This Is The Deck That Will Get You Into Tarot Cards

Update: The Mystic Mondays Tarot deck is now available for preorder from Chronicle Books. It will go on sale October 9, 2018.

It took a long time for Grace Duong to actually get into tarot. She says the cards just didn't feel relatable to her. From their old-fashioned art to their esoteric descriptions, traditional tarot decks were presented in a way that was hard for Duong to connect with — so she created her own spin on this centuries-old form of divination with Mystic Mondays, a new tarot deck that's on Kickstarter now.

Duong tells Refinery29 that Mystic Mondays is for the "modern mystic," or someone who prefers to take a lighthearted approach to their spiritual practice. Or, to put it another way, she says this tarot deck is a great fit for anyone "who likes to be chill but who also believes in the power of themselves and the people around them." Are any millennials' ears burning?

Beyond creating a hip take on something old, Duong wants to make tarot more accessible — and less intimidating. "Mysticism doesn’t have to be a dark, scary thing," she says, adding that tarot has a reputation for predicting exclusively gloom and doom. But Duong argues that it can actually serve as a powerful and straightforward intuitive tool.

In other words, the Mystic Mondays deck is intended to provide the same service as an effective psychic reading. It'll never have all the answers, she says, but it should act as a catalyst for deeper reflection, revealing something about the reader that they've never been able to pinpoint.

"Once you go inside and ask yourself those hard questions, you often already know the answer," Duong says. "I wanted to help people connect the dots by themselves and listen to their own inner voice."

That's why Duong encourages people to spend some alone time with their deck before using it with other people. Drawing cards at random and getting familiar with their meanings (or using the Mystic Mondays mobile app) will only boost your confidence when you do a reading for someone else.

Of course, that time may never come. Duong says tarot can still be an important part of your spiritual life if you only ever use it in private. The name — Mystic Mondays — is actually a reference to a solitary tarot practice that she recommends to beginners: Choose a single card on Monday and let that card's meaning and symbols guide you through the rest of the week. It's just one way to add a little magic to your life, Duong says.