Cleansing Tarot Cards: How to Cleanse Your Tarot Deck

Tarot cards have long been a popular way of gaining insight into one’s life and guiding one toward true happiness. When we connect with our tarot deck, it aligns with our energy, emotions, and experiences in response.

The importance of regular tarot cleansing can’t be overstated—ask a professional tarot reader, and they will confirm. If you fail to cleanse your deck regularly (as well as before using it for the first time), the answers it will give to your questions might be vague or even outright inaccurate.

So, let’s explore the sacred art of cleansing tarot cards; we’ll discuss popular methods you can use to honor the soul of your deck and foster your connection with it.

New Tarot Deck Cleansing

Starting your tarot journey with a clean deck is the perfect way to get started. You need to use effective methods to remove any leftover negative energies from manufacturing and handling, ensuring your cards are receptive to your intentions.

By cleansing a new tarot deck, you get in tune with it and start building a relationship between you and your deck. It’s similar to shuffling the tarot deck in that you give the cards an opportunity to tune into your energy and feel the impulses you are sending.

If you are using a tarot deck that belonged to someone else before you, tarot card cleansing is even more important. You need to create a tabula rasa of sorts, which is why it’s essential to remove the previous owner’s energy from the cards.

Tarot Cards Cleansing: A Few Common Methods

Now, let’s explore a few well-known and effective strategies for cleansing your tarot cards.

How to Cleanse Tarot Cards Without Tools

Don’t worry if you don’t have typical cleaning tools. You can cleanse your tarot cards using intention and imagery while acknowledging the energy flow between you and your deck. However, this isn’t the easiest way to cleanse the cards, especially for a beginner. That’s why we recommend you use some help; it doesn’t necessarily need to come from any specific tools.

Sunlight, moonlight, and even natural fresh air can remove negative energy and attract positive energy while dissipating any lingering energies from the packaging or the previous owner. You can achieve this, for example, by waiting for a full moon (the sky needs to be cloudless, though) and placing your deck somewhere where the moonlight can reach it.

Cleansing Tarot Cards with Salt

Another easy and popular way to cleanse a tarot deck is by using salt, a very effective ingredient that can be used as a tarot cleanser. Here’s how it goes:

1. Put the tarot cards in a container with a few tablespoons of sea salt to make a salt-infused cleansing bath (obviously, don’t add any water to avoid destroying your cards). 
2. Let them soak in the cleaning qualities of the salt overnight.

That’s pretty much it. Your deck is fully cleansed and ready to help you get the answers you’re looking for.

Crystals for Cleansing Tarot Cards

Crystals have unique energetic properties that can successfully cleanse tarot cards. If you have the right crystals at home, why not use them? To remove the negative energy you can place your deck on a crystal cluster or directly next to a crystal.

The best crystals for cleansing tarot cards are crystal quartz (otherwise known as the “master healer”), amethyst, selenite, and black tourmaline.

Crystal quartz is fantastic for cleansing and enhancing the energy of other crystals and objects, including tarot decks. Amethyst helps to clear negative energy and bring in a calming, intuitive energy, which is great for tarot readings.

Selenite, which is universally known for its powerful cleansing and purifying properties, is akin to a big energetic broom that sweeps away any unwanted vibes from your tarot deck. Finally, black tourmaline is excellent for grounding and protection; it helps dispel negative energies.

Cleansing Tarot Cards with Incense Sticks

Most people interested in all things energy and spirituality have incense sticks at home. But if you don’t, you can easily buy them online or offline; they aren’t expensive or difficult to find. Incense sticks such as sage can pass the good energy through the aromatic smoke. This renews the energy of the deck and helps you get a more precise and accurate tarot reading.

If you run out of incense, don’t worry. It is pretty easy to cleanse your tarot cards without incense, especially if you have some tarot experience and no longer struggle with connecting with a deck of cards. Use your pure energy to cleanse the deck—hold your tarot cards and take deep breaths while thinking about removing the negative energy from the deck.

What Happens If You Don’t Cleanse Your Tarot Cards

Not cleansing a tarot deck is a big mistake, and we encourage you to avoid it. Simply put, an uncleansed deck will likely fail to follow your trail of thought, which will lead to inaccurate readings.

Tarot readings are about energy and connection; if the tarot deck isn’t cleansed properly, you can get confusing answers because of the remnants of other people’s energies. It will get in the way of you getting the answers you see from the cards.