How to read tarot a step-by-step guide for beginners

Most decks have 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. For a first deck, the Waite deck, also called the Rider-Waite, is easiest to read because every card has a picture full of clues. The Marseille deck has plainer Minor Arcana and rewards you once you know what the numbers mean.

Reading with the 22 Major Arcana alone is fine at the start. Fewer cards are easier to learn, and each one has enough presence to make the reading clear. Sumifuda Tarot reads with the Major Arcana only.

Before you shuffle, put what you want to know into one sentence. Naming who and when, as in where is my relationship with him going this summer, makes the cards easier to apply.

Reading the same question again and again scatters the answers and deepens the doubt. Once you have read a question, leave it for a while. Examples of good questions are in questions to ask tarot.

Spread the cards face down on a table and mix them with both hands in circles, keeping the question in mind. When they feel well mixed, gather them into one pile, split it into three, and restack the piles in any order. That is the cut.

If you read reversals, turn some cards around as you mix. Reading upright only is also fine, and a good way to begin.

Take cards from the top of the pile and place them in the layout you chose. Start with a single card, then try the three card spread. Decide what each position means before you lay them out. Common layouts are on tarot spreads.

When you turn a card over, notice your first impression of the picture. Then check the card's basic meaning and apply it to the question and the position. You do not need to know the meanings by heart; reading with tarot card meanings open is enough.

With several cards, read them one by one and then look at the whole. If bright and dark cards are mixed, look for where the flow changes, and the answer becomes concrete.

In Japan people sometimes say you should not memorize tarot. It is usually meant as a warning: learn each card as one word and your readings shrink. If the same card always gets the same word, you stop seeing how its meaning changes with the question and the position. Use keywords as a way in, then read them together with the picture and the position.

Reading for yourself tends to lean toward the answer you want. When it matters, read again on another day, or compare with a method that reads by a fixed standard, like the AI tarot reading.