#tarot tricks

and by commit, i mean: commit to your question and commit to your cards. you want your mind to be as uncluttered as possible when you ask your question so you can be sure when the cards show themselves they’re answering the question you had in mind. ask just one question per spread to avoid getting confused about which cards are answering which question. in this spread, your question is your guide, so you have to be extra clear and specific. if you intend to have 5 cards in your spread, then stick to 5 cards. especially in the beginning, don’t take extra cards just because they all fell out at the same time. if 7 cards dropped out of your hard at the same time, i encourage you to put them back and try again.

TIP TWO: COMMIT (again)

this tip is more on negative cards. don’t worry, i completely empathise with the panic that happens when the five of cups presents itself as the final card in the spread. i’ve seen people deal with this a few ways: some people pretend they didn’t see that and draw again. i really don’t recommend this. life is not always unicorns and butterflies, and redrawing a card is not going to change that. at best, your cards empathise and frame their answer more nicely, but at worst, you draw a meaningless card because of you’re panicking and not listening to your intuition, or your cards just straight up decide they’ve had enough. so commit to that negative card, and put it down on your spread.

the other way i’ve seen readers deal with this is to immediately draw clarifiers. i also don’t really advise this. for one, that’s not committing to the number of cards your spread was going to have, which is going to affect accuracy. for another, it’s going to clutter your mind. it’s going to cause you to want to zoom into the bad card and get to the bottom of it and you’re going to subconsciously neglect the other cards just because they didn’t worry you as much. a spread like this should be taken as a whole story, and you can’t just read one chapter and know everything about it, can you?

instead, i recommend that you leave that card alone first, and zoom out. there’s only one ten of swords card in the stack, buddy. i promise you, you’re not going to get fatally betrayed five times.

TIP THREE: ZOOM OUT

the best way to make sure you don’t leave any cards out while reading is to read them all at one go first. these are the things i pay attention to when i first look at a spread, in the order:

major arcana: are most cards major or minor arcana? are they generally positive or negative? what are the cards’ astrological equivalents, and do they link or hold any significance? for example, if your spread has temperance and the devil, then that suggests this prediction might come true towards the end of the year.

court cards: again, i’m looking for astrological significance here, and linking it to the major arcana if needed. i’m also looking for double counts (eg: queen of swords and justice) that would give hints about the people influencing the situation. there are also some cards that means certain people to me and my cards, so i’m also looking out for that.

dominant suit: i like to call this the “expectations vs reality” clue. for example, if i’m reading for romance and the spread is full of swords and pentacles, then unless i’m offset by some major arcana, i can be quite sure that romance isn’t really in my near future. of course, the cards can still be read for romance and i will, but it sets the scene. similarly, if i’m reading for work and i get cups all around, then the work itself is probably not going to be my main problem.

dominant number: this doesn’t give as much information as the previous steps, but it does help with setting the scene and vibe. for example, many 1s would suggest new, good beginnings, and 5s may hint towards tougher days in the future. for major arcana bigger than 10, add the digits together until you get a number 10 or less to get the representative number.

TIP FOUR: FIND THE “PARTITION”

this sometimes appears as a card, or an imaginary line. basically, it helps you zoom into sections of the spread and tie these sections together. “partition cards” are usually:

the only major arcana card in the spread

the one card with a completely different vibe / category than the cards surrounding it

the one court card in the spread

the one ace in the spread

and imaginary lines are usually:

between cards of two different suits

between patterns in cards (for example: page, minor arcana [break] page, minor arcana...)

between the last major arcana and first minor arcana card (or the other way around)

between sets of cards with different vibes

it’s not uncommon for more than one of these to show up in a spread, and sometimes they contradict themselves. sometimes there will be a tiebreaker. take this spread for example:

the king of swords is the only court card, but the ace of pentacles is also the only ace. where’s the partition? well, i’d personally place it at the ace of pentacles. notice how on the left of the ace if the four of cups: low in energy, lethargic. on the right are much more active cards. so the ace must be the game changer, making it the partition card!

the partition, depending on the question, means a lot of things. most commonly it points you to what causes a shift in energy for the querent. in the spread above, a new beginning will breathe new life into the querent and bring them out of their slump. other times, each side of the partition answers different parts of the question. either way, finding the partition will help you figure out where the querent is coming from, and where they’re headed. once you know this, then you can zoom into the individual cards and look for specific messages for your querent.

TIP FIVE: YOU AND YOUR CARDS KNOW EACH OTHER BEST

i try my best not to interpret others’ cards. sometimes i do, but usually it’s just for personal practice and i don’t tell them what i’m thinking, and other times i’m just trying to convince myself mark lee and i are meant to be. 😂 i kid, i kid. anyway, the point is that there are many ways to say the same thing in tarot, and the reason why your cards have chosen to say it the way they have is because they trust this is the way you will best understand. so don’t take that for granted! really take every card and stare at it until you know exactly what it’s trying to tell you. sometimes it’s instant, sometimes you only get it as you’re falling asleep, but you should trust that this message was written for you to understand, not for you to decipher. the more you trust your cards, the more they will trust you.