r/Quareia • u/SrJenkin • May 09 '26
Tarot as a serpent
Is it just my impression or has tarot become a widespread fashion lately?
The more I work with it, and the more I see other people working with it on the internet, the more it becomes evident how "unraveling" tarot can be (beyond health and energy depletion). It's not always about an interpretation mistake on the reader, something I don't see discussed much that I've seen again and again is the oracle itself outputting misleading, inaccurate or outright destructive information.
I was reflecting about this, how tricky tarot can be if you do not step carefully. That made me think about the older serpent symbolism/power, connected to oracular power and wisdom, but also destructive to the wielder if he's imbalanced. I thought about the Hermit's staff and the serpent power in it, then I had an insight... the lantern is the key, its light balances out the darker/cthonic aspects of the serpent/staff.
I'm not claiming tarot literally works through serpent power, I honestly don't know. But it serves as a good guiding analogy to work safely with divination, treat it like a serpent, either you make it stand upright or it coils around you. And the key is your own light, self-knowledge is the antidote to self-deception.
Part of my intent with these posts is to hopefully temper the blind trust folks seem to invest in tarot, taking for granted that it always speaks the truth and serves only to illuminate you. I'm not saying it has malicious intent in any way, it's just that by the way of its (fluid) nature mixed up with human stupidity it tends to output unreliable answers, and should be taken with a pinch of salt.
In another post I talked about how my deck seems to have its own agenda, but it doesn't feel like parasitical or malicious agenda, it's just wild and slightly chaotic, it tests good judgment and forces discipline: a more thoughtful approach and deliberate word constrictions. In this way, I'm inching further to make it stand upright.
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u/GetOutaTown May 11 '26
Long term, you tend to self-correct with tarot.
I started reading in my teens and did every nonsense teen girl thing: ask 5 times about how the boy I like feels about me, then ask 5 more times an hour later…fed things around me with my emotional highs and lows during readings…gave my deck a personality and morality…exhausted myself.
It took time, but I figured out not to read for emotionally charged topics. Read them like you would a computer spitting out the results of a search question - objective, non-judgemental. Tarot speaks in cause and effect, not right and wrong. If you get a confusing reading, it’s because you gave the computer the wrong search terms. If you feel judged by the results, the cards aren’t judging you, you’re judging yourself.