The anatomy of a Tarot reading
/Tarot Basics 6: How to lay out a reading beyond what the books tell you
Tarot books usually come with a section on common layouts in the back. Sometimes this is no more than a few pages with diagrams showing card positions. If you’re lucky, there is some description of what order to lay the cards out in and how to interpret a card in a given position. But this is often pretty rudimentary and/or vague and fluffy.
I’ve spent thirty years decoding the advice in the back of Tarot books, so I will share some of my hard-won insights here. I hope it may be helpful to you, though I am not certain every part of it is universal for all readers.
So far in my series on Tarot, I have covered the choosing of a Tarot deck and book, setting up your reading space, cleansing your deck, and shuffling. Along the way I’ve touched on a few deeper topics, such as how Tarot technically works. But now we’re getting down to the nitty gritty—actually doing a reading, possibly your first reading but most likely not.
Most readers will have laid out at least a few sample readings before progressing this far. But it may still feel awkward and you may have some unanswered technical questions, such as “Which card position comes first?” or “How should I draw from the deck, slide it straight out or flip from the back?” or “What is cutting the deck and do I have to do it?”
Image by Arie Farnam - This is a Tarot reading involving a decision ab out how to accomplish some urgently necessary travel during the Covid-19 pandemic. The situation card at the mid-point shows the difficulty of the situation. The known factors at the upper right, shows that the travel is needed for healing. The unknown factors at the upper left is a reassuring presence of strong guidance. The three possible choices identified by the question are all relatively positive but the first one is the one I chose because in this case The Tower was in the position of what action I should take on this road, rather than an Outcome card.
The general advice of most Tarot scholars is that, as much as you can, you should follow the advice given in the book that comes with your deck. The deck itself has a particular spirit—a philosophy and aesthetic. It is likely that the creator of the deck had firm opinions about most of your technical questions and good reasons for prescribing specific techniques. But there are plenty of decks that don’t have a detailed book or you might not have the original book.
In either case, it is good to know some general guidelines and choose your own standard practices. Probably the most important rule of thumb on the technical questions is that you simply need to choose a method and stick to it. The cards get used to you, as much as you get used to them. And that means they get used to your technique as well.
Thus, if you usually cut the deck before you draw, cut the deck. Don’t suddenly switch to picking from a fan of cards, just because someone told you to. And visa versa. Tarot is—at its most basic level—a communications technology. Switching up techniques too suddenly can be like switching your radio frequency without telling your friends.
You can make a change if you decide you have really been doing it wrong and a different way resonates with you as correct or you start working with a deck which comes with very clear instructions on technical matters that you want to follow. But it will take some focused attention to make the switch and you shouldn’t be switching back and forth randomly.
Here are some considerations for each step of a reading:
Preparation
This stage is probably the most dependent on your tradition, circumstances and personal taste, but it shouldn’t be neglected. I wrote a post on making a good space for reading Tarot here, which may be helpful.
Consider whether your tradition or the deck you are using calls for using a specific type of surface or a cloth. Many do. Make sure you have a clean, relatively uncluttered surface to lay your reading out on. Consider the size of the reading you want to do.
For simple questions or a daily advice reading, one to three cards should suffice and you may not need much of a surface. I often use the edge of my altar during morning meditation. However, if the reading concerns major life changes or complicated interpersonal issues, you are likely to need at least a sizable part of a cleared table.
Do whatever helps you to calm and focus your mind. Many traditions suggest lighting a candle and/or incense or an herb bundle. I like to do both. Aroma therapy defusers with herbal oils that enhance intuition and psychic energy are also quite nice, unless you are sensitive to scents. If you are in a place where an open flame won’t work, you can achieve similar results by dimming lights and noise, putting on meditative or peaceful music and using specific types of stones and crystals.
Clear quartz is among the best for both focusing and opening psychic communication. Amethyst, smokey quartz and selenite are also good choices. However, don’t let the exact type of stone you have stop you. If you have a rock that helps you feel calm and grounded, it will work. Using stones can be as simple as placing the stone at the far side of your cloth as you would a candle. I find using crystals and stones to be particularly helpful if I end up reading in a cafe or at a conference or library, where there is a lot of distracted energy and candles may not be allowed.
All these preparations are helpful for focusing and attuning your mind and spirit. The stereotype of the New Age psychic who gets upset when someone walks too near her crystals or someone touches her Tarot bag is a bit overdone, though some readers do behave this way and possibly even feel a real need to be so defensive.
The bottom line is that the focus ultimately comes from you. Candles and crystals are aids, personal space and physical connection to a deck of cards are aids. But the better you get with focus, the more you will be able to get by without these aids in a pinch.
I have yet to hone my own focus to the point where I feel confident using a cell phone app to draw Tarot cards in the middle of a noisy conference hall. But I can pull out my cards and do a reading on my knee with a rock from my pocket as a focus. It isn’t the best way and it doesn’t make meticulous preparation unnecessary in the long run, but it can be done.
Selecting a layout
There are thousands of Tarot layouts published in books and on the internet. Some have grand old traditions behind them, which may provide extra animus. But the important thing about a layout is that it provides the information you need at the moment.
I recommend using standard layouts from books for awhile before making up your own because this is a skill, not just an instinctive art form. It will help to learn what works for you and what doesn’t on layouts provided by others. But when you feel confident, don’t be afraid to design your own layout. Just be sure you choose it before you shuffle the cards and write it down, including the order in which the cards should be laid and what each position signifies.
When you look at the layouts in the back of most Tarot books, you will usually see card-shaped rectangles with a number in the middle of each card and a word or phrase below it. The numbers tell you which card to layout first. The words tell you what context to interpret the card with.
One of the most classic short-reading layouts is simply three cards laid out from left to right: 1. Situation, 2. Action called for, and 3. Outcome. This is an excellent initial reading for any situation you are uncertain about.
Still, this is a fairly basic reading and it often simply confirms things we already know. Even the general outcome of a situation is usually pretty predictable and that card will either confirm what you already suspected, at least subconsciously, or it will simply be a prediction you can’t do much about.
There are times when you need a significantly more involved reading. A common layout in Tarot books, which has a long tradition, is the Celtic cross spread. This spread includes cards for the person asking the question, the atmosphere around the issue, the obstacle, the root of the problem, the recent past, the recent future, what can be gained through undergoing this challenge, the querent’s self-concept, hopes versus fears, the physical and emotional environment around the querent, and one to three cards on the outcome.
For some complex questions, particularly those involving both an outward struggle and personal development, this is an excellent layout. However, it’s drawbacks are also in its complexity. It can tend to muddy questions that are too simple for it.
On other questions, the card positions in these readings may not give the information most needed. That is why there are readings relating to specific issues. There are relationship readings, which include card positions for two parties in a relationship. There are layouts suited to business or creative endeavors that show steps over a longer process. And if you search, you can likely find a layout that suits your particular question well.
There are also layouts with specific themes for inner exploration, such as chakra layouts, tree of life lay outs, ancestral layouts and astrological layouts. These are mainly helpful if you have a solid understanding of the field the layout is based on and you are fully focused on the inner work they entail.
If you can’t find a layout exactly suited to what you need in the time you have available, there is nothing wrong with simply writing specific sub-questions down in positions that make sense to you and drawing the cards while focusing on those aspects of your issue. Thus the question, “Should I take this job offer?” may be turned into a layout with the question as the overall heading and card positions called, “How would it affect my family?” “What would the job environment be like?” “What would the first days on the job be like?” “What would it be like long term?” “How will it affect my personal and professional development?” and “How will it work out financially?”
In the end the answer to the overall question depends mainly on how you feel about the answers to all those sub-questions. The answer to the job question may well be “Yes” even though the first couple of days are going to be rough and it won’t be great on finances, if the other aspects are more important to you.
Record your intention or question
This goes along with the previous heading. Marking down your layout on a piece of paper should also mean you write your intention or question down as well. Eventually you will know some layouts well enough not to require writing down the layout and that is fine, but don’t neglect to record your question or intention beforehand.
The human mind has a tricksy habit of trying to bargain whenever it doesn’t like something exactly and it is pretty much guaranteed that if you don’t mark down your question or intention for the reading, it will migrate slightly in your memory to make the reading fit more what your ego wants it to be, whether that is positive or negative habits of thinking.
You can observe this happening simply by writing down your intention or question and then trying to interpret a reading without looking at it and then looking at the question or intention once you have a notion of what you think the reading means. You will often find that the question was slightly different or it had a negative where you thought it had a straightforward question or visa versa.
Be as direct and concise as possible with your question or intention. This is simply good communication practice and will help with clarity in the long run. Note that you don’t have to ask a question. You can come to the Tarot with an intention as much as a question, but remember that the Tarot is primarily a communications device between your conscious mind and whatever spiritual or subconscious entities you direct it toward. That is why questions are most common.
A note about Significators
Many layouts will call for something called a Significator. This is an initial card which represents the querent in the reading. I am not sure why this card isn’t simply called “the Querent,” which is why I don’t use the termn. It probably meant something at one time, but it no longer has a coherent meaning in modern English.
In any event, the Significator (or Querent card can either be the first card in the layout, and thus the first card under the cut. Or it can be chosen consciously by the querent before the cards are shuffled. There are several ways to designate your significator card:
Just use the Fool card, number 0 of the Higher Arcana.
Count up all the digits in your birthday, including the number of the month. For instance March is the third month, so a birthday of March 17, 2001 would be calculated as 3 + 1 + 7 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 1. = 14. As long as the card is less than 22, you can stop. If it is 22 or more, add those digits together as well. Then find the corresponding Higher Arcana Card. Temperance is number 14, so that would be the significator in this example.
Go through the court cards and choose a card matching the description of the querent. If you don’t know much about their personality, use their astrological sign to designate the suit. Fire signs will be Wands. Earth signs will be Disks or Pentacles. Air signs will be Swords. Water signs will be Cups. So, if the person in my previous example is a man and he was born in the water sign of Pisces, his significator is the Prince of Cups, because he is young at this writing. If he were older or a father, he might be the King of cups. Gender shouldn’t be strictly followed when assigning court cards. The meanings are more important and a woman may be best interpreted as a King or a Knight, if she fits those attributes. A man may well be a Princess or a Page, if his personality fits the attributes.
Let the querent choose from among the court cards using intuition, while looking at the cards face up.
Choose a card that seems to typify what you know of the querent’s situation. If the person is overworked it might be the ten of Wands. If the querent is undergoing grief it might be the three of swords. If the question is mostly about the querent’s children and the querent is a woman, it might be The Empress or the Queen of Disks, which symbolize motherhood.
Choosing the Significator at random is also a completely valid option, but many books will direct you to one of the methods above.
Shuffling and cutting
I covered shuffling in more detail in this post. The important points are that you want your cards well mixed but undamaged over the years. It is easiest to achieve this either with gentle hand shuffling in which you don’t bend the cards or swirling the cards around on a flat surface while face down.
It is a good idea to focus on your question or intention while you shuffle.
When your cards are sufficiently mixed, you should stack them and hold them for a moment, focusing your full attention on your question. Cutting the deck is one point in which I have never met a Tarot system that didn’t do it in some form. After shuffling, you place the deck on your reading surface and use your fingers to choose a place in the deck at random to lift the top portion of the cards away.
Some systems do this just once. Often the card on the bottom of the stack you cut away has a special significance. It is called “the cut-away card,” and is supposed to be something that is passing away from the life of the querent or the issue at hand. It isn’t a formal part of the layout but is often recorded along with the reading none-the-less.
Other systems, particularly DruidCraft with a Celtic bent, suggest that you cut the deck twice. First you grasp about two thirds of the deck, then you place that smaller stack to the left of the original deck. Then you grasp about half of the second stack and place it yet further to the left. The number three is very important in Celtic cosmology and mythology, and this creates three stacks. Going to the left implies going inward for introspection. If you are reading for someone else and they sit across from you, you may consider going to the right, so that the movement will be to their left. The same applies to long-distance readings.
In either case you, gather your deck by stacking the cards from right to left again. Whether you divide the cards once or twice, the top card, should be the top of the first cut you made.
Drawing
Most readers and systems I have worked with draw from the top of the shuffled and cut deck and lay out the cards in the order indicated in their layout. However, there are several possible variations. Some readers prefer to spread the shuffled cards into a fan and choose cards face down from the fan.
Furthermore, some readers prefer to shuffle the deck a little between each card drawn—just a quick movement, slipping a few cards back in and out of the deck or cutting the deck again.
From the perspective of Tarot functionality, there shouldn’t be a major difference. I was taught and grew up with the first approach, which is the most common I find in books. So, that is what I use. But I can see advantages to the other two techniques in terms of reducing physical interference in the communication of the cards.
There is also the question of whether you simply slip the card off of the deck and turn it over horizontally or whether you flip the card off of the deck vertically, essentially reversing the card from the way you are holding the deck. As a teenager I did the latter. I thought it looked cool that I flipped the card over. I had a terrible time reading reversed cards though and tended to get the vast majority of my cards reversed (not a statistically likely fifty percent) and eventually I decided that this did not make sense. I’m holding the deck the way that the cards are meant to be, so I now simply turn the card over horizontally. I find readings to be clearer and I no longer have trouble reading reversals.
The important thing here—and it is important—is that you choose a technique and stick to it. This is the basic mechanism by which Tarot communicates and when I have simply experimented with a different technique, I have inevitably ended up with a vague and unclear reading.
How to lay out cards and which to read first
Many readers insist that you should lay out the cards face down at first and then reveal only one at a time in the order of the layout. I was taught to lay them all out face up and then choose where to start based on either a logical beginning point or cards that have intense energy. I often end up reading any Higher Arcana cards first, regardless of what position they fall in. Higher Arcana cards will always have.much broader effect than just the position they are in.
Bottom line: Whether you place the cards initially face down or not is up to you and your tradition. When in doubt start reading the cards in the order you laid them out.
Layouts and positions
Now we have space for a brief rundown on what the common positions in readings are and what they mean beyond the key words:
Significator/Querent: As discussed before, this card indicates the state of being or state of mind of the querent at this moment with respect to the issue involved. If you draw this card with the rest of the layout, consider it to be an indication of where you are now.
Situation: Just as it appears, in readings that use this position, the Situation card indicates the overall situation the querent is in with regard to the question or issue at hand.
Atmosphere: This card tells you about what is going on around the querent. It can be influenced by the querent but often indicates factors beyond the querent’s direct control. As with many other positions, this card may seem confusing if the situation seems pretty negative but you get a very positive card here. Remember that every card has a shadow side. It may also indicate that the situation isn’t as bleak as it looks or that things are about to improve.
When the reverse happens, a mainly negative card appears in a situation that seems fairly positive, it is worth looking at the uses of whatever adversity is indicated. Perhaps the difficulty underlies the situation, even though the result is positive. Just as every card has a shadow, every card has a bright spot.
This is not to say that you should just read into the cards whatever you want to. There are only 78 cards in the deck. If the meaning needed is very specific, it is sometimes necessary for the Tarot to use a secondary meaning of a card to get it across. It is our job to figure out the clues and understand the meaning. The general rule of thumb is that there is a reason for whichever card falls, even if it isn’t immediately obvious.
Crossing card/Obstacle: You will often see a position marked “Crossing Card.” This means the same thing as an obstacle card. Here too, you will sometimes find a positive card in the position of an obstacle. However, this is usually easily understood and logical. If the Obstacle is the Six of Wands (Celebration), it may be that a celebration, party or promotion is interfering with other plans or that it has unforeseen consequences. This is one of my favorite card positions to read, because it is usually very specific and clear.
Root: Some spreads will show a card marked as Root or Roots. This is often conceived of as the “root of the problem.” But it can also mean events in the distant past, childhood or ancestral events that effect the situation or the question now.
Aspiration: This is one of the most difficult positions to read. It is sometimes described as the higher self or higher mind. The best way I have found to interpret it is what soul-level benefit or lesson you can get from this situation or difficulty. All too often, what we want right now and what our long-term development needs may be at odds. This card often gives clues in this area.
Past: Most spreads define this specifically as “recent past.” Depending on the type of question this may be a matter of hours, days or weeks, rarely longer. The past card does not usually tell you about all of your past or the entire development of the situation. There are readings with multiple Past cards and these may do a more thorough job.
Future: The same applies to the future card. It is generally mean to imply the near future in terms of days or a few weeks. It rarely indicates the final outcome, but rather the next step in a situation or process. Most layouts have a card or cards to indicate outcome. It is important to remember that in the philosophical understanding of Tarot, the future card indicates the likely future based on the querent’s current trajectory.
I have never personally met a Tarot system that supported a belief in predetermination. Life is not all written down in a great Tarot book in the sky. We have free will and we can avert disasters, if we can see clearly. Still, the Future card in a reading is often quite difficult to interpret. Because it is still outside our experience, we have fewer clues to rely on.
There are times when the Future Card is utterly clear. A woman struggling with infertility who gets “The Empress” in the Future position may well go out and celebrate… without alcohol. But most Future cards are less clear cut.
Relationship: Many relationship layouts have a Significator card for each person in the relationship or cards for Mind, Heart and Body or other types of comparison cards for each person. But they will generally also have a Relationship card. This card gives the general atmosphere of the relationship, the chemistry or bond between the two, which is not entirely the doing of either one alone.
House/Environment: Many readings will have a position called House or Environment. This is usually either very easy or very hard to read, rarely in the middle. It means the people and physical or emotional environment around the querent. It would be more reasonable to name it the Household than the House, but such is age-old tradition. And it often refers more to a work or social group rather than a household anyway. The type of question should make that clear.
Outcome: Most readings have some form of Outcome card or cards. We often read Tarot in hopes of finding out things we don’t yet know. We want to know how a relationship will turn out or what the prospects are for a new business venture. The Outcome cards do tend to provide an overall, long-term assessment of outcome.
I was troubled and confused for years that the Outcome cards on my readings about adopting my two children were less than joyful. The process was going pretty well. The Near Future cards were all positive too.
Life ended up confirming the difficult Outcome cards though. The long-term Outcome has been very rough, given the neurological problems that my adopted children developed. The fact that you get a warning in an Outcome position doesn’t always spell doom. As with the Future cards, it is possible to change Outcomes but it is often quite difficult. A lot of factors may be pushing things toward a certain outcome and we may not always be able to see which route will lead to a certain Outcome.
When doubts and problems like this creep in, it is often time for a follow up reading with more specific questions about what outcome can be expected if the querent pursues a specific course of action.
