Notes on Learning Tarot

[ecosophia]

 One of my commenters on the blog asked me a little while back for advice on learning how to read Tarot cards. It's a question I field fairly often, and it has a fairly straightforward answer. 

There are tens of thousands of books out there on the Tarot, and at least as many on other systems of what is technically known as sortilege -- the kind of divination that involves pulling one or more symbols out of a preexisting set (say, a Tarot deck, or a set of runes, or a set of Coelbren letters, or what have you). Sortilege isn't the only kind of divination out there, but it's far and away the most popular, and it's also easier to learn than most of the others. 

There are also many different ways to learn to read Tarot, or any other method of sortilege. The following is the way I do it. I've learned something like twenty different sortilege systems over the years, starting with Tarot and going on into some fairly odd corners of occult tradition. I don't recommend books for beginners, though those can be useful later on. Here's what you do:

1. Pick a Tarot deck (or what have you) that appeals to you. You'll get better results with a deck if you like the art and find the symbolism interesting to look at. 

2. Go through it slowly, card by card, looking at every image. Then read the LWB ("little white booklet") that comes with it. 

3. Every day thereafter, take one of the cards -- do them in order so you get every card -- and just look at it for some minutes. Notice how the imagery makes you feel, what it reminds you of, what thoughts it wakens in you. Then read the section of the LWB on that card, and think about how the meanings listed there (both upright and reversed) relate to the imagery. Then look at the card for another minute or so before putting it away. This is Part One of your daily divination practice. 

4. Part Two is to cast a simple reading every day. The one I recommend is three cards laid side by side. The first represents you; the second represents the situation; the third represents the outcome. Shuffle the cards, ask them "What do I need to understand about today's events?" and then shuffle them again, cut, and deal out three cards. Again, look at the cards, and see what reactions they awaken in you; then look up their meanings and think about those; then try to tell a very simple story in which the cards provide the plot and your life provides the characters and the setting. 

Write down your interpretation. Of course it's going to be wrong at first; don't worry about that. Just write it down, then shuffle the cards, put them away, and go do something else. 

5. The next day, go back to your reading, compare it to the events of the day, and see if you can figure out what the cards were trying to tell you. This is Part Three of your daily divination practice. You probably won't figure it out at first, but give it time, and remember that the LWB is not a set of stone tablets handed down from On High. If you review your readings every day once the facts are in, you'll begin to figure out what the cards mean to you, which is after all what matters, and then you'll begin to interpret them better the first time. 

That's it. It's probably going to take you several months to get to the point that you understand what the cards are trying to say to you, but it's going to take you that long no matter what you do, so you might as well buckle down and do it. 

Two additional comments that I've found it necessary to make over and over again to students: 

First, as noted above, the LWB is not a set of stone tablets handed down from On High. It's just one person's attempt to summarize what the cards tend to say to that one person. The single most common cause of failure in learning to divine, in my repeated experience, can be summed up in the words "But that's not what the LWB says!" The LWB is a springboard; if you cling to the springboard while trying to dive off it, you're going to end up going nowhere. The important thing is to try to figure out what the cards mean to you, and that need not have much at all in common with what they mean to someone else. When you cast a reading, let your intuition take over; when you try to figure out what the reading meant the next day, approach each card with the thought that it must refer to something you experienced, and pay attention to any connection that comes to mind, no matter how far-fetched. It may not turn out to be far-fetched at all. 

Second, nothing in any reading is as dire as you think it is. Again, nothing in any reading is as dire as you think it is. And one more time, NOTHING IN ANY READING IS AS DIRE AS YOU THINK IT IS.  Seriously. Every beginning Tarot reader I've ever met, myself included, started out reading each card in its most over-the-top sense, and learned through experience (and more than occasional embarrassment) to tone things down to the point that they make sense. OMG, here's the card named Death! (It means that something's going to change in a way that doesn't permit going back to the previous state.) OMG, here's the Ten of Swords! (It means that something is over and done with.) OMG, here's -- well, you get the picture. Over-the-top Tarot reading is a reliable source of drama for those who enjoy being emotionally overwrought, but I can't think of any other use for it, and it reliably yields inaccurate readings. 

So there you have it. The daily practice of divination is one of the three foundations of occult training as I understand it and teach it -- the other two being the daily practice of a basic banishing ritual, and the daily practice of discursive meditation. Five minutes of ritual, fifteen minutes of meditation, and ten minutes casting and interpreting a reading -- that's just half an hour a day, and it will open portal after portal for you. 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Well, how about that? There I was, primed and ready with my question for the next time Magic Monday rolls around and you pre-empted and answered it with this post. My question - in case anybody is still interested ;) - was why every time I try this training I get about ten days of slam-dunk hits followed by day after day of not being able make head nor tail of the cards. You guessed it: I was sticking too rigidly to the LWB.

Thanks! (I'm only slightly disturbed that you appear to be reading my mind ;)

[ecosophia]

It's one of the universal habits of beginners, so not hard to pick up by telepathy. ;-) It's also fairly common to go through a period where nothing seems to make sense -- that's a function of your mind and the cards trying to communicate and not quite working it out yet. Patience, regular practice, and ignoring the LWB usually do the trick.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the ongoing education.

Due to mental health issues and a chronic neurological condition I am reluctant to take up something like the SOP or LBRP, which judging by comments here and elsewhere can be a strain on the system and produce some freaky experiences for a while. Could you suggest anything simpler and less taxing that would still provide some benefit, a workaround or an alternative way to approach the matter? Or maybe the occult Trivium is just out of reach for now and I need to learn to balance on my two legged stool...

cloudrider

[ecosophia]

If you've got mental health issues, you should probably avoid ritual altogether. There are other ways to benefit from occultism, and divination, meditation, and study can also make a very solid occult trivium; not everyone is cut out for ritual magic, after all. Some of the themes I'll be discussing on the blog as the current discussion proceeds may be helpful, too.

[(Anonymous)]

My wife and I recently bought out first deck. This was very fortuitous timing. Any recommendations for exploring banishing rituals? I believe you've written quite a lot on discursive meditation on the Well of Galabes, no?

[ecosophia]

There's some material on discursive meditation on The Well of Galabes, and much more in various books of mine -- The Druidry Handbook has the longest discussion, though I need to update it sometime, or simply get off my duff and write a book on discursive meditation. As for banishing rituals, a lot depends on your preferred flavor of spirituality; the banishing ritual posted in an earlier Dreamwidth entry here might be one place to start.

Discursive Meditation

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, please do write that book!!! I hope when you do, that you include a chapter on Druid lection and how it differs from discursive meditation, since that would be useful for those of us pursuing reception into the GCC -- Sister Crow

[(Anonymous)]

After 4 years, I still sometimes struggle with Geomancy. I wonder if part of the issue may be relying too much on the BGB (Big Green Book).

Periodically as I've traversed the Celtic Golden Dawn I have felt strongly called to spend a few nights working instead with the Hermetic Golden Dawn work I started with. The Tarot deck that I used in those days was the Ciceros' Golden Dawn tarot. On the occasions that I have had the urging to go back, I inevitably Do a tarot reading, using the rather useful 10 card spread they provide. I find these readings are powerfully accurate-- the cards have astrological meanings that have predicted the timing of events to the day.

I've come to wonder if the readings aren't the point-- if the prompting I get to do Hermetic work isn't the spirit set over the cards pinging me, "Hey, we need to talk."

-Steve

[ecosophia]

And that's also an option, of course.

Thank you so much for this!

[(Anonymous)]

This is the first post of yours that I've hand copied to help it make its way into my memory. I started doing tarot card readings about eleven years ago and have done them consistently since, with good results. After reading and taking notes on this I went through my Rider Waite deck twice, and FINALLY was able to understand how I understand reversed cards! I've had a vague intuition for them for these eleven years, but literally, tonight, it clicked. So cool, I wonder what more might come to light as I apply what I've just learned.

You mention meditating briefly on each card. Do you think that going through a deck card by card could make for 78 good discursive meditation themes?

-Violet

Re: Thank you so much for this!

[ecosophia]

It's a standard practice in some occult schools, so yes, I think meditating on each of the cards would be an excellent idea!

[oakmouse]

"Nothing in any reading is a dire as you think it is."

*nods* I remember one reading where I got the Tower as the "situation" card. OMG, THE TOWER! *screams dramatically*

Yeah, what it actually meant was that now my hidebound boss had retired, her successor decided to chuck out some of the more inefficient and fossilized ways of doing things that she had required, and my job got much easier and much more reasonable in less than a week. Which was a Very Good Thing, and not the least bit dire.

[ecosophia]

Thank you for an excellent example! Yes, I should have mentioned The Tower -- another of the cards that reliably causes people to freak out.

Somebody ought to do the Neurosis Tarot someday -- a deck in which every card stands for something to be afraid of...

[oakmouse]

One of the Goth tarots has probably covered that.

[(Anonymous)]

I just saw at Half Price some kind of "dark side of astrology" book that went through, for every combination of sun sign and moon sign or ascendant, in what ways you're a rotten person and what horrible things will happen to you. - Dewey

Thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm pleased that I scrolled down and saw this post before placing my foot in my mouth and asking a question I have had on divination now that it's another Magic Monday. I had already spontaneously done steps 1 and 2, comparing two different Oracle decks, one that I've had for literally decades and the other recently purchased, to determine which one would speak to me better. The answer was very clear. Now I will proceed to step 3. Do you recommend only doing this with one card per day?

Thank you so much. It's funny how things fall into place when one is ready for them,
Yanocoches in Colorado

[(Anonymous)]

My set came from Russia and the LWB is 425 pages long, has more warnings than a chainsaw manual and claims that pretty much each card predicts a problem, usually a pretty big one. Oh, and it's printed on sepia colored paper in scary fonts ... In the stark contrast, art on the cards is light, beautiful and they give me a very nice calming feeling when I just look at them. Thanks for confirming my earlier suspicion that the LWBs are written by people, who may or may not know what they's talking about, and not by gods with direct access to inside information!

Leon

Thanks

[peter_van_erp]

I use a deck designed by a painter friend, which did not have any LWB... What appeals to me about the deck is the design of the Devil: he's definitely a trickster, not the epitome of evilist evilly evil usually assumed. I've been using Bill Butler's Dictionary of the Tarot, which includes many different interpretations from many sources. I picked it up 30 years ago. I have been asking a simple question of a complex layout, generally yes/no, and seeing what the cards say. Most days it's pretty vague, but once I got a really strong answer. Time will tell... I plan to follow your suggestions here, and I'm joining a local circle who meet monthly to learn from one another.

Discursive Meditation

[(Anonymous)]

What's discursive meditation as opposed to another type of meditation?

[sailorgirl]

I was wondering if you follow the rule about cards that appear upside down when you turn them over? Or can you just go with the same meaning whether it's right side up or down?

Tarot

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for answering my question so clearly. Your method of learning to understand the Tarot is more straightforward and, dare I say sensible, than what I've seen in a lot of books. It's my hope that using the cards will give me ways of looking at situations that I hadn't considered.

I bought a Smith-Waite deck, because the art appeals to me: each card is filled with enough objects/people/landscapes/symbols to make it interesting, but not so much as to be cluttered and confusing.

Sorry it took me so long to post this thank-you. Damn flu.


Beekeeper in Vermont

Afraid I’m being too general

[(Anonymous)]

Bare in mind that I’m completely new to any of this:
Just did my first reading, and although I can see the relationship of the cards to what’s going on, I don’t get a specific answer to how the situation will resolve. Is this ok/normal? I wrote down what amounts to a general feeling about the situation, and the path to resolution, although the path’s end is unknown. I’ll keep at it & take notes as I go.

Re: Afraid I’m being too general

[ecosophia]

If this is your very first reading ever, and you were able to figure out the relationship between the cards and the situation, you're doing extremely well. It takes plenty of practice to be able to extract all the available meaning from a reading. Keep at it, write down every reading, and then go back later when the facts are in and see if you can figure out what you missed; that way you'll be prepared to catch similar meanings in future readings.