Tarot’s Crystal Allies

by Lunaea Weatherstone

Tarot is a tool that brings understanding and insight, helps clarify intentions, and suggests solutions. Doing a tarot reading opens a window of wisdom through which you can contemplate your next actions. But what happens when you put the cards back in their box and head out into the world? How can you take that reading and make its message more tangible? One way is with the use of crystal allies.

From ancient times, humans have associated certain minerals with magical, spiritual, or symbolic power. The lore of gems alone fills many volumes, ranging from crown jewels to religious icons to tales of curses that follow a stone from owner to owner. But it’s not just precious gems that hold this ancient planetary power. All stones and crystals have energies that assist on the physical and etheric planes.

The art of working with crystals and stones involves a combination of study and intuition. Crystal work is similar to working with tarot cards and uses the same skills: sensitivity to nuance, understanding of symbolism in color and structure, and willingness to trust the flashes of insight that come without second-guessing yourself. Combining tarot and crystals forms a talismanic alliance. Each tarot card can be associated with a stone that holds its essential energy, or in the case of negative cards, a stone whose energy works to protect or heal. Connecting tarot cards with stones allows you to learn more about each of them, as their messages and helpful energies are magnified. This article offers some suggestions to get you started.

Generally, there are two ways to work with the tarot: you either choose the cards randomly, face down, or you choose the cards consciously, face up, finding the ones that speak to your situation and illustrate its essential nature. The difference between these two methods might be summarized as you either know what’s going on (conscious choice) or you don’t know (divination). Crystal allies can assist you with both.

Conscious Choice

Choosing a card consciously can be an affirmation, a meditation, or an ingredient in magical spellwork. Let’s look at examples of each of these and how you can include a crystal ally to enhance the work.

Affirmation

Affirmations are simple sentences that enhance positive thinking. They are phrased in the present tense whether they are currently happening or not. If you want to affirm good health, for example, you could say “I enjoy perfect health” even if you are ill at the time. If you are lack self-confidence when meeting new people, you could affirm that “I make new friends easily.” Notice that affirmations always use positive language without mentioning the actual problem. Don’t say “I no longer have crushing debt,” but rather “I have all the money I need to meet my needs.” The classic way to use affirmations is to write them down and place them where you will see them often, such as taped to your bathroom mirror or your desktop computer. By repeating the affirmation, you make it part of your belief system, which gives the universe the opening it needs to make it a reality for you.

Let’s use that last affirmation as an example of creating a tarot talisman to amplify its energy. “I have all the money I need to meet my needs” can be represented by the Empress, among whose qualities is the overflowing of material wealth and well-being. Like a loving mother, the Empress wants all wonderful things to come to you. A good crystal ally to hold this affirmation in your daily life is moss agate. A translucent stone with inclusions that look like moss, ferns, and other foliage, moss agate has earthy energy that draws riches to you and grounds you in stability and protection. It is also a stone of birthing, allowing a new flow of abundance to move through your life. Wearing or carrying moss agate takes the blessings of the Empress with you wherever you go.

Meditation

Choosing a tarot card and meditating on its symbols can be illuminating. Whether you use a familiar deck and find deeper meaning in its imagery or explore an unfamiliar deck and enter its world with fresh eyes, gazing at a tarot card offers a gateway through which you can pass into a new realm. When you practice this meditation using a crystal ally, you integrate the mystical with the tangible. Let’s use the Star card for our example. In the Smith-Waite image, a maiden kneels beside the pool of universal consciousness and pours the waters of life into the pool and onto the earth, from which point the water flows outward in many directions. Above her head blaze eight stars symbolizing cosmic energy. As you meditate on this image, the qualities of the Star fill you and expand your consciousness: hope, inspiration, spiritual enlightenment.

These starry qualities are matched and magnified by the energy of celestite. This luminous blue stone reminds you that you are part of divine creation. You are made of stardust and connected to all that is. Hold a piece of celestite to your third eye as you meditate on the Star to further open your awareness of your own cosmic purpose. The stone will continue to hold that awareness for you to draw upon in times of doubt.

Spellwork

Practitioners of magic have long used stones to hold the energy of their intentions. Combining a stone’s intrinsic energy with the symbolism of tarot helps bind your spell and boost its potency. Let’s say you are doing a love spell to draw your soul mate to you. (As an ethical magician, of course you would never do a spell aimed at any particular person.) The Lovers card symbolizes blessed and eternal love between two people who are meant to be together, which makes it perfect as a focus for your intention. The Smith-Waite card shows a man and a woman (Adam and Eve), but other decks show same-sex couples or gender-ambiguous couples. Some decks simply depict the concept of love itself without specifying gender at all. Choose the card that best represents your desire.

After you’ve set up your spellworking space in the way you prefer, lay the Lovers card face up in the center and place two Herkimer diamonds on top. Herkimer diamond isn’t an actual diamond; it is a type of quartz that crystallizes in multiple terminations (points). Herkimers are usually quite small and brilliantly clear. Among their qualities is the energy of telepathic communication and soul union. Work your spell to draw the most perfect love match to you, asking the Herkimers to hold that energy for however long it takes for the spell to work. When you are done, place the two stones in a little bag and keep it with you or on your altar until such time as you meet your soul mate, when you can give one of the stones to that person to keep the Lovers energy between you clear and sparkling.

Tarot Card	Crystal Ally	Talismanic Energy
The Fool	Aventurine	Optimism, serendipity lightheartedness
The Magician	Fluorite octahedron (double pyramid)	Unites earth and spirit; as above, so below
The High Priestess	Selenite	Intuition, wisdom, feminine mysteries
The Empress	Moss agate	Abundance, boundless love, protection
The Emperor	Tiger’s eye	Leadership, positive use of power
The Hierophant	Labradorite	Spiritual authority and knowledge, ritual
The Lovers	Herkimer diamond	Union, soulmates, divine love
The Chariot	Carnelian	Success, mastery, taking control of your life
Strength	Garnet	Power from within, courage, vocation
The Hermit	Merlinite	Solitude, silence, pilgrimage
The Wheel of Fortune	Amber	Luck, good fortune, alignment with your path
Justice	Malachite	Good karma, ethics, fairness
The Hanged Man	Golden calcite	Open-mindedness, surrender, vision
Death	Obsidian	Release of grief, acceptance of loss
Temperance	Turquoise	Harmony, balance
The Devil	Moldavite	Ascent toward higher planes
The Tower	Tourmalinated quartz	Grounded transformation
The Star	Celestite	Hope, inspiration, spiritual enlightenment
The Moon	Jade	Lucid dreaming, imagination, vision quests
The Sun	Citrine	Lifts the heart into pure joy
Judgment	Aquamarine	Compassion, self-love, soul healing
The World	Amethyst	Brings integration to your fragmented self

Divination (Random Choice)

Choosing tarot cards at random for divination means that the so-called negative cards can appear in your reading. The two most challenging cards are probably the Devil and the Tower. Like most responsible readers, I always look to the positive teaching of these cards rather than foreseeing doom and despair. But there is no doubt that these cards are daunting, and a likely first reaction is “uh-oh” when you flip them over. Using a crystal ally provides not only additional insight into the nature of the card but also a helpful talisman when dealing with its challenges and lessons.

The Devil represents a separation from the soul’s higher energies, which may manifest as overattachment to worldly pursuits or material possessions. It can also represent addictions and harmful relationships or habits. What is needed from a crystal ally is a way to break the Devil’s chains of bondage and set the spirit back on a more righteous path. One of the best stones for this is moldavite. Formed by meteoric activity, this pure green stone pulls the soul out of darkness and confusion, speeding it toward the light. Wearing or carrying moldavite helps you tap into messages from the higher realms, amplifying them to drown out unhealthy temptations and negative impulses.

The Tower card signifies abrupt and often unexpected change, which can be upsetting even if the change is positive. When what you thought was settled and sure suddenly comes tumbling down, a crystal ally can help you find your center of stability again. One of the best stones for this is tourmalinated quartz. This is clear quartz that contains threads of black tourmaline, often in what looks like a chaotic explosion. Black tourmaline is a stone that facilitates great transformation while establishing a strong energetic connection to the depths of the earth. This grounding energy is like a lightning rod that roots the powerful forces of the Tower card. The quartz crystal that holds the tourmaline adds the energies of protection, purification, and soul healing.

The chart on page 332 offers suggestions for crystal allies for the Major Arcana cards. (All of the stones listed should be easy to find at your local rock shop or online. On eBay there are many reputable rock sellers with good specimens at reasonable prices.) You can continue your exploration by connecting the Minor Arcana cards with crystal allies as well: What stone would best embody the creative fire of the Queen of Wands? Or comfort after the disappointment symbolized by the Five of Cups? By experimenting with their talismanic energies you can discover the many blessings offered by the tarot and its crystal allies.