeat an affirmation, say a personal mantra, or simply think or speak about cleansing the deck as you shuffle it. 

Do this when you feel full of positive energy and hope. Imbue your energy and state of mind into the cards as you shuffle or touch each one of them. Imagine all of the negative energy leaving the cards as you cleanse them with your positive energy. 

Burning a candle or incense

If you have a favorite candle or type of incense that smells good to you, you may want to burn it in order to cleanse your tarot cards. Smoke cleansing is an open practice and is perfectly appropriate for you; it usually involves burning incense, herbs, or a candle, and steering the smoke towards the cards, leaving the cards in an inclosed space with the smoke, or fanning the smoke over both sides of the tarot cards. 

Be careful with this method, as you don’t want to get soot on your tarot deck. Note that you are practicing smoke cleansing, not smudging – and if you’re planning on burning herbs, never use white sage. Both of these things are closed practices, whereas smoke cleansing is an open one!

Leave the deck under the light of the moon

The moon is known to recharge energy, and you might have heard of many people leaving their crystals out under a full moon to recharge. You can do the same thing with your tarot deck. A full moon is usually best because it signifies new beginnings, new energy, and is considered to be most powerful. But you can leave your tarot deck under any kind of moonlight if you need an emergency cleansing.

If you choose to cleanse your tarot deck this way, you may decide to leave your tarot cards out under the light of the moon every cycle of the full moon. You might also opt for leaving it out during astrological events like a harvest moon, a blue moon, or a strawberry moon; this can imbue even more energy into your deck and prepare it for the season ahead. 

You can leave your tarot cards outside under the light of the moon as long as they’re in a safe place, but this isn’t necessary. Your cards can receive all the light they need from inside the home as long as they’re in an area that receives moonlight.