How To Read Multiple Tarot Cards

Advice on connecting with your tarot cards whether it’s your first time using them or you’ve owned your deck for a while.

Connecting or reconnecting to your deck can be a helpful activity, regardless of whether you haven’t picked up your deck in a long, are hesitant to conduct a reading for yourself, feel “wrong” with the readings you’ve been conducting, or have purchased a new deck.

Check out Reading Tarot for Beginners: How to Start Reading Tarot for Yourself for advice on how to pick your deck.

Being a competent reader requires you to connect with your tarot deck. But you must invest time, effort, and attention in a good relationship.

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How can I tell if I’m not meant to work with a deck or I just need to reconnect?

The connection you have with the deck has to be strengthened, or it might not be the best fit for you at this time, if you’re having trouble getting a good reading from it or feel off with it.

It’s possible that you and your tarot deck aren’t intended to be in a serious long-term relationship if you don’t feel like you connect with it or if you don’t appear to speak the same language. There is a deck available for you if you want to learn, therefore this does not imply that you are not destined to be a reader.

However, there’s also a strong chance that you can establish the connection with a little time and effort. especially if you were initially drawn to your deck.

You can utilize some decks for specific purposes and not others. The majority of your magic will probably be performed with one main deck, although you may occasionally use other decks for fun, support, or clarity. Since decks are exquisite works of art, I love collecting them. And I adore using them when I want to switch things up or am performing a certain style of reading, but I only use my original ride or die deck for all of my professional readings and lectures.

All of this is to indicate that testing out a variety of decks is a wonderful idea. For your first deck, conduct some study, examine the imagery, and choose the one that sparks your interest.

Here are some methods for getting back on your deck. I’ve listed them in the sequence I’d perform them, but you should feel free to customize this exercise according to your own preferences.

How to connect with your tarot cards

You can accomplish this in a number of ways, including by shuffling, using crystals, moonlight, salt, or sacred incense. Click here to learn more about cleaning your deck.

Hold your cards firmly in your palms while taking a few deep breaths. After that, think about the intention you want to have for your practice with them. It could be a word, a sentence, or an emotion. You can use this time to ask any guides or spirits you enjoy working with for assistance or to help you open your channel to divine advice that is in your highest and best interests.

Cleaning the energy in the deck through shuffling. Additionally, it creates the random system that allows us to access the advice we need from the deck. We can gain a completely new viewpoint from the cards because of the randomness that shuffling creates; by doing so, we are deviating from logic and embracing the unknowable. Check out this article on card shuffling.

To get to know one another, gain some fresh perspectives, and, yes, bond, spend some time completing a tarot spread that is tailored to your deck.

What details about you do you want me to know?
Your restrictions?
What type of partnership are we capable of having?

What task are we supposed to complete jointly?
Which card can currently be my teacher?
How can I use this card to explore deeper?

Make putting your deck away a ceremony. You might keep it in a box, cover it in a special scarf, place a crystal on top of it, or place it on an altar while not in use. Choosing to follow this quick procedure at the conclusion of each session or day is a way to show your deck some love, gratitude, and appreciation.

Bonus Tarot bonding exercises:

the whole picture The Major Arcana numbers 0 to 22 should be arranged in lines of seven cards across. Next, arrange the Ace through King cards for each suit in the following order: Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles. Take a good look at the deck in this format. Then thoroughly jumble everything together.

Select a map. To serve as your anchor and guide for connecting with your deck and intuition, choose a card based on its look and/or its meaning. Write down all the thoughts, emotions, and queries this card triggers for you in a journal. Use it to meditate. Keep track of how it manifests in your daily life and tarot practice (and keep a notebook of your observations!). When not using your deck, place this card on your altar. You can carry out this for a week or a lunar cycle before selecting another.

Put your deck beneath your pillow while you sleep. You can connect with the cards in your unconscious time if you can make it comfy.

Also keep in mind that it takes time to establish a connection and relationship with your deck. Like any relationship, it evolves as you develop and gain new knowledge.

How are tarot cards shuffled?

This shuffling method, which is frequently used before regular card games, is merely holding the full deck in one hand and releasing a section of cards into the other hand at a time until the entire deck has been spread and mixed.

How many possible card combinations exist?

Consider the last card game you playedpoker, go fish, whatever. Would you think if each time you properly shuffled the entire deck, you were holding a run of cards that had never previously occurred in all of history? Think about all the card games that have undoubtedly been played since the dawn of civilization. No one has ever held or is expected to ever hold the exact same 52 cards in the same order as you did during that game.

A deck of cards can be sorted in somewhere between 8×1067 different ways, which may sound absurd. That consists of an 8 and 67 zeros. To put it in perspective, even if someone were to shuffle a deck of cards once every second throughout the course of the universe, they couldn’t locate a repeat before the cosmos collapsed. This is how probability with such large numbers operate. Even though a veteran blackjack dealer may feel they have shuffled hundreds of cards in their career, their arrangements are meaningless when compared to this many. There are simply too many different ways to arrange 52 cards for any set of cards that were shuffled at random to repeat itself.

You don’t trust me? Just think of all the combinations you can make with a deck of four aces.

Each following location in the row gets one fewer cards to choose from as the deck is dealt out. There are thus four alternatives in the first place, three in the next, and so on until just one card is left. By multiplying these figures together, it is possible to determine how many different ways a group of objects can be arranged using this mathematical pattern.

A factorial is the mathematical term for this genuinely exciting calculation, which is indicated by an exclamation mark.

Factorials often multiply the total number of items in a collection by successively lower amounts until they reach 1. Since our mini-deck contains 4 cards, there are 4 factorial, or 4!, possible arrangements, for a total of 24 possible configurations. Even though this might not seem like a particularly high number, until you reach the number 52 (or 52x51x50…), you end up with an integer that has 68 total digits, which is far larger than the estimated total number of atoms on Earth.

You might be thinking, “Wait, it can’t be unique,” considering that you’ve undoubtedly done it multiple times in your life while playing solitaire. You’d be correct, too. Decks in card games typically have a standard order, thus you need to shuffle really well (using the “riffle” approach, around seven times) before you have a deck that is truly unique.

Do I need to put my tarot cards under my pillow at night?

It’s crucial to have a deck you identify with because tarot reading is such a very personal experience for each reader.”

Find the deck that resonates with you. Avoid looking at the most well-liked decks. Even if you’re purchasing online, Katelan advises taking a closer look at each deck to see which one appeals to you.” To discover a deck that speaks to you, consider how they are drawn and how they are arranged. She claims that several times she purchased or was given a deck that was lovely but didn’t exactly fit her needs. If you want accurate tarot readings, according to Katelan, you can’t force it.” Finding the deck that works for you is worthwhile.

Make sure you’re attuned to your new tarot deck when you first obtain it. Tarot cards contain a lot of energy, so while you’re getting used to them, you should be sure to clear them of any outside energy. When you receive a fresh deck, Katelan advises taking some time to browse the cards and take in the imagery. “Make careful to thoroughly mix them up, and you can use some incense to clear any energy. I wrap all of my playing cards in scarves and put them under my pillow for three nights. During that period, you’ll have some incredibly bizarre dreams, but it will also attune your energy to the cards.

Katelan advises choosing a location for your tarot card reading based on where you feel most at ease. Her home arrangement is less formal than when she reads cards professionally. She used to practice at the Bronx Botanica, which had a table set up in an altar room. “I frequently sit on the ground. If I’m performing a three-card spread, I prefer to pull cards on these old trays I have. I will either do a big spread on the couch or the floor.

In order to feel more rooted and engaged to the practice, Katelan also advises reading up on the background of tarot reading. She cites its antecedents in Jewish New York tenements throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as in Romani society. “When wars broke out or other significant events occurred, there were frequently spikes in interest in fortune telling, card reading, tea reading, and other related practices. People are looking for explanations and purpose in their own life now because of the pandemic.

Questions you don’t really want answered

Even though it might seem apparent, it’s advisable to refrain from asking the tarot cards questions that you aren’t prepared to hear the answers to. That’s because answers to these questions can reveal information you’re just not quite ready to hear.

“Tarot can definitely come off as offensive if you’re not willing to hear the truth or consider an opposing opinion. Tarot reading Nicole Fortunaso

According to tarot reader and life coach Nicole Fortunaso, “tarot may truly come out as offensive if you are not willing to hear the truth of the problem or look at an alternate viewpoint.” She advises analyzing why you’re reacting the way you are in order to reflect on how to effectively address the underlying problem if you ask the question and aren’t satisfied with the response.

Do tarot cards need to be purified?

That’s correct

Magdaleno really suggests cleaning your deck before each reading to achieve the most accurate results. She advises starting with a cleansing to make the cards clear for your reading, whether it’s for yourself or someone else.

What number of Tarot cards do you choose?

If you find this daunting, Howe advises you to take a deep breath and believe in your own initiative. “In order to see it less as “This holds all of these secret meanings that I have to do all this work to access” and more as “I know all the meanings; it’s just a matter of establishing the connections and being able to articulate them,” use language or knowledge that you already possess. She points out that the four elementsearth, water, fire, and airplay a significant role in the tarot, which is advantageous because the majority of people already have an understanding of the meanings of each element. ” If you do that, your viewpoint will be more personal, and you will be able to express yourself more freely.

Howe suggests the three-card draw and the Celtic Cross as the two fundamental spreads for beginning readers. In the former, three cards are chosen at random from the deck to symbolize the subject’s mind, body, and spirit, or past, present, and future. According to Howe, you could even up the stakes and use a six-card draw, with one card for each location.

What tarot card has the most influence?

The Fool is typically seen as a card from the Major Arcana when performing a tarot reading. Contrary to popular belief, the Fool does not fall under either category in tarot card games. Instead, the Fool serves a function that is distinct from both the simple suit cards and the trump cards. As a result, the Fool has no number assigned to it in the majority of tarot decks that were initially created for playing games. Although Waite assigns the Fool the number 0, in his book, the Fool is discussed between Judgment (number 20) and The World (number 21). The Tarocco Piemontese is the only traditional game deck that numbers the Fool 0. Since the 1930s, the corner index for the Fool in Tarot Nouveau decks has frequently been a black inverted mullet. The Fool is one of the most expensive cards in practically all tarot games.