How to Do a Tarot Reading: Getting Ready

You understand how the deck is built, you know the suits and the numbers. Time to lay out some cards. This lesson is about how to do a tarot reading as a beginner: everything that happens before you draw the first card. Most "confusing" readings aren't confusing because of the cards, but because of a badly phrased question.

Your space and your head

Candles and incense are optional, there's no magic in them. What matters is 10-15 minutes where nobody interrupts you. Put your phone face down. If you read cards between two messages, you'll see what you want to see in them, not what's actually there.

Before a reading it helps to spend a couple of minutes thinking about the situation. Not about the answer you want, but about what's really going on.

How to shuffle tarot cards

There's no correct way, only comfortable ones. These are the four most common:

• overhand shuffle - take part of the deck from the top and move it to the bottom, like with ordinary playing cards;
• washing - spread the cards face down on the table and mix them with your palms, which also turns some of them upside down;
• riffle shuffle - the casino method, done gently so you don't damage the cards;
• cutting - after shuffling, split the deck into a few piles and stack them back in a different order.

Shuffle until it feels like enough. Many readers keep their question in mind while they do it. If you read online, the site does this step for you: in our 3-card spread and yes or no reading the cards are shuffled at random.

How to ask the cards a question

This is the heart of the lesson. A good question gets a clear answer, a bad one gets mush.

Ask about yourself, not on someone else's behalf. "What do I need to understand about my relationship with Alex?" works better than "What is Alex doing right now?" The cards describe your situation well and are poor at surveillance.

Open or closed. An open question ("What will help me with the move?") suits spreads of several cards. A closed one ("Should I move this autumn?") suits a yes or no reading, which is lesson 8.

One question at a time. "Should I quit my job, and what will happen with my relationship?" is two readings, not one.

Don't ask again. If you didn't like the answer and immediately lay the cards out again, the second reading is almost always muddled. Write the first one down and come back to it the next day.

How to learn to read tarot cards faster

Advice almost every reader gives: write down every reading. The question, the cards, your interpretation, and what happened afterwards. After a month of this you'll see which cards you read accurately and where you go wrong. The next lesson covers this in detail.

What's next

In lesson 7 we start your first regular practice: the card of the day and a tarot journal.