Use Your Own Tarot Cards With an App

Your cards stay at the center of the reading.

Lantern Arcana is an iPhone and iPad tarot app designed to work with the physical tarot cards you already own.

Shuffle your deck. Lay out your cards. Take a photo of your spread. Then use Lantern Arcana to help you reflect on the reading and save it in your tarot journal.

You don't have to replace your physical cards with a digital deck to use a tarot app.

The cards stay on the table. The app supports what happens next.

How to use your own tarot cards with Lantern Arcana

1. 1

   Choose your physical tarot deck

   Use any tarot deck you own. Your deck does not need to be available inside Lantern Arcana. Shuffle and draw your cards the way you normally would.

2. 2

   Lay out your reading

   Use a familiar tarot spread or choose the layout that fits your question. Lantern is designed around the reading you've actually done with your physical cards.

3. 3

   Photograph your spread

   Take a photo of the cards you've laid on the table. Lantern uses the photo to identify the cards in your reading. Your physical cards remain the starting point.

4. 4

   Reflect on the reading

   Use Lantern to explore the cards in the context of your reading. The goal isn't to replace your interpretation. It's to give you another way to think about the cards, their relationships, and what stood out to you.

5. 5

   Keep the reading in your tarot journal

   Save the reading along with your own reflections so you can return to it later.

   When you use your own deck, Lantern records the card names in your journal rather than storing or displaying your personal deck artwork there.

   Over time, your journal becomes a record not just of the cards you've drawn, but of what they meant to you at that point in your life.

A tarot app doesn't have to replace the physical ritual

There are plenty of reasons to use digital tarot cards. Sometimes they're convenient. Sometimes you want to explore artwork from a deck you don't own.

Lantern Arcana includes digital tarot decks too. But that isn't why Lantern was created.

There is something different about choosing a physical deck, shuffling it yourself, laying the cards on the table, and sitting with the reading in front of you.

Lantern was designed to add technology after the cards are on the table, rather than move the entire experience onto a screen.

What if my tarot deck isn't in Lantern Arcana?

That's fine.

You can use your own physical tarot cards whether or not that deck exists in Lantern.

You do not need a matching digital deck to use your physical cards with the app.

If you'd like to see your own deck inside Lantern, you can also add a custom deck for your personal use.

Those deck images stay local to your device. They aren't displayed in your journal or included when you share a reading. Your journal uses the card names instead.

That means you can use the artwork from a deck you own inside your own Lantern experience without Lantern distributing user-uploaded deck artwork.

Can I use Lantern without physical tarot cards?

Yes.

Lantern includes digital tarot decks that you can use when you don't have physical cards with you or simply want to read digitally.

You don't have to choose between physical and digital tarot.

Use your own cards when they're on the table. Use a digital deck when they're not.

Why use an app with physical tarot cards?

A tarot app can be useful after you've drawn the cards.

Lantern gives you a place to:

• Capture your physical tarot spread
• Explore the cards together as a reading
• Record your own thoughts and reflections
• Keep readings in a tarot journal
• Return to previous readings later
• Use the physical tarot decks you already own

The technology supports the practice rather than becoming the practice.

Frequently Asked Questions