Tarot Spreads for Beginners

Tarot Spreads for Beginners

If you are new to Tarot and comfortable with your major and minor arcana, learning how to read three cards in a line can be very useful in many applications. Don’t assume that such a small amount of cards can’t give you a well-rounded and insightful answer. 

Tarot cards hold a lot of depth. Many professional readers will agree that 3-5 cards can answer many, if not, most questions of a querent.

Preparing to do a reading:

Clear the residual energies from the deck by visualising negative energy being drawn out of the deck and replaced with positive white light. Apply this visualisation technique to one of the following methods: 

• Ring a bell over the top of the deck 
• Pass your deck through incense or smudge the deck 
• Leave the deck in direct sunlight or moonlight 
• Knock on your deck three times

Before doing a reading, make sure that you are not tired, upset about something or distracted. Make sure you are in a quiet place that you can relax. It is important to be grounded when you are about to read. Meditate for a moment and think about your intention to read today. Is it a good intention? If no, do not read – to avoid picking up negative energy when vibrating at a low frequency.  Meditate and visualise the people/things/places involved in the reading and hold the images in your mind. Now you are focused and ready to read for yourself or the querent. 

Introducing the 3-card spread: 

There are many three card spreads you can use, including your own personalised ones if you feel comfortable writing them down and creating them. The most common ones are these below. 

PAST – PRESENT – FUTURE 

Think about the situation you or the querent are asking about. Lets give an example.

Sally has asked if she will pass her university degree. 

You visualise Sally at university and shuffle, meditating upon that image. You ask in your mind to see how the past was for Sally at University and you lay down the first card. 

Now you keep shuffling and visualise Sally again at university and ask what the present situation is at university for her. 

Lastly you shuffle again and ask what the future outcome will be of Sally doing her university degree. 

Lets say you draw: 

3 of Pentacles for PAST – 10 of Wands for PRESENT – and 9 of Cups for FUTURE

How this could be interpreted is that in the past, Sally had to learn many new skills and possibly had several mentors and group assignments where she had to work as a team. At present she is struggling and exhausted because very soon she will be sitting final exams. In the future she has drawn 9 of cups which means her wishes to pass university are fulfilled. 

Here is another example for a different three card spread:

PROBLEM – ADVICE – OUTCOME 

Danny has been married to Rebecca for 16 years. Lately Rebecca has been short tempered and hard to please. No matter what Danny does, Rebecca is never satisfied and is becoming more disconnected from him. He has asked for an overview of his marriage. 

Visualise Danny & Rebecca in your mind. Shuffle your cards and ask what the problem is in their marriage and lay the first card down. You draw 9 of Swords. 

Go back to visualising Danny & Rebecca, shuffle the cards whilst holding this image in your mind’s eye. Now ask what the advice is for their marriage. You draw 3 of Cups. 

Lastly, repeat the above steps but this time whilst shuffling, ask what the outcome would be if Danny & Rebecca took the advice from Tarot. The outcome card is 7 of Pentacles. 

First we look at the first card, you drew 9 of Swords. This tells us that perhaps Rebecca is a bit blue or worried about something. She may be suffering from anxiety or mental health issues. She may be going through life changes that are making her depressed. 

We then look at the second card which was the advice of 3 of Cups. This tells us more socialising between them, gathering together on dates and possibly friends being more involved in their outings is in order. This will lift Rebecca’s spirits and open up the lines of communication. 

Lastly we look at the outcome. 7 of pentacles was drawn. This tells us that a lot of time will pass before she feels better but with hard work and dedication to the advice that was given, there should be improvement although not overnight. It shows room for other angles to be explored like perhaps counselling. 7 of pentacles is very hard work. The card by no means says the marriage is over or that any traumatic event will be happening. 

Some other common three-card spreads that you can try: 

• TOMORROW – NEXT WEEK – NEXT MONTH
• BODY – MIND – SPIRIT 
• SITUATION – HIDDEN INFLUENCES – ADVICE 
• MYSELF – MY PARTNER – OUR RELATIONSHIP 
• MY RELATIONSHIP – NEXT WEEK – NEXT MONTH 
• MY JOB – WHAT I WANT – WHAT IT WILL GIVE 

For tarot lessons: Email Australian.reader@outlook.com or message directly through Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. Lessons start at $50 per hour.