Oracle Cards 101—Because Sometimes You Need a Softer Deck

I’m getting ready to slam everyone with tarot knowledge soon, because I’ve been studying it intensely lately, so today I thought I’d talk to y’all about oracle cards.

Oracle cards are very similar to tarot, but many people find them easier to use. Where Tarot has a very specific structure to them, oracles are much more free. Instead of a consistent 78, oracle decks can have as many as 80 cards, or as few as 10 depending on the deck. Their themes and meanings are all completely separate and different from deck to deck too, most tarot uses the Rider-Waite system. You can’t always get quite as much detail in oracle readings, but sometimes the simpler interpretations just vibe better with people. Saffire prefers oracles to tarot.

They’re mostly intended to be used for small spreads, like three card spreads, or a daily one card draw. They give great overall context or guidance for questions or just an affirmation after a hard day. Feeling sad? Don’t grab tarot, those are likely to tell you to “fix it or…” while oracles, depending on the deck, can give you a “hey, you’re doing your best, don’t let life get you down”.  In all honesty, though, you can read oracles like tarot. You can do whatever spreads so long as you have enough cards, because just like tarot it’s all intuition based. In fact, oracles with their vaguer meanings require you to be more in tune with your intuition to interpret them properly.

I have numerous oracle decks. They’re gorgeous, I like the themes, they feel nice in my hands… but I really don’t use them. I have a preference to tarot for some reason, not sure why but my brain just understands tarot better than oracles. I like big, intensive card spreads too and most oracle decks just aren’t built to do that. I’ve done 20 card spreads before, can’t do that efficiently when that ends up being over half the deck.

I’ve read that many readers have started joining the two concepts into one reading. They’ll have their normal tarot spreads, but they’ll pull an oracle to give extra clarity or to set intention. I like this idea, but I also have the issue of being as much a collector as a reader of tarot and oracle. I have so many decks… so, so many… I would have a hard time deciding which decks to use together. I mean, fuck, I just bought a new oracle and two new tarot’s at our Pagan Pride Day a couple weeks ago. I don’t even know how many decks I have anymore, I’ve lost count.

I’m hoping to hone and polish my tarot skills to the point that I don’t need the guidebook anymore. Once I get that down I am planning to experiment with adding oracles, but I also am just going to need to start doing readings more, but it’s actually kind of difficult to find people willing to get a reading in my area… my coworkers have all gotten readings who want them. I don’t know, any ideas?

What do you guys prefer? What decks do you have? Any recommendations?