How to Give a Tarot Card Reading
- 1). Ask the person whose reading you are performing, or the querent, what her question is. Based on the type of the question asked, decide which tarot card spread you will use. Common spreads include the Five Card Spread, useful for determining a course of action, the Celtic Cross, useful in answering direct questions, and the Mirror Spread, useful when addressing relationship-based questions or concerns. Although there are many more spreads, these three are good places to start.
- 2). Give the deck of tarot cards to the person for whom you are performing the reading and ask him to shuffle the cards. It is believed that this handling transfers the energy of the asker into the cards and helps guide the cards into providing honest answers.
- 3). Take the deck back from the asker and deal the cards face up in front of you. Do not rotate upside-down cards; upside-down cards are read differently. No cards should be touching except for one exception in the Celtic Cross spread.
The Five Card Spread is dealt by dealing one card, dealing one to the left side and then one to the right side. Deal one more underneath and one more above the central card. All of the cards should lie vertically.
To deal the Mirror Spread, deal one card a little ways in front of you. Deal two more cards below the first, side-by-side and left-to-right. Below this, deal another two cards and then two more below that. Deal an eighth card underneath the last set of two.
For the Celtic Cross, deal one card and then deal another card horizontally on top of it. Starting on the right side, deal four more cards in this order: one to the right, one to below the middle cards, one to above the middle cards and one to the left. Finally, to the right of the cards already dealt, deal four more cards in a vertical line extending away from you, moving from the bottom up. - 4). Read the cards in the order that they were dealt. To determine the meaning of each card, refer to the Tarot Card Meanings Quick Reference Guide.
In order, the cards of the Five Card Spread refer to the following: Present/general theme, past influences, future, reason and potential.
The first card in the Mirror Spread represents the querent. The rest are the following, in order: the way the other in the relationship is seen by the querent, the way they view themselves, what the other represents, what the querent represents to the other, relationship obstacles, relationship strengths and, finally, the probably result of the relationship.
The Celtic Cross is read thusly: the present, an immediate challenge, the distant past, the recent past, the best outcome, the immediate future, what is affecting the querent's situation, external influences, hopes/fears, and the final outcome for the querent.
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