How to Interpret Tarot Cards

After you've chosen a tarot deck, you'll want to know how to work with the cards. Learning how to interpret tarot cards is a necessary step toward this goal.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Tarot Cards
• Candles
• Card Tables
• Pens
• Tarot Cards Software
• Candles
• Pens

1. Read the booklet or book that came in your tarot deck package. This is a good place to start learning about card interpretation.
2. Go to your local library, bookstore or alternative spirituality store. Skim through several books on card interpretation.
3. Select a book to read and study. A good book will emphasize the psychological aspects of tarot interpretation, not the predictive.
4. Get to know your tarot cards. Take time to look at each one individually. Take note of your emotions as you consider each card. This will help your interpretive skills as a tarot reader.
5. Wait until you feel comfortable with your tarot cards before using them to interpret readings.
6. Experiment with a tarot spread suggested in your book. Most people use tarot cards by placing a number of them into a pattern called a tarot spread. To begin, choose a simple one that uses 10 cards or fewer.
7. Look over the cards chosen for your reading in the tarot spread and try to think of each card as a chapter in a story you are telling. See if there is a preponderance of any one suit or arcana. Personal feelings or memories may surface as you gaze at the images before you - they are important and should be noted as well.
8. Try interpreting cards only for yourself at first before you branch out to friends and family members.

Tips & Warnings

• Try keeping a tarot journal. Use this to write down any thoughts you might have about individual cards, information you've read about card interpretation, and readings you've given. Writing things down helps the mind remember.
• A tarot reading cannot tell you what you don't already know, even if you're unwilling to accept this knowledge at the time. Interpreting tarot cards is an adventure into truth seeking rather than soothsaying.
• Tarot presents information in a new form - like another opinion, but one without a vested interest.
• If the interpretation of a tarot reading seems confusing, it may not be the correct time for the information to be given. Wait a little while before trying again.
• Interpreting tarot cards is a responsibility. When reading tarot cards for others, your words can influence their lives for better or worse. Remember that the future is fluid and is affected by our actions in the present.
• If you interpret tarot cards for others, don't tell them anything as an absolute negative. No card combination is so bad that there is not some good in it. Even if they won't admit it to themselves, people often invest belief in a tarot reading, and you will unnecessarily frighten them.
• If you read tarot cards for yourself and find yourself consulting the cards more often than you'd like, consider if you are addicted to tarot reading. Also consider if you are avoiding something in your life. Tarot cards are not a quick fix: What may be needed is a deeper exploration of the issues involved that only a trained therapist or counselor can provide.

Who Can Help: