Dangers of the Occult: Tarot Cards

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Origin of the Tarot
Tarot cards were originally developed in the 15th century, merely as a deck of playing cards. Various non-occultic card games were played throughout Europe with the picture cards. There have been numerous designs for tarot card decks, though most decks have retained the same four traditional tarot suites. Decks have ranged from 15 to 78 cards.

Around the end of the 18th century, tarot cards began to be used as a form of divination, or telling the future. Today, occult tarot cards remain popular with spiritualists and those who practice fortune telling.

The Seductive Lure of the Tarot
The dangers of the tarot became apparent to me several years ago when one of my employees, at that time, acquired a deck and started studying how to use the cards for fortune telling. After a brief period, she was making undeniably accurate predictions about events that would occur in her life and in the lives of her coworkers (as a fellow Christian, I would not allow her to do a "reading" on me). When the unlikely predictions started coming to pass, her interest in the cards deepened to the point of eventual obsession. I saw a normally rational adult become drawn in to the mystery of the tarot to the point that I had to rebuke her in Christian love. I told her that she was dabbling in an area of spiritual darkness that was against her Christian faith and that she should destroy the cards. To my surprise, she agreed with me and and admitted that something in her had become fearful of the cards even though she was increasingly intrigued by them. By the grace of God, she repented of the tarot and returned to her first Love, Jesus Christ, with renewed passion.

My former employee represents many well-meaning people who would not knowingly engage in any "occult" activity, but who find themselves taken hostage by the mystique of the tarot. By the time some practitioners realize they are dealing with a power that extends beyond the deck of cards, they find it difficult to walk away. There is always the question: what will the next card reveal? Like any sin, quitting is the hard part.

The Wrong Source for Guidance
As believers, we have the benefit of turning to our heavenly Father for guidance in every situation in our lives. He not only knows what the future holds for you and I, but He has the power to affect outcomes of situations in a way that will help us and not harm us (Jeremiah 29:11). No information gleamed from the tarot, or from anyone or anything else, has the authority of the instruction we receive from the Lord when we seek Him in prayer.

Saul was a man with a dilemma. As king of Israel, He was facing battle with the army of the Philistines and did not know how to defeat them. He had disobeyed the Lord previously and so God did not answer him when he sought direction from Him. Rather than repent of his disobedience and then seeking God's direction, he made matters worse by turning to a medium for advice. The result of Saul's disobedience and decision to seek advice from a medium was not good.

1 Samuel 28:13-14:

¹³ So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance.
¹⁴ He did not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse.

The solution to Saul's problem was the same as the solution to any problem you or I face: obedience to the Lord and seeking His wisdom and guidance.

Sin By Any Other Name...
The names of many tarot decks says a lot about them. Walmart sells tarot decks online bearing the following names: Alchemy, Gothic, Mystic Dreamer, and The Dark Grimoire. The notorious Satanist, Aleister Crowley, even created his own version of the tarot, called The Thoth, named after the Egyptian "god" of wisdom. Most Christians would shy clear of decks with names like these, but what about tarot decks designed for Christians? These decks, designed with images of saints and angles, have become popular among some believers. The so-called "Christian tarot" decks have names like Soul Tidings Truth Cards, Tarot of the Saints, Angle Voices Oracle, Angel Tarot, Healing With the Angels Oracle, and Messages From Your Angels Oracle. With names like these, you might assume they are okay for Christians to use. Think again.

Despite the Christian theme of these decks, they are just as dangerous to the believer's walk with Christ as decks with more insidious names. Replacing the mysterious images of traditional tarot cards with depictions of St. Peter or the archangel Michael does not make them proper for Christians to use, it only makes them more deceptive. Whether bearing traditional or Christian themes, tarot cards are a form of divination, which God's Word strictly forbids:

Deuteronomy 18:9-14:

⁹ When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.
¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer ¹¹ or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead,
¹² for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.
¹³ You shall be blameless before the Lord your God,
¹⁴ for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.

Some self-proclaimed "mediums" use tarot cards to tell the fortune of others for a fee, often claiming that the their cleint's lost loved ones will communicate through the cards. Again, God commands His people to have no part with such "unclean" people.

Leviticus 19:13:

Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.

Satan knows that most Christians will not embrace the traditional tarot, so he cleverly repackaged them in a form that makes them to appear acceptable. The apostle Paul warned us that Satan's goal is to to outwit the Children of God and that we are to be we are aware of his schemes:

2 Corinthians 2:10-11 (NIV):

¹⁰ Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake,
¹¹ in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

Indeed, Satan himself appears as an angel of light and has his own messengers who disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness:

2 Corinthians:

¹³ For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
¹⁴ And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
¹⁵ So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.

Why, then, should we be surprised that he would disguise divination in the form of the tarot into something that is an acceptable practice for Christians?

"But I use the tarot for meditation, not fortune telling," some will say. God says we are to meditate on His word, not on the tarot:

Joshua 1:8:

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

To meditate on the Word of God, we must open the Word of God and study it prayerfully, asking the Lord to guide us and teach us. The experience of allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us through a Bible reading is one of the sweetest experiences a Christian can know. How shallow and empty, in comparison, is the substitute experience provided by the Devil when using his cards for meditation.

Dangers and Deliverance
The primary danger in using the tarot is that you are seeking knowledge or guidance from something other than the Lord God. With such, God is not pleased. As you have seen from the Scriptures, any form of divination is rebellion against the Lord's Word. It is Jesus Christ, and He alone, that we should look to and trust our future to. If reading tarot cards does nothing more than keep you from taking that time to read God's Word and to seek His will for your life in prayer, then the Devil has accomplished his purpose.

The dangers of the tarot can, however, extend beyond merely distracting us from spending time in God's Word, for some it leads to interests in other occult practices. It is not unusual for those who become enamored by the deceptive power of the tarot to become also curious about other occult practices which may promise even more insight. Spiritism, the Ouija board, angel worship, and any number of other activities can follow an interest in tarot cards. Any of these activities can open the doorway to demonic spirits to enter your life. Numerous are stories from those who innocently began studying the tarot and later found themselves in a spiral of occultism with demonic forces destroying their lives.

God does not command us to avoid certain things because He wants to keep us from having fun or enriching our lives. His commands represent roadblocks to activities that will only hurt us in the long run. Just as a roadblock in the street is put there to protect you from dangers you may not see further along the road, God's "roadblocks" are put there to protect us from dangers we cannot see. God knows the schemes of the Devil. He knows what pitfalls, traps, and heartache Satan has planned for us just a little further down the road. We must regard all forms of occultism, including the tarot, as the snares of the Devil that they are and turn away. We should be thankful that God is a loving God who cares for us and wants to protect us from harm, rather than rebelling against Him.

If you have never practiced reading tarot cards, do yourself a favor and don't start. If you have found yourself in the very snare of the Devil and you just can't seem to give up the tarot, be encouraged. God knows you meant no harm and He knows you want to worship Him but you just can't seem to break free of the sin of divination. He isn't angry at you, but He does expect you to do the right thing at this moment and turn to Him for forgiveness and the deliverance from the sin that has "so easily entangles" you  (Hebrews 12:1).

If you are ready to be set free from the power of darkness and to trust Jesus Christ with your future, your deliverance is only a prayer away. Pray this prayer, now, and I promise you WILL be delivered:

Heavenly Father, your Word says in 1 John 1:9 that if I will confess my sin you are faithful and just to forgive me my sin and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Jesus said in John 8:36 that if the Son sets me free I am free indeed.  He also said in Luke 4:18 that He came to set the captives free. Father, I confess to you that I have sinned by experimenting with the occult and seeking guidance from something other than you. I ask you to forgive me and set me free from any and all influences that would bind me to the tarot or to any occult practice. I thank you for setting me free, now, in the Name of my Savior and Deliverer, Jesus Christ. Amen.

If you said that prayer with a sincere heart, you have been set free. You now need to show your faith that God has set you free by destroying any tarot decks or other occult items that you own. Do not delay, do it now, while continuing to thank the Lord for deliverance.

Begin reading your Bible, find a church to attend if you are not currently attending, and begin now trusting the Lord to guide your every step. Remember, all the wisdom of the Lord God Almighty is at your disposal and is only a prayer away.

If you have never trusted Jesus as your Savior, I invite you to visit our message on Salvation. Click here to go there now.

Additional Scriptures
Leviticus 20:6
1 Chronicles 10:13-14
Acts 19:17-19
Revelation 21:8
Revelation 22:15