Why Tarot/Oracle Cards?
If you’ve ever looked at me sideways or questioned my relationship with The Most High because I read tarot, this post is for you…
My Understanding, Not My Inheritance
This conversation Jasmine had with a group of Christians sent me back down the rabbit hole. I didn’t finish watching it, but there was SO much in the discussion that made me think not because I completely agreed with Jasmine or completely disagreed with the Christians, because my beliefs honestly don’t fit neatly into either box… what interested me was the conversation itself.
One of the women brought up Deuteronomy and said that divination was prohibited in the Bible. This immediately caught my attention because my first thought was:
Okay… what exactly are we calling divination?
I believe we use words like divination, witchcraft, demonic, worldly, and even spiritual without ever stopping to define what we actually mean.
Divination is generally defined as the practice of trying to gain hidden knowledge or understand future events through signs, symbols, omens, spiritual means, or interpretation.
Then we have witchcraft, another word that gets thrown around very loosely. At its broadest definition, witchcraft refers to the practice of magic or sorcery. Historically and religiously, though, that word has meant different things depending on the culture, religion, time period, and person using it.
That matters to me because sometimes we condemn a practice based on the word attached to it without stopping to look at what the person is actually doing. I use tarot because I am visual… and I always go and connect the card to the Bible. I always tell people “I don’t read your future” so no I don’t know if you can be with that man forever but I can help you find out what’s blocking you from loving yourself unconditionally.

Jasmine made a point during the discussion that I thought was really interesting.
If I shuffle tarot cards, pull one, look at the imagery and say, “This speaks directly to what I’m experiencing,” someone may immediately call that divination.
Yet someone else can pray, randomly open their Bible, put their finger on a verse and say, “This is exactly what I needed. God led me here.”
What the difference? It’s all divination.
There is actually a name for that practice: bibliomancy. When it is specifically done with the Bible, it has historically been called sortes biblicae.
I am not saying everything is the same.
I am saying we should be willing to ask why we consider one way of seeking meaning sacred while automatically calling another one demonic.
Especially when the Bible itself has people receiving information, confirmation, direction, and revelation through physical objects, signs, dreams, visions, and symbolic acts.
Look at the Bible:
Exodus 3:2: Moses encounters The Most High through a burning bush.
Exodus 4:2–4: Moses’ staff becomes a sign.
Exodus 28:30: the Urim and Thummim are placed in the breastplate of judgment.
Leviticus 16:8: lots are cast concerning the two goats.
Numbers 17:8: Aaron’s rod buds as confirmation.
Joshua 18:10: Joshua casts lots before the Lord to divide the land.
Judges 6:36–40: Gideon asks for confirmation through the fleece.
1 Kings 18:36–39: Elijah prepares an altar and fire becomes the visible confirmation.
Proverbs 16:33: “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.”
Daniel 2: dreams and their symbolism carry spiritual meaning.
Matthew 2:12: the wise men receive warning through a dream.
Acts 1:26: the disciples cast lots to determine who would take Judas’ place.
Acts 2:17: “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy… your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
Even crystals and gemstones are not foreign to Scripture. The priestly breastplate in Exodus 28 contains precious stones, and Revelation 21 describes the foundations of the New Jerusalem using precious stones.
So symbols, objects, dreams, visions, numbers, lots, signs, and physical representations are ALL OVER biblical stories.
Nope that does not mean the Bible approves of every spiritual practice. It clearly does not. Deuteronomy 18:10–12 prohibits particular practices involving divination, enchantment, familiar spirits, necromancy, and related practices.
My question is deeper:
What was being prohibited? Why was it being prohibited? What did those practices mean within that historical culture? Are we accurately applying those words to everything we don’t understand today?
Those are the kinds of questions I want to ask… I am a metaphysician rooted in the Bible, so I don’t put religion in a box.
I grew up Baptist. I attended Catholic school. I attended Lutheran school. Later, studying metaphysical sciences led me into studying different religions and spiritual traditions.
The more I study, the more I notice how often people are reaching toward some of the same basic things through different religions, languages, and traditions.
Love.
Compassion.
Community.
Self-examination.
Service.
Forgiveness.
How we treat one another.
My beliefs are not identical to Jasmine’s, although they are probably more aligned with hers than with some of the Christians in that particular conversation.
That is okay.
Two things can be true at the same time.
Someone else’s relationship with The Most High does not have to look like mine for me to respect it.
I also don’t approach the Bible as though it simply dropped out of the sky in the exact form we have today.
Let’s be CLEAR King James Bible has a human history. King James I authorized the English translation that became the King James Version in 1604, and it was published in 1611. He was dealing with real religious and political conflict during that time, and he objected to some of the political notes in the Geneva Bible. The translation itself was done by groups of scholars. King James did not personally write the Bible.
King James also had a documented interest in witchcraft and wrote Daemonologie years before the KJV was published.
Knowing that history doesn’t make me throw my Bible away… it makes me study it harder.
I read the Bible almost like a collection of sacred journals, stories, symbolism, history, human experiences, and spiritual lessons. I want to understand what I am reading for myself instead of beginning with somebody else’s conclusion about what I am supposed to see.
That is the difference between what I inherited and what I now understand.
Words matter.
People talk about “manifestation” like somebody invented the word on social media.
Meanwhile, the KJV itself uses manifest and manifestation:
John 14:21: “…I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
Romans 8:19: “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”
1 Corinthians 12:7: “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.”
No, those verses are not teaching the modern Law of Attraction.
Context matters.
My point is that sometimes we become afraid of terminology before we even take the time to understand what the terminology means.
Tarot.
Playing cards themselves have been used for divination. Those same cards can sit on somebody’s kitchen table tonight while everybody plays Spades.
Did the cardboard become demonic?
Or does human intention, interpretation, and use matter?
That is the question I keep coming back to over and over again. It is also the question that used to make me want to hide my spiritual practices. Years ago, when I first started blogging, I called it Behind Closed Doors, and that name probably meant more to me than people ever realized because so much of who I really was existed behind closed doors. I could question, study, explore symbolism, pull cards, and deepen my relationship with The Most High privately, while still worrying about how people would see me publicly. At some point, I realized the more I stayed hidden, the more I felt like I was also hiding the very relationship with The Most High that had led me to grow in this way.
I was not trying to deny God.
I was trying to avoid being judged by people. Eventually, I had to recognize that if I truly believed The Most High was present in the way I was growing spiritually, then I could not keep that part of myself behind closed doors forever.
Someone told Jasmine that certain things were “of this world,” and I liked that she challenged the language because Jesus physically lived in this world.
That distinction matters too…
Scripture itself distinguishes being in the world from taking on particular values of the world. Those are not necessarily the same thing.
For me, spirituality has become less about condemning someone else’s path and more about being accountable for mine.
My relationship with The Most High has actually become stronger through studying.
I ask more questions now.
I research words.
I study history.
I study symbolism.
I study different religions.
I study Scripture.
I study myself.
I am not afraid of going down the rabbit hole because knowledge has not pulled me away from The Most High. For me, it has made the relationship stronger.
It has also made me understand “equally yoked” differently.
I see it as alignment.
The people around me do not have to believe everything exactly as I do. My closest friends don’t. What matters is whether we can sit together, question together, learn together, and disagree without needing to condemn one another.
My circle has changed as I have changed.
Some people who knew an earlier version of me are still here. Some relationships naturally became more distant. There is no love lost there.
I am also very grateful for the relationships that have entered my life in this season. There is an ease that comes with being around people where curiosity isn’t treated like rebellion and difference isn’t automatically treated like something to fear.
What we continually feed ourselves matters.
The conversations.
The gossip.
The books.
The theology.
The relationships.
The environments.
The beliefs.
All of it becomes part of what we carry.
At this point in my life, I want conversations that make me think, not conversations that simply tell me what I am allowed to think.
Maybe that is what I enjoyed most about Jasmine’s discussion.
It wasn’t that I agreed with everything she said… it made me examine what I believe and WHY I believe it. That is far more valuable to me than simply inheriting somebody else’s fear of something I have never taken the time to understand… again this is my understanding, not my inheritance.
Tikisha
Spiritual Counselor | Metaphysician
Understood