I will not make the promises I see so often – learn Tarot in ten minutes, or two hours; learn Tarot the easy way. And so on. This doesn’t happen. If you want to learn Tarot, you will need to invest some time and effort.
I don’t support the idea that you can just use your intuition. Some people can do this, but the fact is that most people cannot. Most of us need to develop our intuition. I’d say that people who are that intuitive, don’t need to use Tarot cards at all. They just know. But for us mortals, we’ve got to learn the cards.
I compare learning Tarot to learning to play a musical instrument. Almost no one can just sit down and make music, without learning at least something. Yes, there is the occasional genius who can do that, but again – they’re rare.
To learn to play the instrument you have to learn some of the basics – notes, maybe scales, rhythm, and such. Once you learn these, you may then be able to let yourself go and play as you wish.
You don’t learn Tarot by slavishly looking up the meanings in a book and trying to memorize them. If you do a search, you’ll see that different authors seldom agree about the meanings of the cards. AE Waite, who worked with Pamela Colman Smith to create their wonderful deck, sometimes gives meanings that don’t even agree with the symbols he included on the cards.
If you look at more than one author, you’ll get confused by the differing explanations.
I suggest is that you find an author you like. It doesn’t really matter who. Just choose one author, and use that one. What is important is not the exact meaning of the cards, but that the meanings are consistent.
The goal is not to memorize all the meanings of the cards. There are seventy-eight cards, each of which has dozens of meanings. You could spend years trying to memorize everything, but it’s not necessary.
What is needed is to develop your own meanings for the cards. If they’re your meanings, you don’t have to memorize them. You’ll know them because they’re yours.
What I Recommend
My technique is not easy, and it is not fast. It is effective, if followed consistently.
Take a Tarot deck. I recommend the RWS deck. If you learn this deck, you will be able to read other decks based on it – and there are many such decks.
Take time in the morning for this, so you’ll have your card with you during the day.
Shuffle the deck a few times. Now set the deck down, and pick the first card off the top. That is the card for the day. Look at it carefully. Use your book if you wish, to see what meanings your chosen author gives the card. Look for anything that might hint at those meanings.
Meditate briefly on the card. Visualize it in your mind. It’s fine if you have to peek to see whether you’re remembering all the details. You’re likely to miss some, and that’s OK. You’re learning; you’re not expected to get it right the first time.
Keep a journal of these cards and your impressions. Note the date, the card, and any ideas, notions, or emotions you may feel. It doesn’t have to be much; just some idea of where you are today.
When I began this technique I wrote my impressions in the morning. Later on I waited until evening, after I’d had the whole day to reflect on the card. Do what works for you.
I used to keep the card with me throughout the day, so I could take it out and look at it in quiet moments. After a while I was able to remember what the card looked like, so I could leave it at home.
At the end of each day, put this card on the bottom of the deck.
The next morning, don’t shuffle the deck. Just take the next card – the one that is now on top. Do the same thing with this card. Work your way all the way through the deck until you get to the first card you picked when you started. This should take you 78 days, or about two and a half months. Eleven weeks and one day.
Once you get to the bottom of the deck, shuffle the deck again and repeat the whole process.
The reason I don’t shuffle the deck every day is simply that finding a new card becomes more difficult. If you don’t shuffle, you avoid this problem.
You don’t have to do it my way. If you feel like shuffling each day, do it. If you get the same card, decide whether you want to work with it or draw one you haven’t seen. It’s really up to you.
Some might say that if you shuffle the deck each time, the daily card will be the one you need to work on for that day. That’s fine.
Ideally, you’ll get through all 78 cards. And then you start over.
After you’ve done this once or twice, you’ll probably be surprised at how much you’ve learned. Look up your older notes for the card, and compare to what you now think of it. The difference can be gratifying. It’s evidence of progress.
There’s a good chance that the meanings you give the cards won’t match what the author’s meanings were. That’s a good thing, because now these are your meanings.
When you’ve developed your own meanings, you can now use your intuition to read the cards. Intuition doesn’t mean ESP or psychic ability. It’s just having enough of your own understanding that you don’t have to stop and think about what a card means; you already know. When they’re in combination with other cards, the ideas will flow.
But not at first. There is a saying that in order to learn to do a thing well, you have to start out by doing it badly. Every expert started out as a novice.
Once you get reasonably comfortable with your meanings, you can try doing pairs of cards. Pull any two cards, and try to weave a story about them, how they interact, reinforce or weaken each other, and so on. You don’t need to ask a question – you’re just seeing how you can do pairs of cards.
At some point, you will want to do actual readings. If you’ve developed a solid foundation of knowing your cards, you should find it easy to do readings.
For a reading you select a number of cards, and lay them out in a particular pattern called a “spread.” A spread is just an arrangement of the cards you’ve pulled. They can be as simple as one or two cards, or as elaborate as a full Celtic Cross – or even more complex. But start out small; baby steps.
You might just ask the cards about the energy of the day, and pull three cards in the morning. Those cards might stand for past, present and future; as, what has recently ended, what is going on now, and what the likely outcome will be. Or you might decide that the three cards will describe Morning (say, 8 AM to Noon; Afternoon (Noon to 6 PM); and Night (6 PM until going to bed). It’s up to you how you want to do this. There’s no “official” way of doing it. Just decide on the meanings of the positions, so as to avoid confusion.
I recommend keeping a journal of these readings. In fact, I recommend keeping a journal of every reading you do. It doesn’t have to be elaborate; just note the date, the cards in the spread, and your interpretation. For a daily reading, you might add a note in the evening saying how the day actually went. If the day didn’t go as you thought it would, you can look back to see whether you missed something in the spread. It’s a good way to learn. We need feedback to develop and hone our skills.