About Us

Welcome to The Academy of Tarot.  My name is Debbie Winterbourne and I have a passion for all things Tarot! 

I’ve been practising Tarot for over twenty years and as an experienced Tarot teacher, I’ve run courses for complete beginners to advanced readers.

Prior to starting the Academy of Tarot, I practised as a human rights lawyer, then qualified as a Gestalt psychotherapist and obtained a masters degree in Mysticism and Religious Experience. I strongly believe that the practise of Tarot incorporates a combination of intellectual, emotional and spiritual (mind, body, spirit) understanding and I bring all of these different disciplines to my study and teaching of Tarot.

I founded The Academy of Tarot in April 2008 (previously called the London School of Tarot) and opened a training venue at Quantum House in London, so I could teach and train people in reading Tarot.

I passionately believe in advancing the study of Tarot as a genuine and meaningful pursuit, giving Tarot the credibility, sincerity and importance that it deserves. 

My Tarot Journey

My own Tarot journey started when I was given my first Tarot deck by my father at about fifteen years old. I became fascinated with the images and magical beauty of the Tarot  and wanted to know about what each of these beautiful images meant. So I started studying the definitions of all the cards. It took me a few years to grasp an understanding of each one.

I have always had a thirst for knowledge and a greater understanding of the meaning of life. . . . continue reading on if you want to know more about my journey so far!

In 1984, I went off to university to study law and for the next fifteen years practised as a lawyer, mainly in human rights law.  However, Tarot remained in the background of my life and I continued to do readings for friends and family.

The turn of the new Millennium was a momentus time for me and I felt a calling to change my life direction. I was offered an opportunity to study and research into lucid dreaming in California. I left my legal career and moved abroad. Dreaming is another of my passions, and whilst researching in this area, my love of Tarot re-surfaced and I began to think about how I could put Tarot and dreaming at the forefront of my life.

In 2001, I returned to the UK and set up a Tarot stall in Portobello Market in London. Within a few weeks, there were queues of people waiting to have their cards read. It was the middle of winter, rainy and cold! The Tarot cards blew all around the market place, but I had a great experience and learnt a lot. I particuarly began to understand that in reading Tarot, you need to be very centred and grounded. With many clients waiting for readings, I was seeing them back to back and my energy soon became depleted. I learnt to slow down and take time between readings in order to bring myself back to a grounded place.

I also spent some time as a resident Tarot reader in a local restaurant and at the same time signed up to be a reader on a psychic telephone line. My experience with the telephone line was a wake-up call. Unfortunately, the owners of the service did not care much for the readers or the clients; in fact, I was told to try to string the calls out so the poor clients would have to pay more money to get their answers. I immediately resigned.

After these experiences I started seeing private clients at my home in South East London.  At this point, I developed my Tarot skills further by learning with a good teacher, so that in 2003, I was ready to start teaching Tarot myself. I applied to my local adult community college and set up a three part Tarot course of ten weeks per course: beginners, intermediate and advanced. I was lucky that my employer at the college loved the Tarot and even enrolled on the classes herself. Without her there would have been too much opposition to the idea of Tarot courses in a mainstream college and I would never have got started.

I taught Tarot at the college for four years and met many interesting and wonderful people, many of whom I am still in touch with today and who attend Masterclasses at Quantum House. I also studied for and obtained various degrees; one in Psychology and another in Mysticism and Religious Experience, at the University of Kent (this is an amazing life-changing course which I totally recommend to everyone who is interested in further study into spirituality and religion). Six years ago, I also started studying in Gestalt psychotherapy, which has been an excellent source to further understand human nature. I qualified as a psychotherapist and obtained an MSc in Gestalt psychotherapy in 2009.

In 2010, my journey continues as I develop The Academy of Tarot.

The Academy of Dreams

The Academy of Dreams is a sister site to The Academy of Tarot. It’s another passion of mine, teaching and training in the Art of Dreaming.  This initially started when I was a teenager and found I was lucid dreaming. I now teach students on number of dream perspectives, such as dream interpretation, Tibetan Dream Yoga, Toltec Dreaming, Jungian dreaming as well as lucid dreaming.

Deborah Winterbourne LLB, LLM, BSc, MA, MSc.