Published 15/07/2024 by Louise Emma

How to Use Oracle Cards: A Beginners Guide

They are also a powerful, easy-to-access resource for guiding, advising, and opening pathways towards self-awareness and intuitive development.

Learning how to read oracle cards over tarot cards is more accessible as they are more unstructured than the major and minor arcana and can cover a wider variety of themes and messages.

Learning how to use oracle cards is a simple yet interesting way to develop self-awareness and intuitive abilities.

This guide on how to use Oracle cards will help you understand the when’s and how’s of Oracle cards and their uses and will provide direction on how to read Oracle cards for your own benefit and personal insights.

What Are Oracle Cards?

Oracle cards are a divination tool that provides validation, counsel, angel messages, wisdom, and closure on emotional, mental, physical, and psychic issues and concerns.

Oracle cards are a collective deck of cards with beautiful card imagery and simple messages.

To help you learn how to use Oracle cards, there will usually be a guidebook or small booklet with tips in the box you purchased explaining the card meanings, how to read Oracle cards and the card combinations or spreads you can use.

The cards are specifically designed to help users access their own intuition and connect with their higher self or spiritual guides. They are often used in spiritual practices, meditation, and personal development.

What Are Oracle Cards Used for?

Oracle cards are used for endless reasons and purposes, most of which centre around finding insights, clarity and making decisions.

When people learn how to read oracle cards, they can be used as a pathway to daily guidance. This helps users become aware of obstacles in their way, struggles or challenges, decisions, and personal development.

Professional live psychic readers also recommend them as a powerful tool to aid you in accessing and developing intuitive abilities.

Read our guide on How Tarot Card Readings Work.

How to Use Oracle Cards Step-by-Step

Oracle card readings can be an excellent daily or weekly practice, allowing you to give yourself and others insight and guidance. Here is a step-by-step approach to how to read Oracle cards, which will help you create powerful and accurate readings.

Step 1: Choose Your Oracle Deck

The first step when learning to use Oracle cards is choosing the right deck for you. You'll find that many varieties of decks are available, each with its own distinctive theme, artwork, and energy.

Browse many decks and let your intuitions be your guide in choosing the deck you resonate with. Consider whether you're drawn to the imagery portrayed and the flow of the messages and choose your favourite deck.

Step 2: Create a Peaceful Environment

Before you start learning how to use Oracle cards for the first time, you should get into a suitable mind space. Fashion a quiet, calm, and sacred space to access your inner intuition, clear your subconscious mind and stay grounded.

Light some candles or incense. These are popular rituals to relax and prepare the mind and body to access your intuition. You are focused and ready to learn how to use Oracle cards.

Step 3: Shuffle the Deck

Now that your space is ready, it's time to start with step 3 on using Oracle cards and shuffling the deck.

Pick up your Oracle deck and let your hand begin to move in a shuffling motion. If you aren't used to shuffling a card deck, you must mix up all the cards while maintaining clear, focused, positive energy. Shuffling the deck mixes up the cards to allow for a random draw.

Step 4: Ask Your Question

Now, it's time to ask your question. Ask for guidance on something specific—a love situation, an important decision, a seemingly intractable problem, or anything else you want to know more about.

An open-ended question such as 'What is my next step?' or 'What do I need to know right now?' can also work. Again, the clarity of the question is critical to receiving a clear message.

Step 5: Draw a Card or Cards

Having voiced your query or intention towards the cards, you draw out one or several ­cards from the deck.

Draw one for a reasonably straightforward answer and several for a more detailed reading. Learning how to read Oracle cards includes learning the different spreads and what each spread is specifically for, such as love, career, past situations, and more.

There are many spreads to choose from, like a three-card or a Celtic Cross, but it's up to you and what you want to find out from the cards. Follow your intuition about which cards to draw and which spread to use. Put the cards down in front of you in the pattern or layout that you have chosen.

Step 6: Interpret the Cards

The final step of learning to read oracle cards is the actual divination, where your intuitive abilities come into play.

To divine means to bring forth or to see or to know. It means to sense or see into, prophesy, or foretell - This is the most difficult part of learning to read oracle cards because intuition is a skill you may still be developing.

Refer to the card guidebook that comes with your deck for the cards' meanings, but don't limit yourself to meanings; sense the images, words and feelings that arise in your body as you look at the cards.

Reflect on the card's messages, decipher how they relate to your question or situation, and allow yourself to be open to the unexpected insight and guidance they provide.

How to Read Oracle Card Spreads?

Another tricky part of learning how to use Oracle cards is using the different Oracle layouts or spreads.

Oracle card spreads are patterns of cards that you can use to gain more insight and clarity about other topics and questions in life. Different spreads will generate various kinds of meaning and information, as well as detailed levels of insight, depending upon the complexity of the layout, how many cards you use and what position you use them in.

Here are some more common spreads to use when learning to read Oracle cards.

1 Card Spread

The 1 Card Spread is unarguably the simplest, quickest way to get a reading, making it the ideal spread to use for Getting a clean, clear answer to a specific yes or no question or providing general insight into your current situation.

For a 1 Card Spread, shuffle the deck with your question or purpose in mind, draw just one card, and then practice your intuitive abilities by interpreting the cards and paying closer attention to the message via its imagery and message.

2 Card Spread

If you're learning how to use Oracle cards for the first time, the 2-card spread is a beginner's choice. If you're after a simple way to reflect on a problem, find personal insight, need a yes or no answer, or weigh up the pros and cons of a situation, the 2-card spread is a good recommendation.

The 2-card spread is also a good choice if you have one question, need advice, and want to know a simple outcome.

3 Card Spread

The three-card spread is the choice for most Trusted Psychics live psychic readers. It's effective and used to explore past, present and future events.

The 3-card spread is one of the most widely used and versatile spreads when learning to read oracle cards and for giving professional readings.

Start with a question or focus, shuffle to get in a state with your question or focus, then pull three cards and lay them out in a line. The first represents the past; the second represents the question, focus or current situation; and the third card represents the potential future that may manifest from this situation.

The three-card spread is an all-around guide on how past events influence your present and shape your future.

Questions to Ask Oracle Cards

Part of knowing how to use Oracle cards is knowing the best questions to ask to get the clearest answers.

Using oracle cards becomes much more effective, and you get much better reading when the questions you ask open up the possibility of insightful, potentially valuable answers. Here are some good card questions to get clear answers:

• What do I need to know about my current situation?
• What is blocking me from achieving my goals?
• What should I focus on to improve my relationships?
• What steps can I take to enhance my personal growth?
• How can I best navigate this challenge?
• What is the underlying issue I need to address?

These questions are clear and encourage the cards to provide detailed and helpful guidance.

How to Cleanse Your Oracle Cards?

The last part of learning to use Oracle cards is caring for them and protecting their energy. Between divination sessions, it's good practice to cleanse your oracle deck to ensure the energy remains clear and free from any spiritual energy in the environment or cards from prior oracle readings.

There are a few choices to cleanse your cards. You could use smoke from Sage or Palo Santo and pass each card through the smoke while you set an intention or positive mindset to clear and energise your deck. Another way to cleanse your cards is by laying them outside under a full moon overnight to absorb the moon's energy and purify them.

You could also use sound by ringing a bell or a singing bowl near the cards to clear their vibrational field; many readers choose to do this as part of their daily ritual. You can also place a clear quartz crystal on top of your deck to clear it and charge it with positive energy.

Tarot Readings

So, which is better, Oracle cards or tarot cards? Or are Oracle and tarot cards the same thing? When people choose Trusted Psychics Australia for a card reading session, they often ask these kinds of questions.

Most professional readers believe tarot cards and tarot readings can give you a fuller, more detailed, and in-depth overview of life or any situation and give insights into past, present and future events.

However, an Oracle card reading can be just as powerful and informative if the Oracle reader has developed strong intuition and truly connects with the cards as one.

Luckily, our research and quality testing team only welcomes the best of the best to give our loyal customers readings. If you want to learn how to use Oracle cards for beginners or want one of our expert live psychic readers to perform an Oracle reading on your life using your spiritual tool of choice, call us.

You can contact a live psychic reader who will always aim to help you with any situation you face or spiritual guidance you need. If you fancy talking on an online chat, you can talk to your preferred reader on Live Messenger chat. It's quick and easy to use.

FAQs

How Many Oracle Cards Should I Pull?

The number of cards you choose to 'pull' will depend on the type of guidance you need and your level of focus and clarity on the question you are trying to delve deeper into or clarify.

If you are starting to learn how to use Oracle cards, you may want to try a one-card spread. Pull a single card to give you a clear and concise answer to a yes or no question.

How Do I Cleanse My Oracle Cards for the First Time?

You'll want to cleanse your oracle cards when you first get them so that they are energetically clean and do not pick up other people's energy.

Use the smoke from sage or Palo Santo to cleanse your cards.

Light the sage or Palo Santo and pass your cards through the smoke as you think of your intention to clear excess energy from the cards. Blasting the cards with light is another great way to cleanse and recharge Oracle cards.

Others choose to use the natural light from a full moon to purify the card's energy.

Is an Oracle Deck a Tarot Deck?

An oracle deck is different from a tarot deck, even though both are used for intuitive guidance and divination.

A tarot deck usually has a set arrangement, with 78 cards (separated into a Major Arcana and Minor Arcana) with specific meanings or suggestions. Oracle decks conjure energies and messages of protection and generally have themes or messages that are not so detailed.

How Many Times Should You Shuffle Oracle Cards?

There is no strict rule for how many times you should shuffle any deck. You should stop shuffling when your conscious mind and intuition tell you it is the right time to stop. When you have focused the question or intention towards the cards long enough and clear enough, you will feel it and stop shuffling.

Can You Ask Oracle Cards Yes or No Questions?

Oracle cards come with short-answer questions that invite inspection and sophistication, but yes and no questions can be answered by appropriately framing the question and using the right spread.

Oracle cards can function well for yes' or 'no' answers. Use the card's imagery and message to determine whether the card is a yes or no card. Let the card's image and message speak to and guide you to the answer.

Trusted Psychics welcomes you to their professional Oracle card online reading service, where you can discover the mysteries of the Oracle cards today.

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