I channeled my sister’s friend’s dead grandmother and she cried. Here’s the story.

“I feel like your spirit guide is from your maternal side, and this could be someone who passed away,” I said.

“Oh,” she said.

“They are showing me an image of a teacup set, does that make sense?”

“I have a grandmother who died recently and she collects those,” she gasped.

This has never happened to me before. I usually do tarot readings for my friends and family, but it was my first time doing it with an acquaintance I knew nothing about. We were both surprised, and as if a gentle whisper brushed in my ear, it said, “Now, tell her this.”

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What are tarot and card readings?
Before we continue our story, it’s important that we define tarot and how I’ve come to do it despite my Roman Catholic background. Tarot is the “storybook of our life” according to Esselmont (2018). It is a divination tool used to inspire spiritual wisdom, like reading tea leaves or pendulums, and not to predict the future. The seventy-eight Tarot cards reflect every spiritual lesson we meet in our lives.

Its history goes back to the 1440s and 1450s, which began as a game of trick-taking but gained the occult meaning that we know today in the 19th century (Husband, 2016). In 1781, Antoine Court de Gebelin revealed that the symbolism in the Tarot was derived from the esoteric secrets of Egyptian priests (Wiginton, 2018). He explained that this ancient occult knowledge had been carried to Rome and revealed to the Catholic Church and the popes.

Another French occultist, Jean-Baptiste Alliette, released the first Tarot deck designed specifically for divinatory purposes in 1791. To this day, new tarot decks are being published and used for self-development, making choices, manifesting goals, and more.

My tarot decks consist of the following:

• Wildwood Tarot by John Matthews and Mark Ryan (the green one)
• Angel Tarot by Travis McHenry (the white one)

Then I also have oracle decks that I use for fun or additional messages:

• The Sacred Self-Care Oracle (purple color)
• Super Attractor (white with red moon)
• The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit deck (white and light gray pattern)

How come I use tarot cards and conduct readings?
I approach my spirituality with a free spirit. While I was socialized in a Catholic upbringing, I was never forced to practice my religion and only attended Sunday masses. I have a curious mind and I often questioned the Christian teachings, more often the teachers themselves. Meanwhile, I have an intuitive heart that could sense the room's energy from those living and the invisible.

My mind and heart continued to clash when the topic of religion arises, leaving me often lost in the Catholic crowd and feeling connected to mysticism and ancient healing techniques.

Discovering tarot in 2020 helped me see that I can be safe to ask questions and be guided by my intuitions. What started as just a fun thing to do to pass my time turned into a spiritual adventure that allowed me to share light and love with others.

One Thursday morning
Typically, my sisters and friends ask me for spiritual advice through tarot cards. They are used to my occult ways of communicating with spirits, so I’m comfortable doing it. Last Wednesday, however, my sister invited Julie, her friend, to sleepover at our apartment, and without wasting a moment, they were welcomed in our space.

The next morning, my sister hinted that her friend knew about my tarot reading sessions and was also curious to have one. It was my pleasure to try and see what the cards say for her, but little did I know I would experience something unexplainable. Something that I doubt I have actually said or done to this day.

To illustrate what happened, let’s go back to where we left off.

“I have a grandmother who died recently and she collects those,” she gasped.

My body felt like there was a looming presence over us. It wasn’t heavy, in fact, it was like having someone watching you over your shoulder and their gentle hands resting on your head. My eyes darted to The Empress card and my gut knew this was the energy of the spirit around us. Trying not to freak out, I said that whoever this spirit guide was, they were exuding a powerful feminine energy and held a pearl of deep wisdom.

Julie explained that she grew up with her grandmother, who was good at giving pieces of advice. She was the go-to person when you needed help in life. Then, like a puppet on strings, I was suddenly drawn to get cards from my Super Attractor oracle deck, feeling called to say so many messages of love to Julie.

At this point, Julie started to tear up. Insider information from my sister revealed that it had been a while since Julie thought of her passed loved one. They were really close and college life had overwhelmed her with stress, sometimes forgetting that she could seek guidance from her lola like she used to.

In my mind, I heard “good move” and said it out loud. It was a good move that my sister’s friend came to our apartment.

Her response was, “I haven’t been taking good care of myself lately and I just went here to Kate because I felt like it.”

Having a spirit guide so close to me during a tarot reading has never happened before. Also, it was never this specific; they were always somehow a blurry reflection from a busy river. This time, it felt personal and scared me a bit because I didn’t want to come across as a scammer. Hahaha. I don’t like getting people’s hope up for coax.

Yet I felt that with Julie, this was accurate. I don’t know if it was true, but it was strangely accurate and helped her think of her lola fondly again.

Final thoughts
In the end, we both thanked the spirits in the reading, and I closed it with a smoke cleanse from this palo santo stick. Julie felt the energy shift and her mood seemed lighter. We ate sushi that night, and I’m just happy that I made a positive difference in a span of a tarot reading.

I could doubt myself a million times over this strange encounter, whether it was truly her grandmother or not, but I know what I felt and heard. In a plethora of unexplainable things that happen on earth 24/7, sometimes all we could do is take the good and believe in magic 😉

Thank you for reading and supporting my blog 💜

ᴬˡˡ ᵖʰᵒᵗᵒˢ ᵃʳᵉ ᵐⁱⁿᵉ ᵘⁿˡᵉˢˢ ᵒᵗʰᵉʳʷⁱˢᵉ ˢᵗᵃᵗᵉᵈ.