Tarot cards are traditionally considered a divinatory tool - meaning, they were meant to tell you what the future was bringing and what choices you should make accordingly. That is why most movies and media have portrayed psychics and mediums pulling cards in a smoke-filled room with a black cat in one corner and a crystal ball on the table. Needless to say, that is a very narrow and outdated representation of what tarot is and how it’s used. I hope that by the end of this blog you will have a better understanding of how Tarot is used and why you might want to consider picking up your own deck.

A brief history of Tarot

The earliest version of tarot cards were made in Italy during the 15th century as playing cards! Each deck used to be hand-painted, but with the invention of the printing press, tarot cards soon began trending throughout Europe and morphed into different forms and games within each culture/country. It wasn’t until 1750 that tarot cards started being used for cartomancy, or fortune telling through cards. (If you want to know more about how they morphed throughout the years you can just go read the Wikipedia page I pulled this from: Tarot). Once Tarot started being used for cartomancy, it mostly became associated with the occult, and societies dedicated to such subjects started assigning new, complex meanings and designs to tarot cards.

Today, most people associate the Rider-Waite-Smith illustrations (pictured above) as the Tarot imagery, but there are thousands of new interpretations and designs that have been made, and continue to be made every day. In fact, just within the last 5 years or so, I have personally witnessed the oracle/tarot card section at Barnes and Noble go from one small section of a shelf, to filling an entire aisle (but the rise of spirituality and metaphysical topics can be saved for another time…). The point is, just as the designs and accessibility of tarot cards have changed since they started out as playing cards, so have their meanings and approaches to reading them.

What is Tarot used for now?

The newest wave of spiritualists and card readers will probably tell you that Tarot does not predict the future (and that is definitely my own philosophy). Instead, tarot cards are a communication tool to help us connect to and receive channeled messages from different beings and different levels of our own consciousness. (The network of energy and consciousness at play within ourselves and around us is very complex and would require me to use a bunch of spiritual and psychological jargon that I don’t want to get into right now…But that is what we are tapping into when reading cards.) And the messages we are receiving through the cards are not necessarily about the future, but are about our present circumstances and the kinds of energies at work in that moment/in our current situations. Meaning, the cards can let me know how you’re currently feeling and what thoughts and energies are surrounding you, as well as what kind of potentials there are, but I’m not going to tell you the details of what you’re going to do next week, the winning lottery numbers, or what horse to bet on. You can think of the messages received from Tarot as guidelines for dealing with your current situation, or confirmation/validation for things you’ve already been thinking and feeling.

For example, if you read any of my Every Day Oracle messages, you will notice that I am using the cards to address a specific question or topic, and the cards will describe the general theme and energies regarding that topic. Then, based on those general themes and energies, your subconscious/unconscious and intuition are what fill in the specific details/blanks that apply to your life. That is when Tarot reading dives further into your unique human psyche and intuition, and is less about reading the general energy.

Carl Jung, a well-known and respected psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, dedicated most of his career to studying and understanding the purpose of and different levels of consciousness. He was not only aware of (and coined the terms) the personal and collective unconscious, but he felt that exploring these levels of consciousness held the key to living a fulfilling and peaceful existence. He theorized that our unconscious holds information that could help us better understand ourselves and know what is troubling us, and that we should be able to decode communications from our unconscious through dreams, symbols, and archetypes. So it is no surprise that Carl Jung was a fan of Tarot, which uses symbolism and imagery to invoke specific meanings and messages within our individual psyches. That being said, it is through a balanced contribution from our human psyche and the world of Spirit that allows us to use Tarot in order to better understand ourselves and what is at play in our lives (which then helps us make the most beneficial choices).

So that’s why we use tarot, but then how do we read tarot?

How to read tarot cards

Let me just burst your bubble now…there isn’t a step-by-step guide to reading Tarot that will apply to each individual soul. That is because, as I stated previously, so much of how each person reads Tarot is based on their unique human experience and how they perceive their world and receive their intuition. However, I will go over some foundational approaches you can apply as you get started, and give examples of how I and other Tarot readers approach the cards.

Step 1: Get familiar with the cards

I suggest starting off by getting a deck of Tarot cards that have art similar to the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot (or just get an actual RWS deck) before you dive into other interpretations and art styles. Although other interpretations and styles are just as valid, I feel like the RWS symbolism and imagery is so archetypal and timeless that it has the most room for interpretation while simultaneously being really easy to understand. Furthermore, the RWS imagery is the most well-known and universal, so being familiar with it makes it easier to discuss Tarot with other readers and to understand other interpretations as you move forward.

Once you have your deck in your hands, I suggest getting a book or having a resource handy for looking up the card meanings and different interpretations. The deck might come with a little booklet, which you can totally use, but there are so many different meanings for each card, that it’s nice to have a resource that has plenty for you to read about. My favorite book that I read when I first started exploring Tarot was Rachel Pollack’s Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom. I highly suggest getting this book if you’re serious about Tarot, because not only does it give very in-depth descriptions of each tarot card, it also had a very holistic approach to how to read Tarot. Unfortunately I don’t own the book any more due to moving around so much, so I can’t give any examples or be more specific about her approaches, but I remember it being my ‘Tarot Bible’ when I first started out.

Once you have your deck and have a resource of meanings that you resonate with, it’s time to start getting familiar with each card. This can definitely feel like the most intimidating part of learning to read Tarot, but you’re not really going to “memorize” every meaning for every card. Instead - and I think I got this from Rachel Pollack’s book - you’re going to create a personal relationship and meaning for each of the cards based on your own personality, experiences, and intuition.

First, pick a card - maybe start with one that you just really like to look at. Take your time and just absorb the card’s imagery with your eyes. Notice what it is a picture of, and then start noticing all of its details. Be patient with this process and don’t rush. You can think of the card as a person you are getting to know. Then, after you have explored the card to the point where you can visualize it in your mind, you can move on to assigning it a meaning.

Before looking up someone else’s meanings of the card, try to see if anything comes to mind (or body) when you’re looking at the card. Does it remind you of something or someone? Does it invoke an emotion? Do you see a word or phrase pop up? Any associations that come to you are important and will be very helpful to you reading the cards. Not only are you building a very personal relationship with the cards by doing this, but this technique is also useful as a mnemonic device and will make it easier for you to recall what the card means. After you’ve sat with the card and have received any personal meanings it might have for you, you can look up its meaning in other resources.

As you read through the handful/dozens of meanings for that card, you’re going to pick 2-3 meanings that resonate with you and the card completely. The meanings that jump out and call to you are the ones you will assign to the card, and just forget about the rest of the meanings for now. As you go through this process with each card, you are building up your custom lexicon/dictionary of card meanings. Whatever associations and definitions you assign to each card is how they will present themselves to you as you continue to read them. For example, when I see the 4 of Cups, my main concepts are apathy, missed opportunity, and dissatisfaction, whereas someone else might have chosen different main concepts for it. Therefore, when I’m doing a reading and the 4 of Cups comes out, my guides and higher consciousness are bringing it out because they know MY meanings for it. Essentially, they are speaking to me through the language and definitions that I assigned to the cards, so I don’t need to worry that I’m missing something.

The sooner you are able to build a relationship with the cards and be consistent and confident about the meanings you assign them, the easier it’s going to be to start reading them. Then, as your confidence and familiarity with the cards grows, so can your dictionary of meanings. But as you acquire and assign more meanings to each card, and your “vocabulary” within your language gets more specific, it is important that you have a way of knowing what meaning your guides are using/referring to during a reading. That is when your intuition and subconscious play an even bigger role.

Step 2: Get familiar with your intuition

If you haven’t explored your intuition much, I suggest jumping over to this other post about How to Tune Into It. It is through the balance of your intuition and your logical mind that you will be able to get the most clear messages from the cards. If you feel like you are more clairvoyant, then the art and visuals on the cards will provide a lot of the information you need to decipher messages. For me, my clairvoyance loves to pick up on patterns within the cards (and throughout my day-to-day life in general), so I pay close attention to any messages I feel I am receiving based on things like color patterns, themes within the imagery of the cards (like people doing similar things amongst the cards, or getting a bunch of masculine themed cards), or seeing number patterns. If you’re more clairaudient you might hear certain words, phrases, or songs come up as you’re reading, or if you’re clairsentient or clairempathic you might get bodily sensations or emotions as you pick up on the energy of the cards. No matter what you’re intuitive senses/abilities are, they will definitely help you decipher more specific meanings from the cards.

The less you use your intuition to receive the messages, the more the messages will feel “off” or be confusing, jumbled, or contradictory. For myself, it wasn’t until I was very familiar with my own intuition that card reading started to click. Before that, I was trying too hard with my mind to recall information I had read somewhere and then putting it together like a puzzle. This led to lots of confusion and moments of frustration, often leading me to discard a reading all together. The more you can step away from self doubt and start trusting your intuition, the more confidently and easily card reading will come to you.

Step 3: Pulling and setting up your cards

As you might have already guessed, there isn’t one right way to pull or set up your cards. I will go over a couple of options for you to try out, but overall the process of shuffling, pulling, and placing your cards is just another thing you have to settle on with your intuition.

The Shuffle

Try out and mix up different shuffling styles to find the one that works for you. You can do a classic “riffle” shuffle, an overhand shuffle, or just throw the cards in a messy pile and move them all around until they’re mixed. Here’s an illustration I found of the three I just described, but go ahead and do research and have fun while you find the style that feels good for you (keep in mind that hand and card size can often determine the shuffling style).

The important part about the shuffle is that as you’re shuffling you are putting all of your intention and energy into the question you want to answer. The most effective way to do this is to ask the question out loud. Your words and sound have a very physical resonance and it’s the clearest and fastest way to communicate your intention. The other ways to set intention are to write it down or just say it internally. Once I’ve stated my intention, I usually like to make sure my energy is clear and open so I can allow my Higher Self and body to work with the cards, as opposed to my egoic consciousness.

The Pull

Once you’ve shuffled with intention, it’s time to pull cards out. You can either pull cards one at a time from the top of the deck, you can cut the deck in a pattern and then reassemble and pull from the top, or you can let cards fall out by themselves as you shuffle. Just like shuffling, this is totally up to how you feel, and you will have to tap into your intuition to know what feels best.

I personally like to riffle shuffle my cards 2-3 times right after taking them out of the box, and then I will overhand shuffle until cards come out/fall out on their own while I’m shuffling. This was my way of bypassing my logical mind that would sometimes get fixated or stuck when I would cut the deck to pull from the top…I had a lot of self-doubt to work through.

You can also pay attention to cards that stick out, cards that catch your eye while you are cutting the deck, or cards on the bottom of the deck after you are done shuffling. The bottom-of-the-deck card is actually called the Shadow card by some people and has it’s own purpose/significance (usually it’s identifying fears or things you don’t want to look at/consider regarding the question - Shadow attributes).

Eventually you will come up with a little routine of shuffling and pulling cards and will probably stick to it. In fact, once you have a little routine and preferences, your guides will make sure to consider those things while guiding the reading. For example, if you’re going to take cards that come out on their own while you shuffle, you might want to clarify how many cards you expect at a time. Otherwise you might get a whole bunch at once and it might feel confusing or overwhelming. I personally will only keep cards for a reading if they come out in groups of 1-3, or if I see them fall out or catch my eye more than once while shuffling.

The Set Up

Traditionally, readers used “spreads” for card readings. The Celtic Cross is a very well-known and used spread for beginners and experts, and that’s where I first started when I began reading. However, there are limitless amounts of spreads (people have books just about spreads), and you can absolutely make up your own. The point of a spread is that there is a pre-planned and assigned pattern and position for the cards, and each position answers a very specific question or aspect of the total reading. There are a lot spreads that include Past, Present, and Future card positions, or Core/Theme cards. I suggest starting with a spread just as you get familiar with reading, but don’t shy away from eventually spreading out into more customized and organic ways of communicating with your guides and intuition.

A less structured way of reading is what some people call “intuitive card reading”. That means they are not assigning positions to cards and there is no right or wrong way for pulling and laying out the cards. They just “go with the flow” and let the cards, their intuition, and their guides speak to them. It is very much like a conversation, and each new card that gets pulled can be followed by more and more specific questions and clarifying cards until they get to the core of the message and feel satisfied.

I have also seen people mix these two approaches. They will start with a spread and then organically branch out and have very long tangents about just one or two of the cards within the spread that they want more clarity on. You will eventually find what is best for you. Just have fun with it and don’t be hard on yourself or force yourself to read cards one way because you are comparing yourself to another reader.

Step 4: Practice

Before offering other people readings, you might want to spend plenty of time doing readings for yourself. Don’t get me wrong, it is just as important to test your skills out with other people so you can see how strong your intuition and card reading has gotten, but if you start by just reading for yourself you might feel less performance anxiety and can develop your reading style with less external pressure. Furthermore, by reading your own cards and energy first, you will be better able to distinguish your own energy versus someone else’s. It can be a little tricky to recognize when you’re projecting your own energy, questions, and thoughts/fears onto someone else’s reading if you don’t know what’s hiding in your own subconscious.

However, eventually it is very beneficial to do readings for other people. That is the easiest way to receive validation/confirmation about how accurate your intuition is and if you’re able to pick up and connect to someone else’s energy. It is also very gratifying when you’re able to help someone navigate through difficult thoughts and emotions. I would just make sure that they understand that you are not predicting their future and tarot cards do not have authority over someone’s free will or intuition.

Conclusion

There are so many reasons to start reading Tarot, so if you are being called to do so, listen to your intuition. Not only can you possibly help other people with it, but more importantly it is such a personal way to get to know yourself, your guides, and all of the different levels of consciousness and beings that are helping you navigate through this life. I have been using Tarot mostly for myself during extremely difficult times of transition, or just to clarify messages that I pick up on throughout the day.

For example, like I mentioned before, I have a very strong pattern recognition. So throughout the day I usually pick up on significant patterns, signs, and synchronicities, but I don’t always know what specific message I am being tuned into. That’s when I will pick up my cards and ask my guides to clarify what it is they want me to pay attention to or work on. In fact, something like that happened while I was originally writing this post! When I was nearly done writing this the first time, my computer randomly shut off (it’s a desktop so it’s not that it ran out of battery, and no other electrical outlets or devices lost power). I knew right away that this was no coincidence, and I knew to check the time. Sure enough, it was 1:11 (a triple number = an angel number). I knew there was a reason my guides were trying to get me to pay attention, and it had something to do with what I was writing about. When I referenced my cards and asked them what they were trying to tell me, they let me know that I have to make sure to check in with my Higher Self and my guides before sitting down to write, and that I should prioritize writing about other topics (probably because those other topics will be more beneficial to the Collective at this time).

Anyway, whatever you end up using Tarot for, I hope this was a good enough starting point for you, and that you enjoy your journey with it (because it definitely is a journey). Just be patient and know that the better you get at reading cards, the better you are getting to know yourself.