How to Read Tarot Cards: A Guide to Meanings, Spreads & More

Maybe you’re feeling lost, in need of some guidance or at least a direction. Maybe you once scoffed going into a tarot reading only to be humbled by its accuracy. Maybe you’re an astrology nerd who’s looking for an additional form of guidance. Or maybe you’re simply trying to pick up a new hobby. These motivations and more have led to a significant uptick in people searching for solace in tarot cards. Whatever your personal reason, if you’re one of them, patience is key. Mariana Louis, a tarot teacher and practitioner of archetypal tarot, says anyone first learning about tarot should think of it as a journey. “It’s not something you’re going to learn in a weekend even when a YouTube video promises you can,” she says. “It’s something you’re going to learn over time. It can change the way you approach your life, so go slow in the beginning. Be curious.”

“When I started reading the cards, I was really confused,” says Meg Jones Wall, the author of tarot resource Finding the Fool and founder of 3am.tarot. Wall first picked up a deck in 2016, hoping that as soon as she started shuffling, things would fall into place and she’d intuitively know what to do. “But it didn’t come super naturally to me,” she says. “I quit a few times, but I just kept coming back to it. I was fascinated by the cards.” Their own experience as a beginner is the reason they recommend that newcomers to the practice take it slow. “It’s going to take time, and the more I, and students that I work with, try to rush the process, the more confusing it gets. Slow down; pay attention to what you’re actually observing in the cards. Listen to the meanings of the cards instead of comparing the keywords that you have and trying to make them fit.”

And if you’re worried about not being a natural at reading — don’t be. Juan Francisco, a psychic medium based in New York who’s been practicing for three years, believes that we all have the ability to be psychic and tarot is a means of expressing that intuition. “Tarot is one of many different types of tools that you can use to tap into your intuitive side,” he says. “I think the cards, because of their symbolism, speak to a lot of the themes that have come up in just being a human and the life’s journey.”

Though tarot cards have taken on a mystical meaning in the cultural imagination, they’ve been around in a less spiritual sense since at least the mid-15th century. Originally a part of the Northern Italian game Tarocchini, the cards began spreading around Europe at the onset of the Italian Wars. It wasn’t until the 18th century that tarot was used for divination purposes. A French pastor named Antoine Court de Gébelin and a Parisian seed salesman named Jean-Baptiste Alliette are credited with popularizing tarot readings in Paris in the 1780s. While spirituality has ebbed and flowed in the Zeitgeist, Francisco has an idea of why the cards have such staying power. “Between the artistry of the images and the themes that they present, I think that’s why it’s so attractive,” he says.

Even if you aren’t approaching tarot from a spiritual perspective, it can be massively beneficial. Shannon Knight, a psychotherapist and host of The Tarot Diagnosis podcast, uses the cards not for divination, but for therapeutic purposes. She compares the tarot practice to the experience of walking into a museum, viewing a piece of art, and having a visceral reaction or a resurfaced memory come up. She says the same can happen with tarot — and when it does, it’s worth investigating. “The cards all reflect certain experiences that we have, and we can relate to every card in the deck regardless of who we are,” says Knight. “There’s something about the images that allow our brains to unlock memories and thoughts and feelings. My approach is secular and from a standpoint of self reflection. What can we discover about ourselves?”

Below, we spoke to four tarot professionals to help us break down everything you need to know before your first reading.

Everyone has their own way into connecting with tarot. For Wall, things didn’t really start clicking until she learned about numerology. “Numerology felt simpler to my brain and is really helpful for a lot of my students and people that I work with,” she says. “For other people, it’s absolutely astrology. For some others, story is the way, or herbalism or movement or music. Different people have different things that really connect them with the cards, but everybody has to figure out for themselves what’s gonna do that.”

Louis, who works under the moniker Persephone’s Sister, found her way to tarot reading via psychology by way of musical theater. After bombing a final-round audition for Phantom of the Opera, she read Carl Jung’s The Undiscovered Self and became fascinated with archetypal psychology, even earning a master’s degree in western intellectual traditions. When someone gave her a tarot reading, she immediately saw the connection. “​​I use the Tarot for psycho-spiritual development, which basically means that we’re bridging a little bit of psychology, our own inner experience of knowing ourselves and self growth, with a bit of spirituality — contacting something a bit higher than us and finding a sense of meaning in the greater world.”

As a secular practitioner of therapeutic tarot, Knight’s way in, she says, was basically being an emo kid in high school. “Anything that was esoteric or outside the box, I was into,” she says. “Tarot was one of those things.” But it wasn’t until later, in her 20s, that she realized tarot could also be a powerful therapeutic tool and even a mindfulness practice. “It’s a meditative experience,” she says. “Using it through a therapeutic lens makes healing and self-growth more accessible; some people might not even know where to start with self-reflective work. I use tarot a lot for internal family systems work, because the cards all represent different versions of ourselves.”

First, you’ll need a tarot deck. The most ubiquitous collection is the Rider-Waite deck, drawn by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909. Since the cards’ meanings are highly recognizable and generally intuitive, many people recommend the Rider-Waite deck for beginners. Francisco seconds that the Rider-Waite deck is excellent for novices, but also recommends the Modern Witch Tarot Deck by Lisa Sterle, Mystic Mondays Tarot by Grace Duong, and Ethereal Visions Illuminated Tarot Deck by Matt Hughes. What’s most important is picking a deck with imagery that interests you and with symbolism you can interpret. You’re the one who’ll be using them, so they should fit your personality and style.

Knight agrees that choosing imagery that calls out to you should be the priority. When looking at decks, ask yourself whether the imagery confuses you or pleases you. Does it make you feel excitement or trepidation? She suggests going to your local metaphysical shop to find the deck for you. “If you walk in and say, ‘Hey, I’m new to tarot. What should I start out with?’ they’ll probably give you some good recommendations.” Especially now, Knight says there’s a deck for everyone out there. “There are decks for queer folks, decks for folks with different body shapes, different abilities — maybe that’s something that someone wants to focus on. Or maybe they’re paying attention to colors.” Knight herself most often reaches for a sepia-toned version of the Rider-Waite deck because the color scheme relaxes her.

Many decks, including Rider-Waite, come with a guide to walk you through the cards’ meanings. Still, sometimes the standard guides — which are usually pretty concise — may confuse newcomers. If you’re interested in purchasing an additional, more in-depth guidebook, Francisco recommends you skim copies to find what resonates. He cites The Ultimate Guide to the Rider Waite Tarot by Johannes Fiebig & Evelin Bürger, Guided Tarot for Seamless Readings by Stefanie Caponi, and Illuminated: A Journal for Your Tarot Practice by Caitlin Keegan as some of his favorite guides. You can also read Wall’s book, Finding the Fool, which she says is the straightforward guide she wishes she’d had when she was first starting out. She also recommends Bakara Wintner’s WTF Is Tarot … & How Do I Do It? “It’s a really modern take on tarot, and it felt a lot more accessible to me than some of the other resources,” they say.

According to some, your first deck should be given to you as a gift — a superstition that decrees the deck needs to choose you, not the other way around. But Francisco urges those interested in tarot to ignore the lore and buy cards for themselves if they want to begin practicing. “I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with purchasing your own deck because it just shows your interest and your excitement,” he says. “I don’t think you have to wait until somebody gives something to you for you to know you’re meant for it.”

While each deck may vary in style, all have some commonalities. Every tarot deck consists of 78 cards. Twenty-two of those will be Major Arcana cards, which represent major life themes. “I would think about the Major Arcana cards as bigger events or bigger feelings.” says Wall. “They’re not always externally visible or only internal; sometimes it’s a combination of both. They are the big story beats in whatever is happening in your life.” The Major Arcana cards begin with 0, The Fool, and end with 21, The World. Here’s a quick breakdown of the Major Arcana with a few associations and keywords found online and in Finding the Fool:

Francisco warns not to be freaked out if you pull some Major Arcana cards, like the Devil and Death, which get a bad rap. Like all cards, their meanings are malleable to the situation and the other cards in the reading. For example, pulling the Death card in a reading does not literally signify that someone will die, but rather that a chapter of life may be coming to a close and a new beginning lies just around the corner.

The remaining 56 cards are called the Minor Arcana, which may provide a more day-to-day focus, rather than a lifelong arc. “The way I read the Minor Arcana, they go through really specific subthemes of those larger themes,” Francisco says. For Wall, these cards tend to represent more of the common or everyday experiences we go through — which doesn’t mean they’re not impactful. “We still can feel big things, even with minor or smaller cards. But they’ve got less changing-the-trajectory-of-your-life energy.” Minor Arcana cards are divided into four suits — wands, swords, pentacles, and cups — which correspond to the elements. Here’s a handy breakdown:

You can (and should!), but as with all other reading, proceed with caution. “It’s important to know how to do it in a way that won’t be harmful to yourself,” says Wall. When reading for yourself, it’s especially important to have a strong sense of what you believe about the cards. “When people are in a really tender or vulnerable place, pulling tarot without knowing what it is you think you’re receiving can cause more harm than good. It just needs to be done with intention.” Wall recommends reading with someone else as a start if you don’t want them to read for you. Once you have some familiarity and comfort with the cards and a stronger relationship with them, reading for yourself can be some of the most powerful reading you do.

“I feel like the most accurate readings you’re gonna get are when you read for yourself because you’re projecting yourself onto the cards,” says Knight. “The cards are a mirror. They’re a reflection of you and your experience. That’s why they work for everybody — they’re shining back at us what we need to see or what we already know but maybe didn’t have the ability to grab right from our subconscious.”

In Finding the Fool, Wall highly recommends keeping a tarot journal, a reference you can continually return to as you learn and deepen your relationship with the cards. There are many forms it could take — digital or physical, reflective or instructive. Wall suggests creating a section for each card where you can write down keywords, correspondences, study questions, prompts, observations, and related personal experiences.

A tarot journal could also take a chronological form. Louis agrees that keeping one is key to developing your intuition: “You’re building your own dictionary of what the cards mean.” To do this, she says, after each tarot session, “write down the cards you pulled. Journal about it, sit with it, and figure out what the cards meant for you. I always think that reading a card based on what you see in it — the symbols you notice, the energies you feel, is all you really need to start.”

Wall agrees: “There aren’t really right or wrong definitions for each card. It’s about encouraging and supporting people to build relationships with the cards that help them feel empowered instead of just making them memorize meanings that I’ve decided are correct.”

It may seem counterintuitive, but Louis and Wall both say that turning to the cards when you’re spiraling is a bad idea. “A lot of times, we go to the cards when we’re really panicked, and almost always the cards are gonna show us panic,” says Louis. “If we’re going to the cards to get an immediate answer, we’re going to keep getting frustrated. Instead, we should go to the cards with open-ended questions that allow you to listen to what’s going on. Which mirror do we need to look through to see ourselves clearly?”

Wall agrees that you shouldn’t read tarot when you’re activated. “If you’re shuffling and you’re only really open to hearing one particular kind of message, I say don’t read because you’re not actually having a conversation with your cards.”

Instead, if you’re feeling stressed and looking for guidance, Louis recommends grounding yourself first. “Take a breath, have a cup of tea, sort through some of your feelings or thoughts beforehand,” she says. “You’ll pull cards that are so much clearer, so much stronger. It’ll be so much better.”

Preparation is up to the deck’s owner and what feels right to them. Some practitioners like to “clear” the deck before a reading in order to cleanse it of the previous reading’s energy. Francisco likes to clear his with white sage, which he encourages people to buy directly from Indigenous sellers. “I really recommend that folks purchase their white sage from a Native American business. I think it’s important to give back to the culture that has given us this spiritual tool,” he says. When saging his deck (also called smudging), Francisco likes to set an intention and says a prayer to ask for guidance in his reading. Then, when he feels grounded, he begins the reading.

Ultimately, the rituals you practice should be about what works for you. Wall rarely clears their deck and says it’s a total personal preference. “I might mist the space with an essential-oil spray between readings, but I don’t usually even remember to do that. I cleanse the cards when I get home — leave them out under the moonlight overnight or put them through incense smoke. It’s very chill.” When reading alone, Wall isn’t big on rituals beyond a nice room spray or a grounding cup of tea.

Louis, however, has a meditation she likes to perform before every reading. “What I’m trying to do is sink out of a hyperconscious perspective and get a little bit deeper into the liminal boundary between my conscious and unconscious mind,” she says. “It’s very simple, but I just visualize the sun very high above me and then I take a few breaths, and as I’m breathing, I watch it sink and slip beneath the horizon. It’s a great way of visualizing this feeling of sinking deeper into myself.”

If you’re reading cards for yourself, focus on a question or an intention as you shuffle the cards. If you’re reading for another person, you’ll want to ask them to give you a question or prompt on they’re curious about and hold that question in mind while you shuffle the deck, clearing the cards from prior inquiries and readings. Examples of questions may include: When will I find love? Am I on the right career path? How do I end my writer’s block? (Yes-or-no questions are fine, as are more complex queries. Nothing is too out there for the cards!) Readers also take different approaches to shuffling. Francisco generally shuffles between five and 12 times but lets his intuition guide him.

Wall says it’s important to stay consistent, especially when just starting out. Stay focused on the question you’re asking and stick with the spread you’ve chosen and any other decisions you’ve made, like whether to read reversals (we’ll get to what those are) and how you’re interpreting the cards. Coming in with intention and focus is especially important so you don’t end up more confused than when you started. “It becomes harder to trust yourself and your readings when you’re being inconsistent,” they explain.

Then, you’ll cut the deck, or ask your sitter to do so if you wish, again focusing on the reading’s central question. Some readers allow sitters to pick their own cards. Either way, you’ll then pull as many cards as you need for your spread, arranging them between you and the querent — the person asking the question — or just in front of you if you’re reading for yourself.

There are scores of tarot spreads, but most of our experts recommend starting simply with a one-, two-, or three-card spread. Common three-card spreads include the “body, mind, spirit” spread and the “past, present, future” spread, in which the first card pulled represents the body or past, the second represents the mind or present, and the third represents the spirit or future. How those timelines are interpreted depends on the reading and the question being asked — for example, “future” might mean tomorrow or it might mean ten years from now. Wall particularly likes the less common “situation, challenge, advice” spread because it feels more practical and easier to interpret. “I tend to recommend spreads that feel a little more relatable,” they say. “I like when I can see what each position is relating to and have something I can walk away with.”

For two-card spreads, Louis likes to start with a “conscious, unconscious” spread. “The first card is ‘What am I conscious of in myself right now?’ and the second card ‘What am I unconscious of that I need to see with more clarity to help me move forward?’ It’s everything you need,” she says. Knight is also a big proponent of the two-card spread. “My favorite is ‘something to change, something to preserve’ because it’s giving the reader autonomy over the cards and their life,” she says. “It’s not predictive; it’s more reflective.” She also recommends an affirmation spread, in which the first card is “I can be _____” and the second continues with “even when ____.”

Another common use of tarot is a daily card reading, in which a single card is pulled from the top of the shuffled deck and used as a reminder or guideline for the day ahead. For novices and seasoned readers alike, this is a great way to tap into intuition and become familiar with the cards. “I love a single-card reading,” says Wall. “It’s still one of my favorite ways to engage with the cards because there’s something really grounding and easy to connect with. What do I need to know today? Or what do I need to hear right now? Or what’s something I can do to take care of myself today?”

Francisco also suggests the Celtic cross, a ten-card spread with six cards forming the shape of a cross and the remaining four along the right side. The Celtic cross encourages sitters to address a challenge by taking the past, present, and future into account. More nuanced than simpler spreads, the ten-card spread considers external factors, hopes and fears, the subconscious, and advice, and it draws the best possible outcome. While it may look daunting, he likes that each card’s placement has a specific meaning, making it a little easier to interpret. “It kind of did the work for me because each slot meant something for the card,” he says.

But Wall warns that this can be a lot for beginners, especially if you’re still familiarizing yourself with the cards. “Ten is so many cards to work with,” they say. “And if you’re still trying to figure out card meanings, or even if you’re a fairly confident reader, ten cards is a lot to wrangle and try to figure out the connections between them.” If you’re newer to tarot, it may be best to start with simpler spreads and work your way up.

Louis teaches one called the archetypal tarot spread, which is based on the Celtic cross but rather than focusing on an outcome, it looks at where you are in the present. “I focus on higher calling and understanding shadow in that reading,” she says. “It brings it a little bit more into what’s happening inside of me and how I can decide to move forward in life, rather than ‘Where am I going, and what’s my destiny?’”

However many cards you’re using or whichever spread you try, make sure you stick with your plan, no matter what. Sometimes, readers may pull extra “clarifier” cards when the reading isn’t clear, but Wall says that almost always results in more confusion — you’re now trying to figure out how yet another card is related to the rest of the reading. Instead, take it slow and really pay close attention to each card you pull. “Every single card is there to reveal something about you that is already present,” says Louis. “Tarot is one of the best tools we have for cultivating a contemporary spirituality because it’s not dependent on rigid hierarchies and structures and dogmas. It is totally intuitive and interpretive, and it has everything to do with who you are and what your spiritual essence is — what you discover in yourself. That’s the microcosm connecting to the macrocosm.”

There is a common understanding that pulling an upside-down card reverses its meaning or even indicates bad luck. Francisco likes to give it a bit more nuance. “I personally think it means there’s a different way to look at that meaning or a different way to look at that situation,” he says. He gives the example of the Wheel of Fortune card, which signifies abundance: The reversal doesn’t necessarily mean losing money, but perhaps the querent isn’t open to receiving the abundance that awaits them. “I think it’s really helpful to read cards in reverse,” he says. “But I would recommend not seeing it as an upside-down card means bad luck.”

Knight too finds a lot of richness in reversals. To her, they can represent the shadow component of a card: “Is there some area of my life that I’m stuck in that this could represent? Is there a part of this card’s energy I’m not getting that I need? But when I pull a card, whether it’s upright or reverse, I tend to think about all of its facets.”

If you’re looking to advance to the next level of tarot reading, there are a number of books you can buy and classes (online and off) you can take to sharpen your interpretation skills. Francisco has a podcast, Third Eye Sight. Jessica Dore, a popular tarot reader and author of Tarot for Change, periodically offers online courses. Little Red Tarot also offers an eight-week course on a sliding scale. Biddy Tarot has a wealth of resources, from free guides to certification programs. And there are many free lessons available on YouTube, like those by spiritual advisers Mystic Rainn and John Ballantrae, who has a very soothing accent.

Louis highly recommends the work of Mary Kay Greer, particularly her book Tarot for Yourself. Knight recommends it too, as well as Tarot for Life by Paul Quinn and Rachel Pollack and her own resources: a spread book called Tarot & Self-Discovery and her podcast, The Tarot Diagnosis. Louis also recommends Marie-Louise von Franz’s On Divination and Synchronicity, Rachel Pollack’s Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, and Karen Hamaker-Zondag’s Tarot As a Way of Life, as well as her own course, the Archetypal Tarot School, which she says teaches people to use tarot for self-becoming. Wall recommends The Witch’s Book of Numbers by Rebecca Scolnick, WTF is Tarot? by Bakara Wintner, Tarot: No Questions Asked by Theresa Reed, and of course their own book, Finding the Fool.

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