This article is for new students, and the pros are welcome to add any pointers they feel they wish they had known when they were first starting out in the field. It’ll cover the basics for doing any reading and will become second nature as you practice and further your tarot reading skills!
- Tune in for a bit, and get into a comfortable yet respectful posture that this work naturally assumes to have. There is no one way, the only need is that you have an understanding that you are approaching a higher power here, so call on your humility at this point if it is lacking (which happens all the time because we’re totally human and it’s perfectly fine to need to remind yourself of the divine presence inside of you, no judgment!).
- Call the divine and any spiritual aids that help you focus your attention on the present moment as you shuffle the cards.
- Request that the following reading be from your highest self with humility and love for the good of all.
- Keep shuffling and say aloud the purpose of your reading, as many times as feels right—this process pretty much takes its own course when you trust the divine to lead the way.
- Having chosen your spread of choice, lay the cards down with the same rhythm that the divine has set the tone for up until now, allowing your higher mind to scan the cards and bringing your intellect into play to begin the interpretation.
- Once all the cards are present, the reading may begin. How you move through the reading depends on your philosophy of tarot and which school of thought you come from, but again, whichever that is, simply allow the divine to govern your basic understanding of the tarot up until now. One assumes you know the spread and the placement of the cards and what they represent generally. Specifically, now you will relate the cards to the current purpose of your reading.
- The story emerges and you can document it as you go or, if you’re reading for someone there with you, recording the reading can be helpful.
- After the gist of the reading is clear, there might be one or more areas on which you or the querent would like even more clarity, and so you can now pull other cards to do so. The style is up to the reader: you can choose random cards; shuffle again with an audible request; use a completely different tarot or oracle deck or mode of divination such as runes or chiromancy, etc.
- On completion of the reading (the divine will also be very clear as to when the reading has ended), thank the divine and any spiritual aids you called forth for the reading and if you have some form of closure blessing, now is the time to say it. Sever any connections with your spirit guides and rest in the finality of the moment. Now is the time to return to earth-bound consciousness, in gratitude and “regular” existence.
Hope this list and fun exploration of the energies surrounding tarot practice have been beneficial. Pleasant readings to all!
Any other advice for the newbs out there? Comment and have at it, good people.
