How to Read Tarot Cards: 8 Essential Steps to See Clearly and Bond with Your Deck
As an internationally renowned, full-time professional tarot reader, I’ve spent years learning from many schools of thought, texts, and hands-on experience. Tarot is more than a profession; it’s my passion, a labor of love, and a lifelong journey of exploration. I remain a student, not only of the cards but of the psychology behind them and the intuitive relationship each one invites.
Understanding the basics is essential, and beneath the basics lives a deeper art: creating a meaningful experience for both you and the person you’re reading for. Tarot is less about controlling fate and more about seeing clearly: observing patterns, gaining insights, and exploring the intricacies of the human experience. These eight foundational steps, counted down to the one that changes everything, will help you build a practice that feels natural, empowering, and insightful.
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8. How Do You Shuffle Tarot Cards to Set the Energy?
The shuffle is a meditation, not a card trick.
Everything begins with the shuffle. Myths insist your deck must never be touched by another hand, or that your first deck must arrive as a gift, and myths are all they are. Intention is what matters, and the act of shuffling is a meditative process that aligns your energy with the cards.
Readers who enjoy depth can incorporate reversals by flipping some cards during the shuffle, opening a broader spectrum of interpretation since each card then carries dual meanings, upright and reversed. Curious how this fits into ordinary days? Here’s how tarot can guide your day-to-day choices, and Oprah Daily’s beginner’s guide covers the wider basics beautifully.
7. Why Do You Cut the Deck in Three?
Left hand, three piles, one clean reset.
Once you’re ready, cut the deck. Using your left hand, traditionally associated with receiving, divide the cards into three piles, then gather them back together and give the deck a final shuffle to unify the energy.
Cutting resets more than the cards; it resets you. The pause ensures the deck sits in a fresh, receptive state for whatever insights come through, and if life feels chaotic, tarot itself offers a path back to center, as I explore in finding balance and letting go with tarot.
6. Which Tarot Spread Should You Choose?
Three cards, endless mileage.
A spread gives your reading structure. For beginners, the simplicity of a three-card spread representing past, present, and future is perfect, and even veteran readers return to it constantly.
Before drawing each card, set an intention for its position. Pulling a card to represent “the core of my situation”? Say that intention aloud to solidify its purpose. Spoken intention keeps the reading focused and grounded, and if you’re wondering how far the cards can actually see, I explore the limits and powers of tarot prediction here.
5. How Do You Draw Tarot Cards Intuitively?
Your hand knows before your head does.
With the cards spread out, take a deep breath and center yourself. Close your eyes if needed, hover your left hand over the cards, and let intuition guide you to the right one. Some readers feel warmth, some feel a pull, some simply know.
Intuitive selection manifests differently for everyone, a point Vogue’s tarot guide makes well. Want to sharpen the instrument itself? These tips on increasing your psychic abilities will deepen every draw you make.
4. What Does Card Placement Mean in a Spread?
Location, location, divination.
Where a card lands adds context. The left side of a spread leans toward the past, the right side toward the future, and central placements often speak to the core or hidden aspects of a situation.
Think of placement as grammar for the cards’ vocabulary: the same card says different things depending on where it sits in the sentence. Allure’s beginner-friendly tarot guide covers positioning in an accessible, intuitive way, ideal for anyone starting out.
3. How Do You Interpret Tarot Cards with Depth?
Every card contains a virtue and a warning.
Each tarot card speaks to the richness of the human experience, holding both virtues and challenges. Tarot isn’t a highlight reel of “good” cards dodging “bad” ones; it’s about balance, the full weather system of a life.
Take your time with each card, exploring how its message fits the larger context of the spread. Patterns emerge between cards, and the interconnections provide a well-rounded view no single card can offer. The Tarot Professor dives deeper into the symbolism and dual nature of every card.
2. How Do You Build a Relationship with Your Tarot Deck?
78 strangers slowly becoming old friends.
To deepen your connection, treat each card as a living entity with a unique presence. Daily ritual builds the bond: a single morning draw, a moment of study, a journal note about what the card meant by evening.
Over time each card becomes an old friend, offering insights personal to you and your history together. That living relationship only grows richer with practice, and Healing Thru Tarot’s beginner resources offer lovely ways to develop the daily habit.
1. Why Should You See Yourself in Every Reading?
The querent across the table is a mirror.
Here is the step that changes everything. When reading for someone else, see them as a mirror of yourself. Strange as it sounds, this approach ensures you let go of control, surrender your ego, and provide a true reflection for the querent. Ask yourself: what words do you need to hear for each card?
Imagine the reading is for you, and speak openly and authentically about everything that comes up. Tarot is as much about empathy as intuition, and viewing others as reflections taps insights both personal and universally relevant. The Good Trade’s guide explores the role empathy plays at the table.
The purpose of tarot is to see, not control. Each card acts as a mirror, helping us explore patterns, energies, and underlying themes running beneath the surface of a life. Interested in the journey that brought me to the cards? My story lives here, and when you’re ready for a one-on-one reading tailored to your life and questions, book your session with me today.
Below is the first video I ever made for YouTube, summing up everything in this article. Believe it or not, I’m quite camera shy, and being in front of the lens is part of facing my own fears. Here’s hoping it gets easier the more I do it! Happy reading, and welcome to the journey.
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Chris Bennett is an internationally recognized psychic medium and tarot reader, widely considered one of the best in the world. Through The Tarot Medium, he reads exclusively online for clients across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, with more than 200 published articles and hundreds of five-star reviews to his name. His work blends evidential mediumship with the grounded symbolism of Tarot, always as a supplement to good therapy rather than a replacement for it.
