Easy Guide to Tarot Cards

Tarot cards have been around since the 15th Century, but it wasn’t until the 19th Century that they were used as a psychic tool of prediction and divination. They are a powerful way to communicate with your intuition and gain insights that are not easily accessible via conscious thought.

Tarot may sound complicated, but there are simple ways to get started if you are a beginner. A standard tarot deck contains 78 cards, divided into 22 Major Arcana cards and 56 Minor Arcana cards. Take your time to familiarise yourself with all the cards and use their imagery and symbols to develop ideas about each card. While there are standard symbolic commonalities and meaning throughout most decks, the way you choose to interpret each card can also be personal. So, really, there is no right or wrong way to do this.

The Major Arcana cards are numbered 0-21 and are generally more significant than the other cards. They represent the big archetypal themes and lessons of life. The Minor Arcana cards relate to more specific daily challenges and express your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. The Minor Arcana cards are divided equally into four suits:

Cups – Represent the emotional aspect of our lives, often relating to relationships, feelings, emotions, and intuition.
Pentacles- Represent the material aspect of our lives, often relating to money, possessions, and career path.
Wands – Represent the active aspect of our lives, often relating to adventure, undertakings, energy, passion, and sexuality.
Swords – Represent the mental aspect of our lives, often relating to intellect, social interactions, thoughts, words, ideas, negativity and conflict.

After you have gotten to know your cards, it’s time to learn a basic spread. A tarot spread is a way to structure your cards so that you can read them. When working with tarot, you will focus on a question to seek clarity about. It’s important to take the time to hold the question in your mind. Make sure that it is an open-ended question that leaves room for insight. With your question clear in your mind, hold your cards and imprint them with your energy. Now, you can shuffle the deck however you like and either cut the deck and choose the first card(s) on top or fan the cards out on a flat surface and pick the card(s) that speaks to you.

The 1-Card Spread

Working with one card at a time is the easiest way to familiarise yourself with tarot. Pick a singular card from the deck and reveal it. This card will be the answer to your question and guide you going into the future. The 1-Card spread is a great way to get to know your cards and find meaning in them.

The 3-Card Spread

(Past-present-future) Select three cards from your deck and place them face down in a row. First, turn over and reveal the card on the left; this card represents what past aspects have shaped you and are still influencing your life. The second card represents your present and where you are right now. The third card represents your future and reveals a possible outcome.

The 5-Card Spread

This spread adds another two cards to the past-present-future spread. The first card is placed beneath the “present” card and reveals the reason for your current situation. The second card is placed above the “present” card and shows the possible outcome or potential. By the end, your spread will be in a cross formation.

Getting into the practice of using tarot can be a lot of fun, especially when there is such a variety of card spreads to choose from. By helping you tap into your intuition and inner wisdom, tarot can help you learn more about yourself, navigate challenges, and guide you in manifesting the future you desire.