Beginners Guide to Tarot Reading
So you’ve found yourself interested in tarot cards, huh? Well, let me be the first to say, welcome to the community! Tarot is a great tool for self-discovery and a wonderful addition to your spiritual practice. If you’re not into the woo-woo part of it, that’s ok too. Tarot is used by psychologists to help understand patterns and how people view a situation.
What is Tarot?
Tarot is a deck of cards that dates back to the early 1400s when it was used mostly as a card game, tarocchi. Now, it’s a mystical practice that helps you connect to your subconscious using symbolism and colors.
A tarot deck consists of 78 cards. The first 22 cards are referred to as the Major Arcana and the other 56 are called the Minor Arcana. Each of the cards represents a certain aspect of your journey through life. The Major Arcana refer to bigger events and overarching themes, whereas the Minor Arcana deal more with the day-to-day aspects and challenges of life.
The 56 Minor Arcana cards are similar to a normal deck of playing cards, having 4 suits, or elements with 14 cards each. The suits are Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles. Each of the suits corresponds with the qualities of the element (Fire, Water, Air, and Earth, respectively). For example, the suit of Wands corresponds to the element fire and suggests themes of passion, drive, love, and willpower. It’s the things that light you up and light a fire under your ass.
If you want to learn more about what tarot is, check out this post I wrote about it.
Tarot Cards are sometimes called ‘Keys’ because in occult theory each card is a Key to mastering the self. Each card is another step in the journey.
Do Tarot Cards Have to Be Given to You?
If you’ve done any scrolling around the internet looking at tarot, something that you will find is that your first tarot deck must be given to you. Well, if you ask just about any tarot reader, this is total BS. Having a deck given to you may be some old-fashioned tradition, similar to the idea that witchcraft has to run in families for you to be a “real” witch. The best way to get tarot cards is to buy them yourself because the cards will resonate more with your personality and you will find the cards easier to connect with.
Where do I Buy Tarot Cards?
Tarot cards can be purchased just about anywhere. Before Amazon, I used to love going to my local bookstore, like Barnes and Noble or Books a Million to get my decks. I still do, on occasion because it’s nice to be able to hold them in your hands and check out the artwork on the box. Sometimes I would find that decks that I thought I wanted based on my Google searches, didn’t feel right when I was holding them. Or I would find a deck that I hadn’t yet considered.
Now, all of this can be done on the internet, or social media, with a quick search. Using the hashtag #tarotdeck on social media can show you a myriad of different decks. There are creators that do deck flip-thrus so you get to see every card in the deck before you buy it. Some of my favorite creators and places to shop for tarot decks are:
Amazon has a huge selection of tarot decks, but the decks are mostly mainstream decks.
Kickstarter has tons of indie decks that might interest you as well.
Aeclectic Tarot - https://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/ where they have reviews of most decks that you can think of and a lot of the time will have a good selection of images from the decks for you to look at.
TarotTidBits78 on Instagram who does amazing flip-thrus of decks in her reels.
How to Choose the Right Tarot Deck for You
Now that you know where to buy them… here comes the hardest part of learning to read tarot… picking a single deck to start with. When I first started, and even today, when I shop for tarot cards, I have trouble choosing only one deck. But when you are just starting, sticking to one deck for a while is the best thing that you can do. It helps you to associate the cards with the meanings more easily because the colors and symbols stay the same. As you progress through your tarot journey, you may find tarot decks to be more like Pokemon Gotta Collect Them All and that’s great. But even most professional readers who have hundreds of decks prefer to stick with only a few.
When you are looking through the options to buy your first tarot deck, some things that you should consider are:
Do you like the style of art?
Are the colors appealing to you?
What’s the symbolism like? Some decks are more nature-based whereas some are more religious or occult-based.
Check out the sample pages of the guidebook. Do you like the style of writing?
Do you feel drawn to the deck for some reason that you can’t explain? (Make sure this isn’t just the shopping high!)
Are you looking for something more traditional? If so, stick with a Rider-Waite Smith (RWS) style deck or a Thoth style deck. These are the two most common styles and make it easier to learn. Side Note: The RWS style deck is the most common style of deck. It’s helpful to pick up something like a Universal RWS deck as most stand-alone books will refer to the imagery in this deck.
You can read more about the different styles of tarot decks in this post.
Once you’ve had this discussion with yourself and have chosen your deck, it’s time to start learning the meanings.
A word to the wise: As with most products nowadays, you can find knockoff products that are cheaper (both in price and quality) so if you find the same deck in multiple places, take a closer look and make sure you are not getting a knockoff.
How to Learn the Meanings of the Tarot Cards
There are multiple ways that you can learn the meanings of tarot cards. It’s really your choice which way you prefer to learn.
Rote Study- Pick up a quality tarot book and start reading. This is one of the most common ways that people learn. Sometimes the best book is the book that came with the deck, commonly referred to as the Little White Book (LWB). Other times, it’s not very detailed and leaves you with more questions than answers. The books that I would most recommend would be anything by Benebell Wen, Mary K Greer, Theresa Reed, or Rachel Pollack. I have some of my favorite books listed here.
Keywords and Numerology- Each of the tarot cards can be broken down to a single digit between 1 and 9 and is assigned a corresponding element. For example, Key 1: The Magician corresponds to the number 1 and the element of fire. Whereas Key 13: Death corresponds with water and the number 4.
Intuition- This is a popular way that I see people suggesting people learn today. Not that I see anything wrong with it- shit, I even have a guide on how to do it. So how do you do it? Well, you find a quiet space and take your time with each of the tarot cards in the deck and write out whatever comes to your mind about the card. The more often that you do this and open yourself up to your more creative and intuitive side, the deeper you will go into the meaning of the card. Remember how I mentioned that tarot is based on symbolism and colors? A RWS style deck will typically be similar in colors and symbolism to the original occult style which focused on the psychology of color.
A few years ago I wrote about some of my favorite resources to learn tarot. You can find that post here.
How to Shuffle Tarot Cards
You can shuffle tarot cards like any other deck of cards. Depending on the size of the cards, you may have some trouble doing an overhand shuffle, but you can do a side riffle or use a finger to push a small handful of cards out one side of the deck and put them on the top of bottom of the deck. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Whatever way you choose to shuffle the cards is up to you. Some tarot readers choose to be extra careful with their decks while others shuffle them as a normal deck of cards. Sometimes it might even depend on the deck itself. I find myself being more careful with certain decks that are higher priced or custom made compared to a deck that I could easily get another copy of on Amazon.
If you’re still unsure about how you want to shuffle your tarot cards, I go over 7 ways to shuffle tarot and oracle cards in this post.
How to Ask a Question in a Tarot Reading
Asking a question for a tarot reading seems like it would be pretty straightforward, right? Well, there are a few things that you need to consider when you are formulating your question so that you can get the most useful information possible.
Questions should be phrased for an open-ended answer. You want to avoid asking a question that will result in a yes or no answer for most tarot readings. I say most because there are tarot spreads and ways to read the cards that can give you a yes or no answer. You can read more about that here, if you’re interested. Otherwise, let’s get back to the question. Instead of “will I…” try “how can I…” or “what can I do to get [result]…”
Don’t ask about someone else’s thoughts or opinions. A tarot deck is not a mind-reading device, although sometimes you might think I’m lying as tarot can be scarily accurate. Instead of asking “What does so and so think about [x]”, ask “What can I do to attract [what you want]”.
Especially when reading for other people, try to avoid questions about health. Even if you’re a doctor, medical advice (including pregnancy) should be left to the medical professional setting, not a tarot reading. I don’t see a problem asking in general about health, like “What ways could I be healthier” or “How can I take better care of myself” type things, but questions like “How can I cure my cancer"?” and “Am I pregnant?” are not the best questions to be asking tarot cards.
Choose the right tarot card layout for your question. How you lay out the tarot cards is referred to as a tarot spread and different spreads have different meanings for the cards in each position.
How to Choose the Right Tarot Spread
The good news is that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ tarot spread for any question. You can ask the same question 15 times using 15 different tarot spreads and the only difference is that each spread will give you slightly different information or more/less information. BTW, you want to avoid asking the same question multiple times.
The tarot spread that you choose should be related to the question that you are asking. If you don’t have a specific question in mind, sometimes a single card, or up to 3 cards is the best option with no set positions.
Other times, if you are looking for more details about something, use a specific layout where each position gives a bit of direction on what the tarot card in that position could mean.
For example, if you choose to do a reading with the question “How Can I Improve to Get a Raise at Work?” You might have chosen a hefty spread, like the Celtic Cross tarot spread, which contains 10 cards. The first card represents you in your current situation right now. If you were to have a 2 of Wands in that position, it could mean that you are looking for job opportunities and trying to broaden your horizons.
But if you were to have the 2 of Wands as the eighth card, your environment, it could mean that there is an opportunity available or that someone who is in the business that you wish to be in could lend some help.
When you are first starting, I recommend that you stick with no more than 3 cards. Most of the time this is more than enough to answer the question, even when you are more comfortable reading tarot cards.
You can check out some of the tarot spreads that' I’ve made here to get you started. People have loved the spread that I made on how to connect with a new tarot deck.
