I’m starting to study tarot.

　This time, I’ll talk about what sparked this series on learning tarot and what I plan to do going forward.

My Encounter with Tarot

　I first encountered tarot through YouTube videos I watched while bedridden with depression. Since I could watch videos, I think it was several months after taking leave from work. I watched YouTube as a comforting companion during sleepless nights. That’s when tarot readings happened to appear. For me, sick and unable to see the future, even a fortune-telling that offered guidance about what lay ahead became a tremendous source of solace.

　I watched a lot of fortune-telling videos. Since I couldn’t sleep, I had plenty of time. The readings often contained things that resonated with me. And what I found interesting was that, perhaps because they incorporate Western astrology, even when different people do the readings, the content often ends up similar.

　Even when different people use completely different methods to tell fortunes, similar results come up. And sometimes I think those fortune-telling results are accurate. I found that interesting.

　Tarot is a form of divination that uses chance. Rather than focusing on whether it’s accurate, I feel it strongly emphasizes offering guidance for future actions. Even so, it was a reassuring presence for me, who couldn’t see the path ahead.

　After watching videos for over a year, I decided I wanted to try reading cards myself and purchased a deck.

How I Use My Tarot Cards

　I also bought several tarot books and studied them. However, I haven’t yet reached the point where I can do detailed readings.

　My current use of tarot is to find lost things.

Have you ever thought about your own belongings, like, “Huh, I haven’t seen this in a while,” or “I tried to use it after so long, but it wasn’t where I thought it would be”?

I use tarot to find it. I’ve already searched all the likely places. When I still can’t find it, that’s when Tarot comes in.

　Divide the house into 4 to 6 sections and ask the tarot one section at a time whether the lost item is present in each area. Since the cards include positive and negative cards, I use that to determine presence or absence.

I divide the area where the lost item might be into smaller sections and ask again. After narrowing down the area this way, I finally ask about specific locations one by one, such as “Is it the third drawer from the top? Or the fourth?”

　At that point, only places I think “There’s no way it could be here” remain, but when I check the last location mentioned, it’s always there.

　The first time I found a lost item using this method, it felt so coincidental it gave me goosebumps. But as we’ve done it more often, the feeling that “we ask the tarot to find lost items” has become firmly established in our family.

I’d also like to do a tarot reading.

　If it yields such results, it’s only natural to want to try divining other things too. I do try divining other things, but since my knowledge of card meanings is vague, it doesn’t quite work out. Sometimes, when I take a photo of the divination results and check them later, I find cards with meanings that seem to foreshadow things that actually happened.

　I think the tarot is trying to tell me something, but I’m not receiving the message. It’s such a waste not to receive it when it’s trying so hard to tell me.

So I’ll study.

　So, I decided to study. But when I study alone, I tend to grasp things based on a vague sense of ‘just feeling it out,’ and that feels kind of pointless. That’s when I came up with this scheme: share what I learn so we can all learn together. I’ll compile the topics in order to share. Those who read them can enjoy saying “Oh, I see!” as they go through them. I thought, wouldn’t that be nice?

Would you like to join us?

　My ultimate goal is to become capable of performing various types of divination myself—in order to do so, I still don’t know exactly what will be required. Tarot seems far more profound than I initially imagined. I might even need to delve into Western astrology. Even so, I’ll continue sharing what I learn along the way, and I’d be delighted if you’d join me in this journey of discovery.

　I take the utmost care to avoid mistakes, but I apologize if any errors slip through. I will make corrections as soon as I notice them. This isn’t a direct copy of a book; it’s compiled from various sources and organized by me. I can’t help but feel anxious about whether everything is entirely correct. Please bear with me.

　Ultimately, I’d love to be able to do monthly horoscopes somewhere in Satsukingdom. Or something like that.