Tarot study room · Course
Tarot self-study course
32 short lessons, from learning the cards to reading a spread, each with an exercise. Tick them off as you go; your progress is saved in this browser and won't sync if you clear your data or switch devices.
Unit I
Getting to know a deck
78 cards: first know what you're holding
4 lessons
01Tarot is a deck of cards, and a language of images
Tarot started as a card game. In fifteenth-century northern Italy, nobles played a card game with extra "trump" cards. People only began using it for divination three hundred years later.
Here, tarot is treated as a way of talking through a question with images.
It's 78 pictures. The figures, objects and directions in them can all be looked at slowly. Bring a question to them and you may notice something you hadn't thought of. That's how I use it when I read: as a tool for looking at things, the kind where you can explain your reasons.
Spread out the whole deck and pick the card you like most at first sight and the one you least want to see. Write down why, in one sentence. Come back in three months; your answers may change.
More: The history of tarot
0222 + 56: how a deck is divided
22 Major Arcana, from 0, the Fool, to 21, the World. Each has a name and usually speaks of bigger themes: choices, loss, starting over.
56 Minor Arcana in four suits: Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles. Each suit has 14 cards, Ace to ten, plus four court cards: Page, Knight, Queen and King.
| Group | Cards | Often about |
|---|---|---|
| Major Arcana | 22 | Life stages, big directions |
| Number cards | 40 | What's happening in everyday life |
| Court cards | 16 | People, or an attitude to handling things |
Sort the cards into five piles: the Major Arcana, and one for each suit. Count them to check none are missing. Notice which pile's pictures feel least familiar.
More: 78-card library
03Rider-Waite, Marseille, Thoth: three common decks
Rider-Waite. Published in London in 1909, drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. Its biggest feature is that the minor cards have scenes too: the Three of Swords is a heart pierced by three swords; the Eight of Pentacles is someone bent over their work. That makes it easier to practise describing pictures, and it's the main deck on this site.
Marseille. A woodcut deck popular in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Major Arcana have pictures; the minor cards mostly just show the suit symbols in number, like playing cards. Reading it relies on number, suit and how the pips are arranged.
Thoth. Designed by Aleister Crowley and painted by Frieda Harris, completed in the 1940s. Dense with symbols and astrological and Kabbalistic correspondences, and some card names differ: Strength is Lust, Temperance is Art.
Learn one deck first, and switch once you know it well. Learning all three at once easily muddles the meanings.
Go to the reading guide, pick a book on the system that interests you, and just read its first chapter.
More: Marseille tarot series · Reading guide
04Your first deck, shuffling and cutting
For a first deck, choose one with clear pictures that you like. Look through the images of the whole deck rather than deciding by the box. Rider-Waite style decks have the most material available, so explanations are easier to find when you're stuck.
You don't have to wait for someone to give you one. A deck you buy yourself works fine.
Three ways to shuffle: riffle them like playing cards; spread them on the table and stir them with both hands, then gather them up; or move small stacks from top to bottom. If the cards are new and slippery, stir them.
After shuffling, cut once: split into two or three stacks and put them back together. It isn't a rule; it's a way of telling yourself, "Right, done shuffling."
Store them however you like. A box, a cloth bag, a drawer are all fine. You can have your own ritual if you like, but you can start practising without one.
Try each of the three shuffles once and find the one that feels most natural.
More: The cards I use
Unit II
The Major Arcana: 22 themes
A journey, and a set of life questions
4 lessons
05The Fool's Journey: laying the 22 cards in three rows
Put the Fool, card 0, at the top, and lay the other 21 cards in three rows of seven.
Row one, 1–7: learning to deal with the outside world. Skill, intuition, care, rules, tradition, choice, and finally the Chariot: I can steer.
Row two, 8–14: turning inward. Strength, solitude, the ups and downs of fate, fairness, seeing things upside down, endings, blending. The outer methods aren't enough any more; you have to deal with yourself.
Row three, 15–21: collision, then completion. In order, you might associate them with limits, upheaval, hope returning, uncertainty, clarity, reassessment, and completing a stage. This is a memory aid from this site, not a fixed set of meanings.
It's a way to remember. Life doesn't follow this order, and the same person may go back and forth several times in a year.
Actually lay the cards out in three rows. From each row, pick the card you feel most strongly about right now, and write down one thing in your life it corresponds to.
06What lots of Major Arcana cards means
When a spread has lots of Major Arcana cards, I ask myself three things first:
- Is this a bigger matter? Changing jobs, moving house, breaking up, that kind of thing.
- Are there parts you can't decide on your own?
- Was it already something you took very seriously?
Lots of minor cards usually means everyday details you can handle: the kind where you can schedule time or change how you do things.
The ratio is a hint, not a formula. Five Major Arcana out of ten cards may just be chance.
Go through your last five reading records and count what share were Major Arcana. Was any reading especially high? What were you asking then?
07Major Arcana in pairs
Some Major Arcana cards are clearer seen together than apart.
| Pair | The difference |
|---|---|
| The Magician / The High Priestess | Doing with your hands; knowing in stillness |
| The Empress / The Emperor | Growing it; managing it |
| The Chariot / Strength | Charging ahead by will; taming with patience |
| The Tower / The Star | Being knocked down; the first breath afterwards |
| The Moon / The Sun | Not seeing clearly; seeing clearly |
When you draw one of them, think about what its partner's absence means. If you draw The Moon, you could think about what you don't know yet, and what's only guesswork.
Find a pair of Major Arcana cards that you think belong together, and write down why. It doesn't have to be one from the table.
08Adding up numbers: another way to read the Major Arcana
For numbers above 9, you can add the digits. Card 10, the Wheel of Fortune: 1 + 0 = 1, in the same group as card 1, the Magician. Card 13, Death: 1 + 3 = 4, in the same group as card 4, the Emperor.
Grouping them this way shows some interesting contrasts: Death and the Emperor, one ending and one building, together say "clear away the old order before a new one can stand".
Some books use this method to work out birth cards and year cards. The methods differ a little from book to book; pick one, and treat the card you get as a journalling prompt, not your destiny.
Add up the Major Arcana from 10 to 21 one by one and find each card's "group partner". Pick one group and write down what they have in common.
Unit III
The Minor Arcana: number × element
Comparing the 40 number cards, starting from number and suit
5 lessons
09Four suits, four elements
| Suit | Element | In a phrase | You can ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wands | Fire | Wanting to act, drive, beginnings | What do I want? |
| Cups | Water | Feelings, relationships, caring | How do I feel? |
| Swords | Air | Thoughts, words, judgement, conflict | What do I think? |
| Pentacles | Earth | Money, the body, work, what builds up over time | What's actually there? |
One matter often has all four. Changing jobs: Wands is "I want to go", Cups is "I'll miss my colleagues", Swords is "weighing the pros and cons", Pentacles is "the rent has to be paid". Whatever suit you draw, start the conversation from that angle.
Assign three things that happened today to a suit each. Some things involve several suits at once; there's no need to force them into just one.
10Numbers 1 to 5: from beginning to stuck
- 1 Seed. A beginning, a possibility not yet unfolded.
- 2 Two sides. Choice, balance, partnership, or a standoff.
- 3 Growth. A first result, or one more person.
- 4 Holding steady. Guarding, pausing, building, or so steady it's stifling.
- 5 Imbalance. Conflict, loss, discomfort.
5 is the minor card number that makes people frown most. The four Fives: Wands are fighting, Cups are weeping, Swords win ugly, Pentacles are out in the snow. When practising, first say how the difficulty differs across the four cards. There's no rush to explain the hurt away as something good.
Find the four Threes and see what each one has "grown".
11Numbers 6 to 10: adjusting, testing, full
- 6 Repair. Giving and receiving, transition, catching your breath.
- 7 Testing. Assessing, holding your ground, facing it alone.
- 8 Movement. Focus, speeding up, moving on; the Eight of Swords, though, shows movement restricted, and the restriction may come from the surroundings or have to do with your own judgement.
- 9 Almost there. Nearly complete, often a result reached alone.
- 10 Full. Completion, endings, passing it on, or too full to carry.
10 is interesting. The Ten of Pentacles is the wealth of a family over generations; the Ten of Wands is one person carrying ten staves. Both are "full": one fulfilled, one overloaded.
Line up the four Tens. Which one would you want? Which one are you right now?
12One number, four faces
The quickest way to learn the minor cards: look across by number.
Lay the four Eights side by side: the Eight of Wands flies through the air, the Eight of Cups turns and walks away, the Eight of Swords stands bound among swords, the Eight of Pentacles carves away at a bench. What they share is "movement": one flies fast, one leaves, one can't move, one moves in a steady rhythm.
Look for what's shared within a number and what differs within a suit. Once you've gone both ways, look back at the cards you confuse, and you'll know better what to work on.
Pick a number and lay its four cards side by side. Write one sentence on what they share, then one on how each differs.
13The minor card formula: number + suit = a sentence
If you don't know what a minor card is saying, start with the formula.
Three of Wands = 3 (growth) + fire (action) → the plan starts to get a response.
Seven of Pentacles = 7 (assessing) + earth (practical build-up) → stop and see how what you planted is growing.
Four of Swords = 4 (holding still) + air (thoughts) → let your mind rest, and don't decide yet.
After applying it, look at the picture and see what it shows that the formula doesn't say. The picture always has a little more than the formula.
Draw 5 minor cards and read them with the formula only. Write it down. Then look up the meanings and compare how far apart they are.
Unit IV
Court cards
16 people, and 16 ways of handling things
3 lessons
14Four ranks: Page, Knight, Queen, King
- Page The student. Curious, just starting, bringing news.
- Knight The doer. Charging ahead, getting it done, often going too far.
- Queen Mastery turned inward. Understands, takes care, keeps her own rhythm.
- King Responsibility turned outward. Decides, manages, bears the consequences.
You can think of the four ranks as levels of skill: just starting, doing it, knowing it well and holding it inside, knowing it well and leading others with it.
Think of something you're learning now. Which rank are you at?
1516 cards: rank × suit
The rank is "how it's done"; the suit is "in which area". Put the two together and you have the court card.
| Page | Knight | Queen | King | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wands | Wants to give it a try | Off at a moment's notice | Passionate and decisive | A visionary leader |
| Cups | Sensitive, a dreamer | A romantic invitation | Good at holding emotions | An emotionally steady carer |
| Swords | Asks and observes | Speaks fast and directly | Clear, with boundaries | Reasons and judges |
| Pentacles | Learns a craft seriously | Slow but reliable | Practical, knows how to live | Builds up steadily |
This table is a starting point for memory. You still need to look at each card: the Knight of Cups' horse is walking slowly; the Knight of Wands' horse is rearing.
Looking only at the horses, postures and gestures of the 16 court cards, line them up from "most active" to "most still".
16Is a court card a person, or an attitude?
Three possibilities:
- A particular person. A boss, a partner, a friend.
- One side of yourself. How you're showing up in this matter.
- A way of doing things. This matter needs handling the way this card does.
How do you tell? Look at the position. In "the other person", treat it as a person first; in "advice", as an approach.
Don't force gender or age onto them. A Queen can be a man; a King can be twenty years old.
Find someone you know for each of the 16 court cards, writing only a code name, not a real name. The cards you can't find anyone for may be qualities missing from the people around you.
Unit V
Reading images
Look first, then look it up
4 lessons
17Describe first, don't rush to explain
When you pick up a card, spend three minutes describing it. No book, no guessing the meaning.
What is the figure doing? Standing, sitting, lying down? Which way are they looking? What's the weather? Is the background a castle, the sea, or barren land? What are they holding?
Describe before you explain, and you'll find many meanings are actually drawn on the card. The Five of Swords: one person holding three swords while two others walk away with their backs turned. Then compare with a meaning like "the cost of conflict" and see which details of the picture it comes from.
Draw a card and write only descriptions, no meanings. Fill ten sentences.
18Direction and gaze
The way a figure faces is often the direction they care about.
In a spread, I look at which card each figure is looking towards. If a Queen faces The Tower, we can talk about how she relates to that upheaval; if a Knight has his back to a card, we can notice how the two cards differ. These are clues for interpretation, not evidence of what someone is thinking.
Some people treat the left as the past and the right as the future. You can use that habit, but not every deck is drawn that way, so don't apply it to every card.
Figures seen from behind are worth noticing too. The Eight of Cups and Six of Swords both have figures with their backs to us, but the actions and scenes differ, so a back view alone doesn't make them the same kind of leaving.
Draw three cards in a row and draw arrows showing where each figure is looking. Do any two cards face each other, or turn their backs?
19Things that keep appearing: water, mountains, pillars, walls
- Water Flowing emotions. A still lake and a rushing river are very different.
- Mountains A distant goal, or a difficulty to get over.
- Two pillars The High Priestess, the Hierophant and Justice all sit between two pillars, between two forces.
- Walls and castles Safety, something already built, or something that shuts you in.
- Children What's new and simple, or the parts not yet grown up.
The same thing means different things on different cards, depending on the scene. Treat it as a hint, not a code.
Pick out every card with water in it. Line them up from calmest to roughest.
20Colour and weather
Many Rider-Waite cards have a bright yellow sky: clarity, daytime, a wakeful mind.
Grey skies and rain often appear on painful cards: it's raining on the Three of Swords, and the clouds on the Five of Swords are torn apart. Night appears on the Nine of Swords and The Moon: hard to see, a mind that won't stop.
Clothing colours give clues too: red is often action and passion, white is often simplicity, blue is often calm or thought.
Sort all 78 cards into three piles by the colour of the sky: bright, grey and dark. See what the cards in each pile have in common.
Unit VI
Spreads and positions
The position is the question you're asking
4 lessons
21The same card in different positions
The Tower in "the past": something has already collapsed, and you're clearing up.
The Tower in "advice": check which arrangements have problems, and whether they need rethinking.
The Tower in "the other person's state": you can talk about whether something is shifting in the relationship, but you can't draw conclusions about the other person's private life from it.
Read the position's question first, then the card. Each position is a small question, and the card is its answer.
Draw one card and place it in turn in "past", "obstacle" and "advice", writing one sentence of reading for each.
22Ten ways to ask with three cards
Three cards is the most useful practice format. Change the positions and you have a new spread:
- Past / present / what comes next
- Situation / approach / likely outcome
- Me / the other person / the relationship
- Choose A / choose B / what to watch for
- Where it's stuck / how to loosen it / the first step
- What I want / what I fear / what I actually need
- Today's focus / what to avoid / what I can do
- Body / emotions / mind
- What to start / what to continue / what to stop
- What I see / what I don't see / the next step
Pick one and decide before you draw. Changing the positions after drawing is choosing your answer.
This week, use a different three-card spread each day, and keep the question and the result on the same page.
More: Spread diagrams
23Designing your own spread
- Write down three to five things you really want to know.
- Rewrite each as a question. Each question is one position.
- Decide the order, then the shape. A row, a cross, a circle all work.
- Write each position's name and keep it beside you before you draw.
The shape can help you remember: two options on the left and right, the core in the middle, the future at the top.
Spreads don't need to be big. If five cards make it clear, you don't need ten.
Design a three to five-card spread for something that's been bothering you, then use it for a reading.
24The Celtic Cross, ten cards taken apart
The best-known spread, and the easiest to read as a muddle. It's easier in three parts:
- The central cross (1–2) The present situation, and what sits across it.
- The outer cross (3–6) The root, what has just passed, your goal, and what you'll meet next.
- The staff on the right (7–10) You, your surroundings, hopes and fears, and the likely outcome.
Read 1 and 2 first, then 10. From 1 to 10 is a road, and the cards in between show how it's travelled.
Draw only the two central cards and practise putting "the present" and "the obstacle" into one sentence. Add the outer cross once you're comfortable.
Unit VII
Reading cards together
From one card at a time to a whole passage
4 lessons
25Look at the whole first: proportions, repeats, absences
Once all the cards are face up, don't read them one by one yet. Step back and look at the whole.
- Are there lots of Major Arcana?
- Which suit appears most? Which doesn't appear at all?
- Does the same number come up two or three times?
- Lots of court cards often means many people are involved in this matter, or you care a lot about what others think.
You can also notice which suits didn't appear. But not drawing any Pentacles for a work question doesn't mean you don't care about income; note it, then check against the actual question.
Next time you draw, write three lines of overall observation after turning the cards over, before reading them one by one.
26How cards talk to each other
Neighbouring cards change each other's meanings.
The Two of Cups next to the Three of Swords: there's heartbreak in a relationship. Next to the Ten of Pentacles instead: the relationship is heading towards making a home and stability.
I often look at two cards through three kinds of relationship: continuation (same suit, same direction), contrast (one moving and one still, one light and one dark) and cause and effect (the first leads to the second).
Draw two cards and describe them three times: as continuation, contrast and cause and effect. Which makes the most sense?
27Ways to read reversals
Reversed doesn't mean opposite. Common readings include:
- Not yet: the energy is there, but blocked or delayed.
- Too much or too little: the upright quality overdone, or almost absent.
- Inward: not visible from outside, happening within.
- On its way out: that state is about to end.
Decide before you draw whether to use reversals. Once you've decided, follow the rule for this reading; don't announce "I don't use reversals" only after drawing an ugly one.
Turn The Emperor upside down and write one sentence for each of the four readings above.
More: How to read reversals
28Putting it into words
The last step of a reading is putting the cards into words someone else can follow.
My order: go back to the question; cover the whole spread in three sentences; and always end on "what can be done".
If you can't think of what to do, note what's uncertain. Maybe the question is too big, maybe information is missing. There's no need to draw again straight away just to produce an answer.
Take an old reading record and rewrite the reading in three sentences. Finally, try writing one thing worth considering; it's fine to leave what's uncertain as uncertain.
Unit VIII
Practice and boundaries
A little every day, and before reading for others
4 lessons
29How to keep a tarot journal
Four columns are enough: date, question, cards drawn, your reading at the time.
A week later, come back and fill in a fifth: what actually happened, what fit and what didn't.
The misses are the most useful. You'll find you often read a certain card off course, or always ask a certain kind of question too vaguely.
Start a notebook, or a dedicated note on your phone, and make the first entry today.
More: Tarot journal
30One card a day
Draw a card in the morning, write the first detail you notice, then look up the meaning.
In the evening, think back: did anything today remind you of it? If not, write "nothing". Don't force it.
After a month you'll have 30 entries, and can compare which images you keep noticing. Cards may repeat; there's no need to chase a new card every day.
Do a daily card for seven days in a row, and on the seventh day lay all seven out together.
More: Daily card tool
31Before reading for others
- First ask what they want to talk about, and what they don't.
- Give your reasons, and leave them free to disagree.
- Don't frighten people, and don't sell through fear.
- What people tell you stays with you.
- For medical, legal, financial and mental health questions, ask them to see a professional.
After a reading you can ask: "Which part helped? Which part doesn't sound like your situation?" That's far more useful than asking "was it accurate?"
Do a three-card reading for a friend, ask those two questions at the end, and note their answers.
32When not to draw yet
- You've just drawn for the same question.
- Your emotions are running so high that any card will read as bad news.
- The question is about someone else's private life, and they don't know.
- You've already decided the answer and just want a justification.
At times like these, go for a walk, sleep on it, or go and talk to the person directly. The cards will still be there tomorrow.
Next time you want to draw, first ask yourself: "What will I do after drawing for this?" If you can't answer, don't draw yet.