Are you a new reader? Out of practice and looking for a refresher course? Or simply having a hard time making sense of things? The following sections and chapters should help clarify a few matters. But of course with all studies it is best to start at the beginning. And that is where we shall start.

Tarot is a form of divination or fortune telling based around a deck of cards that include 78 cards in total. The cards meanings differ depending on if the card is right side up (Forward) or upside down (Reverse). Pictures can differ from deck to deck, and though pictures can often aid in readings they can not always be relied on fully for interpretations.

A tarot deck consists of five suits.

The Major Arcana
The Suit of Cups/Chalices
The Suit of Coins/Pentacles
The Suit of Swords/Blades
The Suit of Wands/Staves

Names of the suits may differ from deck to deck.

So where to begin? How to start reading? How to even begin practicing?

You can start very simply by getting acquainted with your deck.

Learning Your Deck's Tone

Like every person on the planet every deck has individuality. Your deck may be shy, or unable to perform with others. Your deck may be brash, or cold when asked certain types of questions. Some decks have even been known to point out the flaws of their readers, bringing to attention things we often ignore about ourselves. The tone of your deck is important to note when reading, especially when asking certain questions or when reading for others.

Some decks may like answering questions pertaining to romance. Some decks may like answering questions related to money. Every deck will have themes it likes answering, and themes it dislikes answering. So how do we figure out what is which?

Besides taking notes on how it responds to questions when asked, you can also consider trying a "Get to Know Your Deck" spread. There are plenty of these online that you can look up for free, as well as one you can find in the "Spreads" section of this book.

This will allow you to get more acquainted with your deck and to learn more about its unique personality. It's a good exercise for both you and your cards.

Bonding With Your deck

Just as friends must form strong bonds, so too must you form a bond with your deck. These are not simple cards after all, they are your partner in your craft. It is important to form a strong attachment to them and allow yourself time to become familiar with the cards.

There are plenty of ways to get to know your deck, and you may be shocked to find it is no different than spending time with a friend.

One of the most simple ways to bond with your deck is to sleep with it under your pillow. This is an intimate closeness with your cards and takes little energy, even restoring energy to you and charging your deck. The both of you will be well rested and ready to read.

Decks may even like to play card games like solitaire. Just as it is good for you to take a rest from work, it is also good for your deck. It allows them to have fun and recoup. All work and no play makes your tarot dull cards.

Watch movies with your cards. Shuffle them while the movie plays and ask them what they thought about it after. You may find your deck has a preference for certain genres, or in some cases evaluate certain characters and themes.

Shufflemancy is a wonderful and fun way to bond with your deck. Take your playlist and put your music to shuffle. Shuffle your deck while you listen. The idea is that your deck will decide what music plays next. Often times you will see themes in which music your cards choose, be it certain lyrics that are similar, a certain artist continuing to play, or songs with similar sounds.

Charging Your Deck

It is important to charge your deck with energies both from you and positive energies via other means. As stated in the previous section, sleeping with your deck is a wonderful way to bond with it, but it is also a fantastic way to charge it. Sleep is a state close to meditation and allows your energy to flow into the deck in a relaxed and clear minded state.

You may also charge your deck via crystals if you have them. Something as simple as placing the crystal upon your deck, or the box your deck is in, should very well do the trick.

Keep a paper with sigils for drawing energy in the box with your cards. Sigils are a great means for this as you can choose certain sigils based on what type of energy you wish the deck to contract.

These are a few simple ways to charge a deck, though not the only options. Doing research on ones own and finding a method you like can be beneficial to both you and your cards.

How to Shuffle and Draw Cards

The first thing to take note of when shuffling a deck is the physical aspect of mixing the cards. Tarot decks are fragile and are often times not as pliant as playing cards. As such bridging them can be harmful to the cards and result in tearing, bending, or damage to the pictures.

Instead you should hold all of your cards as a group and pick various places to pull smaller groups of cards out. Allow the groups to break where they will and shuffle loosely until you a sure the cards are shuffled about enough.

If you find you are getting too many cards in the same position it could mean it is time to break your deck. You can do this by splitting the deck into two halves, turning one to face the opposite position, and then resuming your shuffle.

How long you shuffle truly depends on you and how you feel about each reading individually. Some may feel like a few shuffles will do it, some may feel like you need to take a little more time. Depending on how much energy you feel the reading should take can determine how long you shuffle for. The length of time taken to shuffle differs from person to person. Only you can know when it has been shuffled enough.

When it comes to drawing cards there are many ways to do it.

In one card readings it is common to pull the top card. This is a safe bet in most occasions but it is not always so. In the event that you feel a card should be pulled from a different spot in the deck then listen to your intuition and do so. Perhaps a card is sticking out further than the others after you have shuffled and you feel like this is the card meant to be read. Pull it! Maybe you feel the bottom of the deck is where the answer lies. Seek it out! Some intuition must always go into divination. Acknowledge your instincts.

When working with spreads it can be hard to decide how to place the cards in their positions, or what card should go where. There is of course a simple trick. Hold your deck over each position of the spread and loosen your fingers slightly. Allow the deck to break of its own accord into smaller piles. Loosen your grip, let as many cards fall as they need until it stops, move forward to the next and repeat until all the spread positions are filled. The top card of each pile will be the card that is meant to be read for that position.

Though mostly you will rely on yourself to break the deck or draw the cards, sometimes it is your deck who decides what card must be read. While shuffling your hands may fumble and a card will fall from the deck. If you have been shuffling for a while then know that this is the card meant to be interpreted. If too many fall that you do not know which fell first then disregard it as a simple mistake, gather your cards, and resume shuffling as you were.

Reading for Others

You see it all the time in media, a fortune teller shuffles the cards and lays them out, and she reads. It's not always so simple, especially not when reading for other people. To read for them it is important to allow your subject to shuffle the cards and think firmly on the question they want answered. The energy transferred from their shuffling will allow the cards to better answer their question.

But what about reading for people online, or over the phone, or in any situation where you can not be with them to allow them to shuffle the cards? There is a simple way around this. When reading for someone who is not with me physically I always ask for a handful of details about them.

Examples include

Their initials
Their star signs
Their favorite color
Their gender identity
The element they feel the most connection with
Or even Eye color

This is a simple way to channel energy focused on the person into the cards. The more information the better, as it will allow you to read more accurately and clearly for your subject.

Cartomancy VS Tarot

Tarot decks include 78 cards. Each card has two meanings. A forward meaning and a Reverse meaning. In total that is 156 possible results, all with multiple ways to interpret each. With that stated it's no wonder you can not use a simple deck of playing cards to read tarot. For starters there are only 54 cards (if jokers are included) and those cards appear the same no matter what position they are in. This cuts out well over half the deck of tarot cards.

But fret not, there is a form of card based divination that you can still preform discretely with playing cards. This divination is called cartomancy, and performs much like tarot. You will be able to read more on this in the bonus chapter at the end of the book.