How do tarot readers actually ‘read’ tarot cards? And why is it that tarot readings so often turn out to be surprisingly spot-on, and even helpful? Are there spirits? Magick? Delusion? Do the cards really know what’s up? Every tarot reader has their own methods, experiences and theories about how it all works. Let’s explore some of them together.
Jump around this article
Methods of interpretation
There’s more than one way to read tarot cards, and figuring out the way that works best for you will help you get the most out of your practice. I use different methods in my readings, depending on what my goal is.
Regardless of whether a traditional or eclectic modern deck is used, whether you’re a professional or just read for yourself, tarot cards each hold multiple meanings, and a good practitioner will be able to discern the relevant and appropriate meanings in the readings they conduct.
Most tarot readers begin with studying the traditional artworks of tarot cards and their historically assigned symbolisms. This forms a basis of understanding, but there are also readers who skip the study and rely purely on intuitive analysis to derive meanings from the visual references. Some practitioners, like myself, opt for completing a tarot course and receive a certification, though this is not wholly necessary. Like most things, tarot is best learned with time, practice and dedication.
During a reading, once the cards are dealt, relevant interpretation is the bulk of a practitioner’s work. There are multiple ways to do this; one is to make use of context clues, and another relies on intuition and psychic senses, but all methods require practise. Most times I find that the most helpful and accurate readings are those in which the practitioner is fluid in their approach and makes use of as many skills as they have in their arsenal. I think for practitioners like myself, this process that blends intuition, sensory information and deductive reasoning becomes second nature, but each reader has their own preferred way. With time, practice and experience a reader will likely formulate their own unique understanding of the cards, forming a personal database of interpretations and messages shaped by the readers practice, and how they influence meaning in a reading.
Getting the right cards
If you have experience with tarot it’s no secret that tarot readings are often far more accurate than expected, and you might be curious about how this can be. If you’re not very familiar with tarot, or you’ve had some questionable readings, you’ve likely wondered how a deck of cards can possibly know anything about your life, let alone help you with it or predict your future.
While I do attribute a lot of credit to the skills of the tarot reader, I’ve also had too many readings with repeated uncannily accurate results to deny that there can be more going on. Interpretation aside, when you take a step back to consider the process, you might realise that actually drawing the right cards (the ones that have the relevant meanings) is the first step, and a major variable, in getting the resonating and helpful answers to a querent/seeker’s question. With so many cards in the deck, and so many possible meanings, the probability of a reading that is completely off the mark definitely exists, but this seems to happen more rarely than is logically expected.
So, the blaring question is: how do tarot readers end up drawing the cards that have just the right messages for a reading? There are a wide variety of beliefs regarding how these little rectangles of cardboard work, so let’s take a glance at a few of them.
Supernatural Intervention
One school of thought follows the notion that the cards are directed by God or Spirit, Angels, Spirit Guides and Ancestors. Simply put: the Spirit guides of a particular querent/seeker influence which cards are drawn in a tarot reading, ensuring that the cards with the right messages for the querent/seeker’s concerns are chosen and interpreted. They might also direct tarot readers to interpret certain cards in non-traditional ways. This requires a faith based belief in spiritual/paranormal beings, but it’s one that I think should be counted as a serious contender.
All things considered, none of us can truly prove the existence of God and spiritual beings, and we simultaneously cannot truly disprove them either. This also applies to those who believe they have experienced God or Angels or Spirits first hand. So, who’s to say, really? I’m open-minded about this because of my personal experiences, and I’ve come to trust in them over the decades.
The Cards are Alive??
There is also a belief, though not widely held as far as I know, that the cards themselves have some kind of sentient wisdom and somehow respond to probing or the vibrational energy of those handling the cards. This is considered the most “woo-woo” of all paradigms.
That is not to say that a deck of cards can’t have an energy or influence of it’s own. The incredible variety of artwork on modern tarot decks is alone enough to give each deck it’s own unique ‘vibe’ and feeling. Some are light, bright and colourful, and can feel very uplifting when a reader works with them. Others might boast dark colour palettes and detailed imagery, and inspire a reader to explore deeper meanings and heavier themes in their reading. Still, this does not support the idea of the cards acting of their own accord.
Chance and Psychological Projection
Another belief is that dealing tarot cards is random, relevance is a matter of chance, and that any perceived connection or meaning that may occur is the result of projecting our personal stories onto the cards. In this way tarot is understood as subjective rather than objective, and in many instances this is true. Within this paradigm, tarot cards turn into a fascinating proponent of psychological self-analysis. Some might see this as a reason to dismiss tarot readings, but it actually creates an opportunity to use tarot as an analytical tool to deeper understand our subconscious and unconscious selves.
Energy Fields
Many believe that the deck is influenced by the energies of the querent/seeker and the reader/practitioner, so the cards that are dealt would therefore be a channel for these energies. For this reason, some practitioners who operate within this paradigm might go to great lengths to cleanse their energy field so that it does not affect the cards in any way, and ask the querent/seeker to shuffle the deck or pick the cards for the reading so that the querent/seeker is the only thing influencing them. This belief suggests a requirement for a physical influence, a need for there to be physical connection between the cards and the querent/seeker, and therein lies a grey area.
While an unconscious energetic influence may exist, many tarot readers, like myself, don’t exclusively perform in-person readings and there are numerous instances of tarot readings done over the phone or via email that prove to be very accurate. This fact pulls into question the idea that some kind of connection must exist between a reader, querent/seeker and the cards, though not entirely, because it’s also true that many readers have the experience of their own mental and emotional states affecting the relevance and accuracy of a reading.
Collective Unconscious
The collective unconscious is a term coined by Carl Jung to describe a universal repository of unconscious wisdom beyond that of, but still connected to, an individual’s personal unconscious, that is accessible to all of humanity. This wisdom is based on ancestral inherited memories that manifest shared ideas, beliefs and behaviours involving themes of birth, death, evil, love and so on, that frequently and repeatedly occur in stories, myths, religions, dreams and other aspects of humanity throughout history and all over the world. The idea is that tarot is a tool that taps into this universal knowledge to gain the answers that a querent/seeker requires.
Synchronicity and Quantum Entanglement
Synchronicity, another term popularised by Carl Jung, refers to the correlation between two events that are otherwise unrelated, and fall outside the category of what’s accepted as cause and effect. An example is a person who dreams of a particular species of butterfly that they have no prior knowledge of, predisposition towards or proximity to, then encountering that exact species of butterfly the very next day. The dream and the encounter are not related through any accepted physical laws and yet there still seems to be a connection between them. The unknown force linking the two events is thought to be a potential driver in tarot readings; that there is some immeasurable synchronicity between the querent/seeker and the relevant cards during a reading.
Quantum physics is a field that deals with the behaviour of particles that don’t obey Newtonian laws of physics. Quantum entanglement, simply put, is a unique connection that exists between two particles regardless of the distance between them. What’s strange and unique is that when one particle in an entangled pair is measured in some aspect, you instantly know something about the other particle. To truly comprehend why this is strange and unique requires an understanding of quantum superposition and how these phenomena break fundamental universal law. That’s possibly a topic for another time. For now, some people take these quantum phenomena into consideration to build upon the idea of synchronicity, and thus the mechanics of tarot.
This Tarot Reader’s Perspective
You might be wondering which one of them I hold as a professional practitioner, and I wonder the same thing. I’m going to be completely honest with you: I can’t tell you exactly how tarot cards are ‘supposed’ to work, because I don’t know, but I can tell you what I’ve observed and hope you gain from it. Although I’ve touched on some of the paradigms of belief separately, in reality it can feel like there’s a blend of all the above going on (except maybe for the sentient cards).
In my personal experience of working with tarot, almost all of the above have made sense at some point or other. After 10 years, it’s rare, but I still have readings in which chance is clearly the culprit, and in those cases I use it to my advantage. Most often, though, my readings feel directed by something. Sometimes it feels like my Spirit guides or God or my late grandfather, or someone else. Sometimes it feels like I’m following some kind of universal thread of truth. Sometimes it’s logical, and often it’s psychological.
I think the reason for this has to do with how my study of tarot, and my intuition, senses and discernment have developed over the years. The only one thing I find to be consistently true is how my own state of being influences the accuracy of my readings. The healthier I am in mind, body, spirit and confidence, the more accurate, insightful and helpful my readings turn out to be. It’s the only variable within my control, and so it’s the one I give most of my attention and energy to. I leave the rest to the cards and whatever else may be at play.
>What To Expect When Getting A Tarot Reading
Featured image & cover photo credit: expandingsapience.com