How to Read Tarot Cards

Want to know a little about your future? Or help you decide on an important matter? Some people take the tarot cards seriously as a signs pointing to what is to come, while others consider reading tarot cards a psychological exercise in determining what you want and do not want in your future. Here’s how to do a basic reading of tarot cards.

1. Get a deck. People choose their tarot decks intuitively. For a beginner, the Rider-Waite deck is the best deck to start from. Ask someone else to buy it for you, as part of the beliefs that the readings would not be as accurate when you buy your own cards.
2. Be neat. Keep your cards placed inside a scarf or a tarot card case to prevent losing cards. It’s also said to help you “bond” with the cards and give the reader more accurate results.
3. Shuffle. Concentrate on your question, whether by focusing on it with your thoughts or saying it out aloud. Shuffle three times, or spread the cards around before gathering them up again.
4. Cut. Cut the deck three times.
5. Layout. There are different layouts to cards. Here are some:
   • Past, Present, Future. Layout three cards in a row. The leftmost card represents past, the middle card represents the present, and the card at your right is the future card.
   • Celtic Cross. The Celtic Cross is the most standard tarot card layout. Your deck typically comes with instructions on how to deal the cards in a Celtic Cross, as well as their assigned meanings. Each card’s meaning interacts with the position they are laid out, and later on interpreted as a whole by the tarot card reader.
6. Card position. When laying out the card, the back of the deck should be facing the reader, so as not to reveal the card until it has been positioned. When flipping the card over, do it in a left to right movement. The positioning should be maintained as it was from the deck. An upright position means the most straightforward meaning, while an upside-down position may mean the opposite, or a lesser strength to the card’s original meaning.
7. Card meanings. Every deck comes with an instructional booklet that will guide you to each card’s meanings. You also have the option of buying a more comprehensive tarot card book to provide even more meanings. In the case of the Rider-Waite tarot card deck, the illustration of the cards also provide clues to the meaning of each card, so read the symbolism carefully. Generally speaking, the cups mean emotions, wands signify wisdom or power, coins symbolize wealth and material things while swords symbolize strength or disunion.
8. Interrelate. Now here comes the fun part. Relate the card meanings with the position they have in your chosen layout, how they relate to each other (past, present, future) and how they relate to the question at hand. Don’t be afraid to interpret the way you see it. Think of it as piecing together different parts of a story to make it into a tangible whole.