Are There Really “Bad” Cards in Tarot?

You know the trope; a wide eyed seeker ducks through a heavy velvet curtain and sits before a fortune teller.

Heart in their mouth and hopes high, they watch in horror as she uncovers a card and seals their fate: Death.

This image is so prevailing in Tarot that it still seems to stop people venturing into professional readings. It is often the first thing I hear when I talk about what I do - the idea that a reading will predict some terrible and unavoidable fate seems seared into the public consciousness.

Perhaps this is unsurprising; after all the deliberate demonisation of witchcraft and magical practices is incredibly well documented.

Perhaps if people felt safe to explore the tarot and to work with experienced readers, or (heaven-forbid) learn to read for themselves, what they would actually find is a nuanced tool for navigating their inner worlds.

Of course it’s dangerous; not to your personhood, but to the structures that assign and limit your identity. The Tarot will help you to dismantle every system that keeps you obedient to your conditioning. That kind of self enquiry is deeply threatening to a system that depends on your compliance and unconscious consumption.

The Tarot does not just divine our destiny, it hands us back our power. It is the difference between driving down a country road at night in the dark, and doing so with our headlights on. The ability to see what you’re working with allows you to respond more effectively to your environment.

So, what about those bad and scary cards? The ones many people; including some experienced tarot readers, come to dread?

Death, The Devil, The Tower, and, more subtly, cards like the 7 of Swords, the 5 of cups, the 5 of Wands?

These cards speak to energies we tend to resist. Endings, Destruction, Coercion, Control. Loss, Betrayal and Conflict.

These energies are represented because the Tarot offers us a symbolic language to map the archetypal energies which exist within all of us. Destruction and Creation co-exist, Loss is necessary in order for us to experience true change and transformation. Manipulation and betrayal can direct us to the places where we outsource our power and agency.

Seeing the value in these energies does not mean we need to like them. The work is not to change the energy, but to alchemise our relationship to it.

Even when we struggle, that doesn’t mean we should be afraid of ‘bad cards’.

Our headlights are useless if they do not accurately depict the road we are travelling.

Self awareness is impossible if we refuse to look at the pieces that we don’t want to see.

None of this makes those energies easy to deal with. However they show up, these experiences can all bring pain. They require us to sit in discomfort. They demand that we let go of the illusion of control and surrender through triggers, fear, denial, grief and rage.

When we resist and attempt to avoid these energies through fear, we make choices to ignore, disassociate and numb. We deny our impulses and limit our potential in a huge array of ways, and paradoxically, as we deny these energies we remain tied to them, bound to them, so afraid to encounter them that we end up living our lives in a constant negotiation with them.

As we accept these experiences, we give ourselves permission to weather the storm. To feel, to rest, to grieve, to set boundaries and to take accountability for the ways we are complicit in our own suffering. The shadow within us is simply the place we refuse to claim. Being afraid to admit when you’re wrong doesn’t make you any more right, it just makes you defensive.

Every card in the deck carries wisdom. Every card offers reflection, self-knowledge, and the medicine to rebalance and move us forward.

The tarot offers us both encouragement and fair warning. Sometimes it can deliver us a tap on the wrist or a kick up the arse. Unconditional love does not mean pleasing and placating. It means challenging us to open our eyes and our minds to the obstacles we refuse to see, so that we can stop tripping over them in the dark.

If you’re ready to see how your cards are trying to support you, approach your readings with curiosity, not fear.