Tarot Magic Mini-Course: Lesson 10: Tarot Altars
Welcome to Tarot Magic — a revolutionary new way to use the archetypes of the tarot for powerful personal transformation, practical enchantment, and spiritual growth.
In this mini-course, I’m providing free access to selected material in the full Tarot Magic course. If you enjoy this material, please consider signing up for the complete course here.
- Tarot Magic Mini-Course Main Page
- Goals of the course
- Creating sacred space
- Definitions of magic
- How Tarot Magic is different
- The aces and the classical elements
- The Fourfold Rite meditation
- Breathing the Elements meditation
- Four weeks with the aces and elements
- Tarot altars (you are here)
- Tarot Magic at the Crossroads
Aces and Altars
Example of an altar created using the aces. The standard western esoteric cardinal directions are used here; Ace of Swords (Air) in the east; Ace of Wands (Fire) in the south; Ace of Cups (Water) in the west; and Ace of Coins (Earth) in the west.
The altar can also be constructed with the cards facing inward. This is ideal for consecration rituals, as the energy of the cards is visualized as flowing inward from the card face to the item to be consecrated in the center.
Altars: Your Magical Dashboard
To optimize your magical workings, you’ll need to set up a proper workspace. In most traditions, this space is called an altar, and I like to think of it as my ritual dashboard or spiritual cockpit — the control center from which I launch into, and navigate, magical space.
Privacy
The altar serves as a focal point for your energy and sets aside a sanctified space for magical activity. Over time, if you have a permanent spot for it, it will acquire a palpable energy. Merely standing or sitting in front of it will allow you to quickly slip into a elevated and attuned state of consciousness.
You will need to ensure privacy while working at your altar. Nothing kills the magical vibe more quickly than a roommate, child or peppy puppy wandering into the middle of a ritual. Do whatever is necessary to ensure your absolute privacy — make it known to others that they are not to interrupt except for emergencies.
If you have a companion or roommate who is antagonistic to your practice, tell them you are meditating or working. If you have young children, you may need to wait until they are asleep. Of course, privacy means shutting off your phone and other electronic devices, too. Time at the altar is sacred and should be treated as such.
Tarot Altars
I first encountered the idea of using tarot to create altar in Portable Magic: Tarot Is the Only Tool You Need by Donald Tyson. The book is full of interesting and useful ideas, but it’s firmly in the Kabbalistic Golden Dawn magical tradition, which I no longer work within. If that’s your thing, grab a copy.
Here is the example of a cross tarot altar from Tyson’s book — I distinctly remember this being a eureka moment when I first saw it many years ago. So simple, so brilliant.
When initially used this method, I was blown away. The cards felt like they were moving, rotating like the blades of a fan, when I sat meditating in front of them. The small square in the center was an ideal focal point for concentration.
That single genius idea from Donald Tyson forever altered my magical practice — so thanks, Donald!
I also noticed the swastika that was formed by the bottoms and corners of the cards, which made me a little queasy, despite my knowledge that the shape was considered sacred before the Nazis forever stained it as a symbol of horror. I prefer to avoid swastikas in any form, and encourage you to do so, too.
I realized I could also align the bottoms of the cards without overlapping them, which created a central square in which items could be placed (such as in a consecration ritual, which is covered later in the course). I found this very practical and effective, and began using the aces as the central focus of my altar.
Another great thing about using tarot cards to delineate an altar is you can easily set up anywhere. Just pull out the aces and place them in the proper directions on a large rock while you’re hiking, on the grass in your backyard, on your bed in a hotel room when you’re traveling — just about anywhere they won’t get wet or damaged. If you have a deck of cards with you, you can always build an altar.
Sometimes, though, you need a bigger space in the center for flowers, offerings, working tools, pots of water, and the like. So I would sometimes move my aces away to the sides of my altar, but it lacked that special aesthetic something that is so important to magic.
Oh hello, Mr. Fool! Bringing tarot to the vertical
My next eureka moment came when I started using my tarot cards vertically. At first, I made little cardboard stands for them. The change from flat cards on the altar to cards standing vertically was astonishing — they came to life in front of my eyes. I’m sure you felt that same magic when you first used your stands (you did buy or make some, right? If you haven’t, please go back to module one for links to some stands you can purchase cheaply). It’s exponentially different when the Magician or the Empress or the Fool stands or sits up in front of you and looks you directly in the eye, isn’t it?
That led to my next discovery.
Vertical Aces: Guardians and Windows
I started putting my aces on stands, which led to the realization that they would work on any size altar. They stood like guardians (some witchcraft traditions work with these guardians or watchtower spirits), but I also thought of them as windows for the elemental energies. You may want to think of them as focusing the pure energies of the elements that stream from their respective cardinal directions — the formless elemental energies come through their respective aces like light is transformed by stained glass windows.
In the photo below, I have turned all the cards to face the viewer, but in my practice, I turn the faces of cards toward the center of the altar. I am using the traditional western magical correspondences and looking to the east here.
When you are doing magical work on your altar, I suggest you turn the cards facing inward and imagine them as focusing the elemental energies to the altar’s center, like this.
Apologies for anyone with OCD tendencies, I would arrange the cards a little more carefully in actual practice 😁
So that’s it for this lesson! You can now build a basic altar anywhere, any time, as long as you have a deck with you. Add it to your current tradition, if you have one, or just start playing wit
Michael M. Hughes is a writer, speaker, game designer, and magical thinker. He is the author of Magic for the Resistance: Rituals and Spells for Change(coming soon in a revised and updated edition), the Blackwater Lights Trilogy,as well as numerous other works of fiction and nonfiction, and he speaks and teaches classes on magic, tarot, pop culture, psychedelics, and more.
His comprehensive tarot course, The Art and Magic of the Tarot: Foundations, is available here, as well as his most recent course on Tarot Magic.
Michael’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, CNN, The L.A. Times, Rolling Stone, Comedy Central, Wired, Elle,Vox, Cosmopolitan, The Tamron Hall Show, and even the ultraconservative The American Spectator, which wrote: “He may play footsie with the devil, but at least the man has a sense of humor.”
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