When it comes to tarot card readings, forget about crystal balls, scarves, supernatural powers, and any other preconceived notions you might have about divination.
Think of it less as a mystical experience of your impending doom and more as a thoughtful way to get in touch with your best self. (Fancy, right?)
To better understand how this type of divination works, we asked two tarologists to give us the essentials.
1. Every reader is different. Find one you vibrate with.
Not all Tarot readers will practice in exactly the same way. Some might ask you to shuffle the cards, some might prefer a conversation before your reading, some might ask you to just sit quietly – and that’s okay.
“There’s no one way to read tarot,” says Ashley Collom, 27, a tarot card reader from Austin, Texas. “Be prepared to take someone’s direction. The reader has a strategy.
But since tarot is all about building trust between you and your reader, the key is to find someone with similar energy and purpose.
“With any kind of divination, it’s really important to vibe or like or find similarities with that person,” says Marguerite Gioia Insolia, 35, a reader based in Los Angeles. “It’s about that person’s intention and your intention in your reading. It can really change the information you get. It’s not that the cards themselves are going to say anything different, it’s about the translation.
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2. Introduce yourself with an open-ended question.
A yes-no question can often “confuse the reading,” according to Collom. Instead, she recommends coming up with a less restrictive question. This way you open yourself up to a richer and more nuanced conversation with your reader.
“Usually that means your question starts with a ‘what’ or a ‘how’,” she says. “For example, if someone wants to know, ‘Am I going to marry so-and-so?’ The way to make it open is, ‘What do I need to know to enter into a happy marriage with so-and-so?’ This creates a fuller conversation.
However, if you are really dying to know something specific, just be aware that this type of question may not lead to a straightforward answer.
“Because the tarot is so detailed and the deck contains all facets of life, you really can ask any question,” Insolia says. Your answer might not boil down to something as simple as “choose that”.
3. Don’t like what you hear? You have the power to change it.
Don’t feel paralyzed with fear if you don’t read good news. As Insolia says, “Tarot has no power over you.”
“The reading is a timestamp of what is going on energetically around you, your situation and what you are asking for,” she adds. “People might walk away thinking they have no power or agency over these events in my life, but that’s never true. You always have the ability to change the way things are going to turn out.
4. Time-related questions are difficult to answer.
While many of us want to know if something will happen in the future, sometimes the most pressing question is when. But tarot readers might not have those answers.
“Time is tricky because time is a social construct,” Collom says. “There are ways to tell or give people clues about time, (and) there are certain combinations that correspond to certain times, but I’m always hesitant to give people time frames just because it’s a something so fleeting.”
“Also, very rarely (give) someone a time frame, they feel empowered,” she adds. “It makes them feel stressed or claustrophobic about an impending time frame.”
5. Be open.
Maybe you’re holding yourself back a little when building trust with your reader. (Understandable.) Or maybe you think you need to be secretive so your reader can “prove yourself.” (Don’t be that person.) Just know that the more you share with your reader, the more your reader will share with you.
“You don’t have to be held back from giving details,” Insolia says. “So if you’re asking, ‘What’s going on in my relationship right now? I can say: “It started well, but now there is a lot of confusion. These are the possibilities for the future. But if you say, “Well, he had an affair,” I can dig deeper into what happened there.
Collom agrees: “There’s an element of people who feel they have to be mystical or esoteric about the process, and if we could get to the heart of it quicker – ‘That’s what I want to know, that’s why I want to know and that’s how I feel” — we can dig into it much faster. It is much more effective to have and clearly communicate the takeaways from the reading. »
6. Death and Devil cards are not (usually) omens.
So your reader has pulled out scary-looking cards. Do not panic. They are not what you think they are.
“The death card may be about physical death, sure, but it’s so, so, so rare,” Insolia says. “It’s really about transformation. Let’s say you ask about your relationship and the death card appears. This does not necessarily mean that the relationship is over. It is that there is a transformation taking place and there will be a renewal on the other side.
And the devil’s card?
“It’s about temptations — any place in your life where you know you need to break that pattern and you’re not,” she explains. “It’s more of a reminder that you’re more authentic and true to yourself.”
7. Tarot often helps confirm what you already know.
Sometimes people seek advice from others to validate what their instincts are already telling them. Tarot readings can also help with this, says Insolia.
“For many of us, we already know the answers to many of our questions. But what tarot can do is give you this beautiful affirmation to build confidence, to develop intuition, to start trusting yourself. And sometimes that’s all we need.