Wise and Effective Use of the Tarot

The Tarot is the most widely used method of the random type of divination process, and has dramatically grown in popularity since the 1980’s. The Tarot as we know it dates from the 14th century but may have its origins in a much earlier time. These days there are literally hundreds of different styles of Tarot decks available with new ones being published all the time.

The Tarot is colorful, pictorial, and appeals to the child and the artist within as well as to the seeker. The Tarot is very flexible and can be used in a wide variety of situations. The Tarot emerged out of the Renaissance, a time noted for its emphasis on romance and the arts. This is reflected in the cards, which can be very helpful in romantic matters and for issues concerning creative processes.

The Major Arcana of the Tarot describes the archetypal nature of the individual’s spiritual journey through life, which in psychotherapeutic terms is called the individuation process. The Tarot can give good feedback about where you are in your journey and what should be focused on at the present time, in the near future, and in the more distant future, and what is likely to occur as a result. The rest of the cards, the Minor Arcana, support the Majors by giving information about practicalities and day-to-day living. They give information about how the nuts and bolts of our lives, the people we know, the jobs we do, support our spiritual development.

When correctly used, the Tarot can give clear advice about the timing of events, (although in general astrology is the best tool for this). The Tarot lends itself very well to the development of the querent’s intuition, making it an excellent tool for personal development when used wisely.

Of all the major divinatory systems, Tarot may be the easiest to begin and the hardest to truly master. Shuffling a deck of cards and putting some of them down on a table seems straightforward, and indeed it is. We are all familiar with playing cards, and you don’t have to make arcane mathematical calculations or prepare a bunch of yarrow stalks before you can start. The proliferation of Tarot decks these days means you can walk into most bookstores and buy a set of cards complete with its own instruction manual, making Tarot possibly the most accessible modern-day divinatory technique. Yet correct interpretation of the cards is challenging and takes either a remarkable gift or many years of study and practice.

Tarot cards can be very appealing, and it’s tempting to think one can purchase a deck and get going straight away. This is just the moment to pause for a second and realize what you are getting into. This is a strong path, one that will lead you in a fascinating direction, but one that can obscure and confuse until you have walked the path long enough to find it familiar. And even then, the uncanny accuracy of your readings may still sometimes give you cause for pause.

The Power of the Cards

There’s no denying it: Tarot decks have a power to them. This varies from deck to deck. The first reading I had was in the 1970’s when a friend turned up one night with the Crowley deck. He laid out a reading on the floor of my bedroom, and I nearly passed out with terror. I didn’t sleep all night and I was convinced the cards had brought something evil into my room.

In fact, what was going on with me was that I had a major psychic ability that was almost completely undeveloped. I had a good deal of fear of my own proclivity and it took many years of spiritual practice and psychological work before I was strong enough and mature enough (energetically as well as spiritually and psychologically) to be able to work with this energy constructively. 
It’s important to honor the developmental process. Many people are not ready for psychic work until they get into midlife, and there’s no need to rush. At the same time, many people have their heads filled with mistaken fear by people and religions that don’t accept or understand the nature of intuition, and that can hold us back.

 Your Relationship with the Tarot

Your First Deck of Cards
There used to be a tradition that you couldn’t buy your first deck. It was said-by whom, I don’t know–that someone had to give it to you. This was because it was understood that having your own deck was an initiation. A spiritual teacher would give you a deck when you were ready. These days, when you can buy Tarot cards in Barnes and Noble, people are clearly buying their own and this tradition has faded. This doesn’t mean the cards should not still be treated with great respect and appropriate awe. Or that it might not be a bad idea to wait until you feel ready. Perhaps you feel so drawn to the cards you cannot stop yourself from buying your own first deck. We are not all privileged to have a teacher in the flesh, but if you do buy your own deck, make sure you also buy a good guide to accompany it. 

As for which deck to begin with: this is such a personal choice. I’m not alone in having found the Crowley/Golden Dawn deck scary. But then I find the Renaissance deck childlike and namby-pamby. These days I go for the middle ground, and mostly work with the Zerner-Farber deck which I find beautiful and strong without being dark. It is also clearly evocative of the meanings of the cards. The Rider Waite deck is the most widely used and is accessible without being daunting.

Go for a deck whose pictures you find interesting, and that you feel drawn towards. If you don’t like a deck, that’s fine, there is plenty of choice these days and it’s not hard to find a deck you like. There are also many decks that are based on the Tarot but that are different in various ways, such as the wonderful Motherpeace and Voyager decks, two of the first to break the traditional Tarot mold.

I own twenty or so decks and use all of them at different times depending on my frame of mind and my question, but I also always have a main deck, and that has only changed twice over the past twenty years. Some renowned Tarot readers will work with just one deck their whole life. It’s up to you.

Preparing Your Deck of Cards
When you get your first deck, or a new deck, you need to handle the cards every day for a while to infuse them with your energy. I keep a new deck on my altar for the first few days, and shuffle the cards every time I sit to meditate. (I also keep my main deck, the one I work with most of the time, on my altar all the time). You can also put all the cards out in their correct order and look at each card, observing how you feel about the image.

When you feel intuitively that your energy has pervaded the cards, then you can do a reading. There’s no point doing it before, because you are unlikely to get a clear reading. Once your deck of cards is primed in this way you will be able to feel when you are shuffling them whether or not this is a good time for a reading, what question you should ask, what reading to do. Sometimes the cards will feel watery and open, sometimes sticky and wooden, sometimes alive and fiery. Learning to feel the energy of the cards is an important part of reading them correctly.

Don’t let anyone handle your cards except for minimally before a reading. Don’t let anyone who is very disturbed handle them at all. When giving someone a reading, I recommend just letting them cut the cards that you yourself have shuffled. If someone else does play with your cards, treat the deck as if it were new and handle the cards a lot every day for a few days before you read with them again.

Interpretation

Tarot can be taught only to a limited degree, because no two readings are ever the same, and correct interpretation depends on the nature of the question at that moment in time and on the particular combination of cards that are pulled. Reading the Tarot gets complex once you move beyond the one card pull, which to be perfectly frank, isn’t going to be much use a lot of the time anyway, as most issues worth asking the Tarot about are more complex than one card can answer.

Understanding the Reading

Tarot books can’t give you the meaning of an individual reading because each reading is entirely unique. Most Tarot books don’t even begin to talk about card combinations, restricting themselves to the meanings of the 78 cards, which in itself is a lot of information and varies from deck to deck. And yet card combinations are crucial, and until you learn this, your readings will stay superficial and won’t help you nearly as much as they could.

For example, say you pull the Three of Swords, the heartbreak card, usually considered one of the toughest cards in the deck, and one of those that you don’t ever want to pull but which is bound to show up from time to time in anyone’s life.

In brief, this card signifies a broken heart, a very trying emotional experience. The Waite deck shows a bleeding heart pierced by three swords. That pretty much sums up the meaning of the card.

The card’s actual meaning, the specific way in which this bad experience–which can range from not getting what you want to heartrending abandonment to downright tragedy–is going to occur in your life, depends on the position it falls in the reading and on the cards that surround it.

It could refer to something that happened in the past and is still affecting you. It could mean a minor, or a major, heartbreak in the future (a future that ranges in certainty from optional to quite possible to highly probable). It could mean you are afraid of heartbreak and that this fear is getting in the way. It could mean that someone around you needs consoling. Next to the Sun and the Wheel of Fortune, it could mean a situation that appears worse than it is and that will actually lead you to better things if you would just let life take you to the next stage.

When the Three of Swords sits next to the Queen of Swords it suggests a woman left alone but capable of making the break and enduring her grief. Next to the Queen of Wands it shows a woman who is so magnetic she won’t be alone for long. If the Queen of Cups is in the picture, watch out–this woman can get pretty clingy and codependent. She may not be able to let go and may persist in an abusive situation. If she has been left, she may find herself overwhelmed by her emotions and unable to move on in her life.

On the other hand, if there is a positive card like the Star nearby in the spread, she’ll be able to process her feelings and move into a state of renewed hope and trust in life. Then there’s the Queen of Pentacles, the woman who is practical and will get on and do what has to be done but who may sacrifice her emotional happiness for money and a roof over her head. You see? And that’s just two cards. Think what happens when you multiply those variables by ten or eleven, which is how many cards there are in the most common spread, the Celtic Cross, depending on which version you use.

So while you can learn the meanings of the individual cards, this is just the beginning, and you are really on your own when it comes to understanding a reading, So you have to practice. You have to do a lot of readings. You have to get to know the cards, the archetypes, so well that they are like your family and friends. You have to create your own relationship with the Tarot and come to some kind of an internal marriage between these archetypes and your own intuitive powers. Otherwise, you can get into trouble.

Common Problems in Tarot Interpretation

Seeing What You Want to See
A common problem arises from shaping the interpretation to the outcome you want, thus missing the gifts within the reading because you are not letting yourself be taught by the cards, but are trying to make them fit a picture you already think you know.

Over-dramatizing the Reading
Another pitfall is to dramatize the reading to extremes. One bad card in a reading has you writhing on the floor in agony, convinced total disaster is about to strike, when actually the cards were just saying you might get overdrawn one day next week, so watch your spending. Conversely, some people see the King of Pentacles and immediately assume vast wealth is imminent when in fact the good news is probably more prosaic than that, along the lines of you’ll carry on being able to make the rent as long as you work hard. Degree is a hard thing to learn with the Tarot, as with any divinatory system, actually. That’s where the real skill comes in.

Keeping It Simple

In the beginning then, it’s best to keep it simple. Most books recommend that you just pull one card at a time until you really know the cards, then graduate to three cards (past, present and future, usually) and then eventually work your way up to the mother of Tarot readings, the Celtic Cross. This is all very well and good as advice goes, but are you really going to be content to just pull one card for months and months? I don’t think so. Most people leap into Celtic Cross territory way too early, but then, that’s only to be expected. One thing I would recommend, as a salve to such impetuosity: write your readings down. Before you do the next reading, check and see if the last one has run its course.

Keep Records of Your Readings

There are several benefits to writing readings down. First, the obvious, you’ll be able to look them up later. While you are still in the time frame of the reading, it’s much better to refer back to the original reading than to do another one because you forgot what the first one said. Once you’ve moved beyond the time frame, you can use the reading as a teaching tool. You can see whether you can understand, with the benefit of hindsight, what the cards were trying to tell you.

There are other, less obvious reasons. As you commit the reading to paper you may get additional insights. Writing a reading down means you are taking it seriously.

But primarily, write your readings down so you can learn from them. Gradually, over time, you will come to understand how the cards speak to you.

Time Frames

It can help clarify matters if you add a time frame into your question. Some authorities say all Tarot readings are relevant for six months, but that doesn’t make sense to me and I haven’t seen it work that way in practice. In my experience Tarot readings are operative for as long as they are operative for, and that can vary from minutes to decades. If you are in a phase in which life is changing very fast and you need all the help you can get making decisions and navigating through a time of upheaval, readings may be valid for hours, days or weeks rather than months. So ask appropriately, along the lines of, How does my love life look over the next three months? What is the financial outlook for me for the next month? (More sample questions are given with different layouts later in the chapter).

The time frame question is also important when it comes to interpreting near and far future cards in layouts such as the Celtic Cross, although this near and far business is not always literal, as the future cards seem to work together and comment upon each other. Outcome cards are the most variable card in the spread, because often you can change the outcome if you change your plans or behavior.

Monte Farber and Amy Zerner use the three to six day/hour, hour/week, week/month system and that seems to work well. With this method you always ask a question for three to six of either days/hours, hours/weeks, or weeks/months, and then the near future card will tell you what will happen in the nearer time frame, and the far future or outcome card in the time frame you’ve asked for. So if you ask, what is the outlook for my job at the new company over the next three to six months, then the near future card will tell you about the next three to six weeks, and the outcome card will tell you where you will be in three to six months.

Many psychics will tell you that time started speeding up in the 1990’s and that prediction became much more difficult as a result, Whether this is true or whether it is a jolly good excuse I am not sure. But it does seem as though things are whirling along these days and that timing has become both more fluid and harder to predict. But then it’s always been hard to predict the future, which is why people with the gift of sight have been prized and feared.

While it’s useful to put a time frame on a question, be aware that the Tarot will speak to you in its own time frame too. So if you ask a question about what to do tomorrow and you get a majority of Major Arcana cards, be aware that the cards are talking longer term than tomorrow, for whatever reasons that you may be able to figure out.

Layouts

The way you put the cards down on the table is called the layout, or the spread. Different spreads lend themselves to different types of questions. For a simple question involving a time line, the three card spread is good. The first card represents the past and the events or thoughts leading up to the present situation, the second card shows you the present, the third card gives you an indication of the probable outcome.

For a more complex question I often like to work with single card pulls while asking a series of very specific questions. Then there are the more complex spreads involving ten, eleven or more cards. The most commonly used is the Celtic Cross, which I will discuss at some length. For other spreads, please consult one of the excellent books on Tarot recommended in the bibliography.

The Celtic Cross

Quite why the Celtic Cross is so popular, I am not sure. It’s a weird set up in several ways, and there’s disagreement about what certain positions mean, or even which way–clockwise or counter-clockwise–to lay the cards down. On the plus side, it can give you a fairly complete view on a situation, but on the downside, this view can be so complex as to be hard to understand and use. The name, Celtic Cross, sounds good, sort of Pagan and Christian all at once, and gives the reading a flavor of something ritualistic and deep. It is said that the layout originated in Ireland, but for all that we know, it may have been invented by someone in Croyden a hundred years ago. I have not been able to find any good data on the origins of the spread.

But I am a firm believer in pragmatism, and if the Celtic Cross has been popular for so long, and continues to be the reading of choice of most of today’s Tarot professionals, then there must be something it has that other layouts lack.

This is the version that after twenty-five years of trial and error (emphasis on the error) I have come to prefer. It is taken from many sources and you will find versions of the Celtic Cross that are quite different from this, but all of them will share the basic layout of a cross and a staff. ILLUSTRATION

In the first part of the layout, the cross, the horizontal and vertical axes have particular meanings. The cards along the horizontal axis refer to a timeline: past, present, future, The vertical cards refer to awareness: subconscious, conscious, higher consciousness.

Card 1 is you in the current situation. Often this will be obvious to you, but sometimes this card will describe a situation you yourself are not even aware of yet, but which has already happened elsewhere and which is having an impact without your conscious knowledge. I once felt very drawn to the cards, as if they were calling me. So I did a reading without a specific question other than “What do you want me to know?” I got the Three of Swords in this position. As I was staring at the reading, not understanding it, the phone rang, and it was my boyfriend at the time. He was calling to tell me that he had fallen in love with someone else. Now I understood the reading! Fortunately it also told me someone else was on the way into my life, and that I needed to be honest and face the fact that the current relationship would not have worked anyway.
This card always tells you the core emotional experience of the present time and how that relates to the question.

Card 2 is the atmosphere around you. This might be another person, or a general ambiance. It usually refers to something or someone that is supportive. The relationship between Cards 1 and 2 is important: if Card 2 is harmonious with Card 1 then you have the prospect of an easier path than if it is not.

Card 3 represents the challenge, that which you are struggling with, that which is getting in the way, or could get in the way, of the satisfactory resolution of your dilemma. It can speak of an inner issue or an actual person, or a material or practical aspect to the question. (Some versions of the Celtic Cross conflate Cards 2 and 3 into one card, which you then have to interpret as either supportive or challenging, but I find it works much better to use two cards.)

Card 4 is the card at the bottom of the reading and represents the base of the matter. This can be interpreted in many ways. It can be your unconscious or hidden motivation or problem. It can tell you about an aspect of the matter that you are unwilling or in some way unable to see. It can also refer to the basis of the issue, the desire or motivation that is giving rise to the issue. It often refers to a deep-seated longing or need or desire. It can tell you about an area of yourself or your life that needs attention because it has been hidden and is having an unconscious influence on the matter at hand. It can also refer to attributes you bring to the situation, the nature of the foundation within yourself.

Card 5 is the past, the condition or person or mood that is passing away, but that in some way has a bearing on the question. This card helps you to locate yourself within the timeline of the issue. For example, if you are in the middle of making a major transition and you get Death in this position, you know you have completed the tough letting-go part of the transition and that now you are beginning to embrace the new.

Card 6 is the overview. It can be the perspective your higher self takes on the matter in question. It can be a meta-perspective, the big picture. It can be an advice card as to the state of mind or action that would help you. Sometimes it represents the very near future  a state of mind or an occurrence that is imminent.

Card 7 is the near future. Depending on the time frame you set for the question (which, by the way, the cards will disregard if it doesn’t help the reading) this card will tell you about the next step, the next major event, that is likely to occur. If it’s a Major Arcana card or an Ace then I think of it more as something that will occur, rather than something that is merely possible. A minor arcana card may be giving you advice about how to proceed, or a warning about what to watch out for. This card more often than any other position, in my experience, throws up a person, a court card. Clearly this indicates either someone you are going to encounter in some meaningful way that will have an impact on your question. It can also indicate an aspect of yourself that will come into greater prominence.

Card 8 is the first of the staff laid down to the right of the cross itself. It seems to represent how you feel about yourself with regard to the matter in question, but it can also represent an aspect of the matter that is still forming. It needs to be read with Cards 7 and 9 in order to determine what this position is saying.

Card 9 represents how others see you. It can also speak of allies in your environment. It’s an important card because it can help you see how your problem is perceived by those around you. For example, if you ask a question about your love life and you get the 10 of Cups here, then others either see you as very happy, or will in the near future. They see you as someone who naturally would have a happy home life. This in itself will help you in creating that. If you get the Queen of Swords in this position it means others (which includes potential suitors) see you as independent, aloof, and living the archetype of the authoritative single woman or the widow. This means you need to do some work on your public image if you are going to attract a mate.

Card 10 represents your emotions about the matter, traditionally called your hopes and fears. It shows you what influence your own feelings-your wishes and your neuroses–are having on the situation. If you get a Major Arcana card here then your emotional state needs attention, and possibly, depending on the card, professional help. A court card here may speak of the influence someone else has on your emotions, on your wishes and their apparent opposite, your fears. Are you really in touch with what you really want? Are you being run by fears that you have outgrown?

Card 11 represents the probable outcome, within the time frame of your question. If you don’t get a Major Arcana card here you can draw up to three more cards from the top of the deck and see if one shows up. If it doesn’t then the outcome of the situation is uncertain. The outcome can almost always be influenced by a shift on your behaviour or attitude, and all the cards in the reading will hold within them advice about the best way to proceed.

Synthesis

Whichever layout you choose, when you have looked at each individual card in its position then you can start to make a synthesis. As I said above, the cards change in meaning depending on the other cards around them. There is no way really to teach this. You just have to do a lot of readings and develop the skill intuitively and over time.

Much of it is common sense: the Queen of Wands next to the King of Pentacles in answer to a money question suggests that money will come from creativity and socialising; the Queen of Wands next to the Five of Pentacles in a money reading suggests that you should be careful about impulsively spending money that you don’t have.

If you get the Devil in position 6 in the Celtic Cross, at the top of the reading, you are getting bad advice, including perhaps, the reading you have just pulled. You might want to rethink the question, shuffle again, and do it over. If you are not centered and clear at the moment of cutting the cards then you may not get a clear reading.

All in all the Tarot demands that you step up your ability to detach from your question, activate your relationship to the archetypes, and allow synthesis to occur in your brain so that accurate perception can arise. For most of us these steps are not easy. But if you practice, then you will be repaid many times over by gaining access to a realm in which the past, present, and future mesh together, giving insight at all levels.

copyright Lara Owen 2004 all rights reserved