The Fastest and Easiest Way To Learn How To Read Tarot Cards (PDFDrive)

The Fastest and Easiest Way to Learn How to Read Tarot Cards by Amanda Goldston
The Fastest and Easiest Way to

Learn How to Read Tarot Cards
By Amanda Goldston
Tarot Author and Coach
http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com
© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

Copyright notice
First published in the UK in 2012 by Amanda Goldston, 29 Victoria

Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 7HU
© Amanda Goldston 2012

Text copyright © Amanda Goldston 2012
Compilation copyright © Amanda Goldston 2012
Illustrations from the Universal Waite Tarot Deck® reproduced by

permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902 USA.
Copyright ©1990 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. Further reproduction
prohibited. The Universal Waite Tarot Deck® is a registered trademark
of U.S. Games Systems, Inc.
Cover design, and all other images © Gregory Goldston 2012
ISBN: 978-1-908253-13-2
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this workbook may be re-produced or

utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without the prior written permission of the author or the
publisher.
Amanda Goldston asserts the moral right to be identified as the author

of this work.

Disclaimer
The information in The Fastest and Easiest Way to Learn to Read Tarot
Cards book is for information and entertainment purposes only.
The persons who have produced and contributed to this workbook do

not have any medical, scientific, psychological, health (including without
limitation mental health), hypnosis, coaching, mediation, therapy, neuro
linguistic programming, business, financial qualification or background in
any of these areas or similar areas.
Amanda Goldston, her directors, employees and agents make no

warranty or representation that they have any specific skills or expertise.
No warranty or representation is made that the use of any products will
achieve a specific effect, result or purpose.
Amanda Goldston, her officers, employees and agents have no

responsibility for any decision or action which you decide to take based
on the use of The Fastest and Easiest Way to Learn to Read Tarot
Cards book (including losses, damages, costs and expenses which you
or others may incur) based on any information available in this
workbook.
You must use you own skill and judgement in deciding whether The
Fastest and Easiest Way to Learn to Read Tarot Cards book is suitable
for you. Amanda Goldston, her officers, employees and agents make no
recommendations, warranties or representations about the suitability of
the book for any person.
We recommend that if there are any health (mental, physical or

otherwise), medical, business, financial or any other issues which are or
may be affecting your life or upon which you need advice, you should
obtain advice from an appropriate qualified professional person.

Contact information
Amanda Goldston
Tel: +44 (0) 1827 52995
Email: tarot@learntarotoline.com
Website: http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com
Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/LearnTarotOnline
Twitter - @Amanda_Goldston
LinkedIn – http://www.linkedIn.com/AmandaGoldston

Table of Contents
The Fastest Way to Learn to Read Tarot Cards ...................................... 8

About the Author ................................................................................... 8
Introduction .............................................................................................. 9
Tarot Uses in Your Life and Business ................................................ 10
Personal Growth ................................................................................. 10
Personality Archetypes ....................................................................... 11
Future Outcomes and Empowered Decision Making ......................... 11
What this book is and isn’t .................................................................. 12
IF Nothing Changes ............................................................................ 14
How to use this book ........................................................................... 14
References to Audios.......................................................................... 15
Chapter One - Why Do You Want to Learn How to Read Tarot Cards? 16
Chapter Two - Negative Beliefs about Tarot ....................................... 20
Beliefs Quiz about Tarot ..................................................................... 20
Tarot Beliefs ........................................................................................ 22
Relaxation and Visualisation ............................................................... 27
Clear Limiting Beliefs Audio Relaxation .............................................. 27
New Beliefs that might be useful for Learning to Read Tarot Cards? 28
Chapter Three - Other Factors – Moods and Emotions ..................... 31
Chapter Four - The Power of Doom and Gloom Predictions .............. 34
The Life Destroying Effect of Negative Predictions ............................ 34
Chapter Five - Set an Intention ............................................................ 36
Expectation of Success....................................................................... 37
Beware of the Dream Stealers ............................................................ 37
Relaxation and Visualisation for Success........................................... 37
Prepare Yourself for Success Audio Relaxation ................................ 38
Chapter Six - What is your Tarot Learning Style? ............................... 39
Visual People ...................................................................................... 39
Auditory People ................................................................................... 39
Kinaesthetic People ............................................................................ 40
Which Style are You? ......................................................................... 41
How long does it take to learn to read tarot cards? ............................ 41
Chapter Seven - Choosing a deck of tarot cards, preparing yourself
and your cards for a reading .................................................................. 43
How to Choose the Best Deck for You ............................................... 43
The Rider Waite Smith deck of Tarot Cards ....................................... 44
Prepare Your Tarot Cards Before a Reading ..................................... 44
Prepare Yourself Before a Reading .................................................... 45
Relaxation and Breathing ................................................................... 46
Chapter Eight - Protect Your Energies ................................................ 47
Negative Energy during a reading ...................................................... 49

Clearing away negativity from client after a reading ........................... 49

Audio Relaxation for Clearing Negativity after a Reading .................. 50
Chapter Nine – Asking Questions .......................................................... 51
How to ask questions to get the best results out of your Tarot Cards 51
Yes-No Questions ............................................................................... 51
Yes-No questions on things that have already happened .................. 52
Yes-No questions on things that have not yet happened ................... 52
Yes-No questions on other people and their behaviour ..................... 53
Readings about other people and what will happen to or for them .... 54
Formulating a question so that it is ONE clear question .................... 55
Why questions - and the reason they are not helpful ......................... 56
Power Questions ................................................................................. 56
Six Honest Serving Men ..................................................................... 57
What is your question – and – what do you REALLY want to know? 57
Your mood and emotions when asking questions .............................. 58
When you don’t like the answers ........................................................ 58
Interpretation as You want to hear it and Objectivity .......................... 59
Asking the same questions repeatedly or trying to trick the cards by
asking the same questions in different ways ...................................... 60
Loaded questions ................................................................................ 60
Cards that sulk .................................................................................... 61
How many cards does it take to get an answer? ................................ 61
Meaningless answers and getting clarification ................................... 62
Timing in Tarot Cards ......................................................................... 63
Why do readings change in a matter of minutes? .............................. 66
Chapter Ten - The Fastest Way to Read Tarot Cards System ........... 68
Difference of Opinion .......................................................................... 70
Rinse and Repeat ............................................................................... 71
Reading Tarot Cards with the Art of Storytelling ................................ 71
The meaning of Colour in Tarot Cards ............................................... 73
Reversed Cards .................................................................................. 74
The four elements in the suits and cup cards ..................................... 75
Minor Arcana and Suits....................................................................... 76
Suits .................................................................................................... 76
Suit of Cups ............................................................................................ 77
Suit of Wands ......................................................................................... 79
Suit of Swords ........................................................................................ 80
Suit of Pentacles .................................................................................... 81
The Multiple layers of Court Cards ........................................................ 82
Court cards as answer cards and outcome cards .............................. 83
Using a Significator or Not .................................................................. 84
Chapter Eleven Shuffling Your Cards ................................................ 87
What happens if a card falls out while shuffling or you drop them? ... 88

Mixing cards on a table ....................................................................... 88

Reversed Cards and shuffling ............................................................ 88
Chapter Twelve - Tarot Card Spreads ................................................. 90
Storytelling vs Cards in a Position in a Spread .................................. 90
3 card spread – past, present, future .................................................. 91
Reading One ....................................................................................... 92
Reading Two ....................................................................................... 93
Reading Three .................................................................................... 94
Celtic Cross Spread ............................................................................ 95
Reading One ....................................................................................... 99
Reading Two ....................................................................................... 99
Reading Three .................................................................................. 100
Chapter Thirteen - Develop Your Intuition Through Tarot ................. 102
What is Intuition? .............................................................................. 102
The Power of Pictures....................................................................... 103
Sights, sounds and Feelings ............................................................. 103
Exercises for Developing Intuition .................................................... 104
Listening to your Intuition .................................................................. 105
Exercise One – How to recognise when your Intuition is trying to warn
you..................................................................................................... 106
Recognising Warnings ...................................................................... 107
Clearing Negativity ............................................................................ 108
Exercise Two - How to recognise when your Intuition is trying to help
you..................................................................................................... 109
GO For IT! ......................................................................................... 109
Using Tarot Cards to Develop Your Intuition .................................... 111
Instant Reaction Exercise ................................................................. 111
Instant Answers ................................................................................ 112
Chapter Fourteen - Be Your Own Life Coach using Tarot Cards ...... 114
Process and Questions ..................................................................... 116
Other Resources .................................................................................. 119

The Fastest Way to Learn to Read Tarot Cards
About the Author
I am Amanda Goldston. I am a Tarot Author and Coach, with over 16

years experience of reading tarot cards. Through my online and offline
courses, books and programmes, I show people how to read tarot cards
in order to develop Intuition and Creativity, understand themselves and
others and develop empowered decision-making skills.
I am the author of "Develop Your Intuition Through Tarot,” “Tarot

Reversals in the Rider Waite Smith Deck of Tarot Cards” and I have
created an "Easy Learn Tarot” Audio Course.
You can see all my products and services, as well as enjoy a free online
card of the day Tarot Card Reading on my website:
http://www.learntarotonline.com
I am UK based with clients globally.

Introduction
Tarot Cards can be a very useful and powerful weapon to have in your
Personal Growth toolbox. Used correctly, they can give you direct
access to your subconscious mind and to the wise, all-knowing
resources of your Higher Self.
Tarot Cards consist of 78 pictures which encompass symbols, many of

which are very ancient. You can use the cards to develop Intuition and
Creativity, better understand yourself and others and develop
empowered decision-making skills.
Pictures are the oldest form of learning and speak to each person
individually. This is part of what makes them so powerful. You can use
them to connect directly with your own Higher Self to give YOU the
answers you need in this moment.
When you can learn to read tarot cards for yourself, then the information
that is coming to you is not coloured by the opinions and judgements of
another person.
Whilst there are a plethora of books on the subject and many give
definitions of the meanings of the cards, I would suggest you treat them
as a guide or as a source of additional information.
As you start to work with Tarot cards you will find that you will often be
given insights, thoughts, feelings, words, pictures and ideas that do not
seem to relate to the card in any way. That is great because it means
that you are tapping into your own Inner Wisdom and that message is
right for you.
My suggestion would be to put aside the booklet that comes with your
cards and work directly with your own cards.
I personally use the Rider Waite Smith Deck of Tarot cards (and have
done since 1993, when I started to read tarot cards) because, in my
opinion, it is one of the easiest decks to work with and the images are
not scary.
You can use any deck you choose, as long as you are comfortable with
it.

Tarot Uses in Your Life and Business
There are three main areas in life and business where Using Tarot
Cards can be very beneficial. These are:
1) Personal Growth, including developing Intuition and Creativity
2) Using the Personality Archetypes to better understand yourself and
others and
3) Future Outcomes and Empowered Decision Making.
Personal Growth
Through this you can see the true thoughts, feeling, emotions, fears,
worries, hopes, wishes and actions or non-actions that someone is
taking towards their problems or their goals.
Tarot can be very revealing when someone is struggling with a goal or a

project, as to what may be stopping that from being successful or
happening as fast as they would like. It will reveal whether it is
something that is outside of the person and so out of their control, or
whether it is something within them or something they are doing or not
doing.
Whilst other people can be very difficult to change, you can change
yourself.
There may be beliefs about yourself or the world lurking under the
surface, which are unhelpful. Tarot cards are very good at revealing
those.
When used for Personal Growth, Tarot cards can be a useful bridge in
personal coaching. The more precise you can be with any questions you
are asking, the more insightful the cards can be in helping you to move
forward in your life.

Personality Archetypes
There are several very different personalities to be found in the Major

Arcana and in the Court Cards of the four suits.
Working with or for an Emperor type person will be very different from
the experience with an Empress a High Priestess or a Hermit. You really
would not want to experience working for a Devil personality!
From the four suits of Cups, Wands, Pentacles and Swords, we have
four very different types of people. These range from the very emotional
and sensitive Creatives (Cups) to the action-oriented, Go-Getters
(Wands) to the logical Communicators (Swords) and the practical
Organisers (Pentacles), with infinite combinations in between.
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of these archetypes can

give you great insight into the basic character traits of the people in your
work and personal life. It can also be hugely valuable to observe how
they are acting and behaving in the moment and how they are likely to
react in different situations and with different people.
Future Outcomes and Empowered Decision Making
A tarot card reading will give you the general outcome of the ways
matters are progressing, IF you don’t make any changes to the way you
are thinking, feeling or acting – and the cards assume you don’t make
any changes.
However there is very little in life that could be classed as “fixed.” We all
have free will in our choices, decisions and actions. Sometimes things
may hit you unexpectedly however you can always decide how you
react to those.
If the outcome is looking rather challenging, you have the opportunity to

make changes, so that you can steer your life in a more positive
direction.
Tarot cards can also be very useful when you are looking at alternate
outcomes and making a difficult choice. If you have a couple of options,
you can look at which is likely to lead to the most positive outcome,
based on your current starting point.

You can then make the most informed choices and decisions, as the
cards can make you aware of potential positives and challenges in each
path. Tarot cards cannot make any decisions for you.
By using the cards in these different ways, or combined together, a deck

of Tarot cards becomes your friend and you have in your hands a very
powerful tool for tapping into your powerful inner resources of self-
understanding, intuition, creativity and problem solving.
Learning to read tarot cards for yourself can be a very valuable skill in
both life and business.
What this book is and isn’t
I have written this ebook to try to help you to quickly and easily learn to
read Tarot cards, whichever deck you might choose to work with. I
would like to dispel some of the myths and challenges that many people
come across when they pick up a deck of tarot cards and try to get
some meaningful answers from them to pressing life questions.
I have tried to tap into the different learning modalities that we all have
and to present the material in as many different formats as possible to
help you to learn to read tarot cards in the way that best suits you.
This book does not have any meanings or definitions of cards in specific
decks of cards because the principles presented here work for any deck
of cards. This is a practical, useable framework for day-to-day readings.
I have seen many Tarot readers and teachers who seem to be on a

power or ego trip, where they like to give the impression that they are
the only ones that can access the information and what they say is right
and cannot be changed, questioned or contradicted.
Many of these readers claim the secrets lie in the cards and they have
to create as much confusion as possible in someone’s mind, so that
person will naturally have to come back to them and them alone for
answers.
That is total nonsense. There are no secrets in the cards. They are a
visual way for you to access your own Higher Wisdom, Intuition and
your own guidance and answers.

When I started reading tarot cards in 1993 I soon discovered that most
people who came for a reading were not interested in the structure or
symbolism of the cards and were not really looking for a deep,
metaphysical, spiritual experience. Most people had a life challenge that
they wanted some guidance with or they wanted to better understand
themselves or another person.
In a lot of ways, most people wanted more of a coaching experience,

although that terminology was not used. People wanted to move
themselves forward in their lives.
As I started teaching people to read tarot cards, my students seemed to

want the practical skills to help themselves and their own clients.
Tarot can be a fantastic way for engaging in a deep, spiritual,

metaphysical journey of exploration and there are plenty of books
available that offer that approach.
This book does not do that. You will not find any discussions on the
subjects of consciousness, spiritual development, the Kabbalah, the
Tree of Life or complex meditation techniques.
Whilst many decks of cards contain symbolism that has become

associated with different religions or belief systems, Tarot is not
attached to any religion or belief system. Many of the symbols you see
in Tarot cards are actually very ancient and some of them pre-date any
form of organised religion.
We are not making a study of Tarot cards for their own sake. As you
build a relationship with your own tarot cards, you may want to study
them in more detail as many decks of tarot cards are stunningly
beautiful works of art in their own right but you don’t need to go into that
level of depth to get practical answers from your tarot cards.
It is not difficult to learn to read tarot cards and anyone can do it. You do
not need any special skills, experience or gifts. You simply need a
willingness to learn, an open mind and a bit of time to work with your
cards. The more you work with your cards, the more you build a
personal relationship with them and the better the answers will be to the
questions that you ask.
This book is designed as a practical guide in order to get practical

answers. Be your own life coach. Use the cards to make your own

decisions. Empower yourself rather than relying on someone else’s

predictions.
IF Nothing Changes
Tarot cards can show you a current situation and the energy around it,
including your own thoughts, feelings, emotions, fears and energy
around it. It is important to remember that nothing is fixed in life and
whilst things may happen which seem to be out of your control, you
always have a choice in how you react to them.
When someone asks a tarot reader, “what is going to happen?” the

answer will often depend on your own beliefs and expectations about
the situation.
The situation will frequently continue in much the same way as it is now
IF nothing changes. That does not mean that it is a fixed outcome and
that nothing can be done about it. What it means is that the situation is
in your own hands and that the final outcome has not been decided.
Once you make a different decision or change how you think or feel
about a situation or take a different course of action, the whole thing can
and probably will change.
You can use this approach for empowered decision making as you can
look at different options that you are considering and see what the likely
outcome might be, if you follow a particular path, but it is never fixed.
How to use this book
I would suggest that you start at the beginning and work your way
through to the end. It is designed as a workbook, so you can make your
own notes as you go along, so it can build into a personal reference
guide for you.
There may be some sections that are not relevant to you and it is quite
OK to go through those quite quickly and to move onto sections that you
feel are more relevant to you.
Each topic is complete in itself, however they are designed so they all
link together and flow into each other.

References to Audios
Throughout the text you will find references ad links to audio products
and other downloads. These are other products that I have created and
which may help you with your tarot learning journey.
They are included for FREE as part of this package.
As you come to the reference in the text to an audio, then please refer to
that specific audio in your downloaded files area.
This book is complete in itself and you don’t need any of the other
products in order to benefit from the valuable information.
Have fun and enjoy your Tarot Journey.

Chapter One - Why Do You Want to Learn How to Read Tarot

Cards?
Before you start to learn to read tarot cards, one of the most important
questions you can ask yourself is, “Why do I want to learn to read
tarot cards?”
The answer to this question is very important because it will determine

your choice of tarot card deck and how your readings, both for yourself
and for other people.
The reasons for wanting to learn to read tarot cards are as numerous as
the people who pick up the cards. Perhaps you want to gain a deeper
understanding of yourself so that you can use this information for your
own personal growth and development.
Maybe you want to understand other people and their motivations and
actions, or use the cards in a coaching scenario to rapidly get to the
bottom of limiting beliefs and blocks to success.
Perhaps you would like to develop your psychic abilities, so you can
make better decisions in life and business with the gift of foresight,
rather than looking back with hindsight!
It may be that you have had readings from other people, which have
been very helpful to you and you would like to develop your own intuition
and creativity to solve problems and challenges in your life.
Tarot cards can also be a great tool to explore your spirituality in more
detail, going from some basic meditation to some much deeper
fundamental life questions.
Or maybe you are fascinated by the historical symbolism of the tarot

cards or the more magical and esoteric realms of the Occult.
It may be that you have a passion for a particular time in history, or a

certain culture or ideology or mythology or maybe that you are
fascinated by a person and their work and those factors can also affect
your choice of tarot card deck.
Your choice of deck also depends on your experience as a tarot card

reader and how far you have developed your psychic abilities because

some decks are easier to work with as a beginner and some are more
suited to more intuitive readings.
Once you know the reason why you would like to learn to read tarot
cards, then it is much easier to pick a tarot deck that you can easily work
with. You can then avoid a lot of expense and frustration of choosing
something that you can’t work with.
List the Reasons why you want to learn to Read Tarot Cards
What stops you or has stopped you in the past from Learning to
Read Tarot Cards?
All reasons are valid. It is important to look at what has stopped you
from Learning to Read Tarot Cards in the past. This may have been a
lack of time or feelings of overwhelm or confusion or you did not really
like or get on with the tarot card deck you have been working with or you
tried to learn in a way that did not really suit you, for example, you tried
to learn from a book, whereas you might have better listening to a
course on an audio.
It might also be due to deep rooted beliefs about the tarot and what it is
or isn’t or feelings that you don’t have the psychic abilities you might
need in order to be able to read tarot cards for yourself or others.
Whether any of those things are true or not, is actually irrelevant. The
fact that you believe them and any of them have stopped you from
previously learning tarot, makes them important.

List out all the reasons that have stopped you Learning to Read
Tarot Cards or caused you not to finish a course of study?
_______________________________________________________
Have you got a specific burning issue or are you looking for a general
reading or just curious?
Are you looking to confirm your intuitive feelings about a matter?
Are you trying to contact a loved one in spirit? If so, you will probably
need to speak to a medium and undertake some spiritual and psychic
training.
Are you looking to guide yourself, and just need a little help to clarify
your thinking?
Are you looking for something to offer you choices and an alternate
future based on YOU making different decisions?
Are you looking for something to give you some hope and optimism so
you can move forward?
What do you want to be able to do when you have done the reading?
Do you want to feel empowered to take some action?

Feel as though blocks to success have lifted and you can move
forward?
Make an important decision?
Once you know your own motivations for seeking learning to read tarot
cards you can set that as a simple intention.
“I want to learn to read tarot cards because….

I am looking for someone who can help me to…
Please guide me to right person for me, for the highest good of all
concerned”

Trust your intuition to guide you to right person. The clearer you are on
what type of reading you want and the type of person you want to deal
with, the easier it is to attract the best person to help you.
You may find yourself on a particular website or get an urge to call

someone you have heard of or often a recommendation will come up in
a conversation about something else.
Watch for those intuitive prompts and act on them.

Chapter Two - Negative Beliefs about Tarot
As you think about your reasons for wanting to learn to read tarot cards,
notice if there are any negative beliefs about Tarot Cards and Tarot
Readers coming up for you.
These may be to do with your religion or culture or other people’s

negative experiences.
In order to be able to get value from using Tarot cards it is important that
your feelings towards the cards are positive or at least neutral.
If you believe they hold some magical power over you or that they are
evil in some or that they destroy people’s lives, then you will not get any
benefit from learning to read them.
It is important that you acknowledge your beliefs and then question them
to see whether they are actually valid for you or whether they are in fact
someone else’s beliefs.
Beliefs Quiz about Tarot
What beliefs do you have about Tarot that might need to be released or
changed before you start to learn to read tarot cards for yourself or
others?
Once we have identified the beliefs that are holding you back in your
Tarot Journey, then it is quite easy to clear them and to replace them
with other beliefs that might be more empowering and supportive.
This is a really important step. Please make sure that you DO this
exercise. It will make your whole journey of Learning to Read Tarot
Cards much easier.
There are no right or wrong answers. This is merely to show you where
old beliefs may be blocking you from learning this fantastic skill that is
Reading Tarot Cards.
It is also important to think about the things you heard, saw or

experienced around Tarot when you were growing up, especially if they
are negative. This might have been from parents, relatives, siblings,
teachers, your church, your school or your culture in general.

These might be impressions of tarot readers that you saw in the

fairground, with long flowing robes, a headscarf, big ear-rings, jewellery
and a crystal ball in front of them. This may also be stories you heard of
bad experiences that people had with tarot card readers, where they
accurately predicted doom and gloom or death or destruction and it
happened.
Below are some of the common beliefs that I have heard from people as
I have been teaching them to read tarot cards.
Please put a tick or checkmark beside each one that may apply to you.
There is also space at the end for you to write down any others that
might be personal to you, that we have not mentioned.
This is personal for you. It is your workbook and it is not going to be

seen by anyone else.

Tarot Beliefs
1) Tarot is evil
2) Tarot is some form of witchcraft
3) Tarot is against my religion
4) The bible says I should not consult fortune tellers
5) Tarot is the work of the devil
6) It is black magic
7) Tarot has horrible scary pictures such as death, the devil and the
hanged man
8) It is a dark art and I will go to hell if I go anywhere near tarot cards
9) It is the stuff of gypsies and fairgrounds
10) Tarot is dangerous
11) Tarot cards can destroy people’s lives
12) Tarot cards predict death and other terrible disasters
13) Once you have a tarot prediction it is set in stone and there is
nothing you can do about it
14) The future is fixed and it is all pre-destined and I would rather not
know
15) I know someone who had bad experiences with tarot card
readings
16) Tarot cards frighten me
17) Angel cards are Ok, tarot cards are not
18) You have to be psychic or have special gifts and powers
19) It is a gift or a curse you are born with
20) It takes year of practice and effort to learn tarot cards
21) You have to meditate on the cards in order to learn them

22) You have to be deeply spiritual and you to know all about the
kabbalah and tree of life and other deep spiritual practices and I
don’t understand that stuff
23) You have to be given a deck of cards, you can’t buy it yourself
24) I don’t understand the images
25) I don’t like the images on my cards
26) I don’t know what the cards mean
27) I don’t get any feelings when I look at my cards
28) There is so much to learn
29) I don’t get on with my cards or the book
30) The book with the cards makes no sense
31) I am busy and don’t have much time to learn
32) I don’t have any intuition
33) I don’t agree with the book
34) The books all say different things- which one is right?
35) The books are boring
36) Business and tarot don’t mix
37) It is hard and complicated

What negative beliefs around tarot do you have?
List them below.
What experiences have you had around tarot?
Things you have seen?
Things you have heard?
Any negative experiences you have had?
Any negative experiences you have heard about affecting people you
know or care about?

When you have written all of this stuff down, you may well be feeling a
bit negative about Tarot and your abilities to learn to read tarot cards.
The good news is that beliefs are quite easy to clear and change. You
may find that many of the beliefs have already gone because I am sure
there were things on the list that, when you looked at them, you thought
“that is silly, that does not serve me, I am not going to believe that any
more” and in saying or thinking those words, or something similar, the
old beliefs will have simply disappeared.
For beliefs that are a bit more stubborn, there are a couple of very
effective exercises that you can do.
Take the beliefs you wrote down above and write some positive ones
next to them. They don’t have to be things that you believe, simply
things that are more empowering, for example – “It takes a long time to
learn to read tarot cards” could become “Tarot cards are easy to learn”
or “I don’t have time to learn” could become “there are so many ways I
can learn to read tarot cards, I can find one that works for me.”

Write down some more empowering beliefs around Tarot cards.
Old belief ________________________________________________
New, more empowering belief _______________________________
Old belief ________________________________________________
New, more empowering belief _______________________________
Old belief ______________________________________________
New, more empowering belief _____________________________

You have a choice what you believe. One of the most empowering
things you can do is to take the couple of sheets with the old beliefs and
put them on one side of your table and then take the other sheet with
the new beliefs and put it on the other side of the table.
Make a decision which of those beliefs are true for you and BURN the
other one.
Clearing and changing beliefs about anything can be as simple as

making a decision that you are going to believe something different. As
soon as you start to focus on the new belief and start acting accordingly,
it will become a reality for you.
Some simple processes for clearing away unhelpful beliefs are as

follows:
 Set an Intention to clear away old, unhelpful, non-serving
beliefs and be filled with the empowering beliefs that you
need
 Write out the old beliefs and write out the new beliefs, then
choose which one is right for you and burn the other piece of
paper
 Start “Acting as if” the new beliefs are your normal beliefs.
Your new actions will reinforce your new beliefs
Relaxation and Visualisation
This is a very powerful way of letting old beliefs simply dissolve away
whilst you rest and be replaced with more empowering ones.
You can do this by simply sitting with your eyes closed, breathing deeply
and imagining negativity leaving your body with each OUT breath and
light filling your body with each IN breath.
Clear Limiting Beliefs Audio Relaxation
I have created a relaxation audio that might help you with this.
It is a lovely relaxation and is designed to help you to clear away long-

standing, deeper Limiting Beliefs.

It is called “Clear Limiting Beliefs” and is a really gorgeous deep

relaxation. Most people fall asleep within the first few minutes and that is
brilliant because it allows your subconscious to work on the beliefs it
needs to work on.
It is 30 minutes of deep relaxation, so do not listen to it whilst driving,

operating machinery or doing anything that requires your full attention.
Please listen to the Clear Limiting Beliefs Audio Relaxation that came as
part of this package.
New Beliefs that might be useful for Learning to Read Tarot Cards?
When learning to read tarot cards there are some general beliefs that
might be useful and helpful for you. There are also some beliefs that
may be specific to you.
Some of the helpful beliefs might be:
1) Tarot is a deck of 78 pictures cards. It has no power of its own

2) Tarot is a tool for me to use for my own benefit
3) Tarot is not connected to any religion
4) Pictures are the oldest form of learning
5) Tarot is a great way for me to connect directly with my Intuition,
Higher Self and my own Inner Wisdom and Guidance
6) It is easy to learn to read tarot cards when I find the right way of
learning for me
7) It is easy to develop my Intuition to get the right answers for me
8) Tarot cannot tell me what to do. It can help me to make
empowered choices
9) I am in charge of my own life and choose the direction
10) My life is not fixed by the stars or destiny or fate

11) Learning to Read Tarot Cards is as easy as anything else I want to

learn how to do
12) I am the Master of my Tarot Cards

Write down some beliefs that it would be useful for you to have about
Tarot in general and Learning to Read Tarot Cards
1) _____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
2) _____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
3) _____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
4) _____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
5) _____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
6) _____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Chapter Three - Other Factors – Moods and Emotions
One of the biggest factors that can affect your readings is your own
mood and emotions at the time that you are asking your questions and
doing your readings.
This is also a huge factor to bear in mind when you are doing readings
for other people.
If you, or the person you are reading for, are very negative at the time of
doing the reading, this will greatly colour your reading.
Tarot Cards can show your current situation, what has happened and
who is involved. It can accurately reflect back to you your current
moods, emotions, thoughts and feelings about a situation. If you are
feeling very negative and dis-empowered, then this is likely to show in
your reading.
Tarot cards can show you the likely outcome of your situation, going
forward. This is based on NOTHING changing. This means that if you
are feeling very negative about your situation and you carry on thinking,
feeling and acting in the same way, then the outcome is likely to be even
worse than it is now.
This will be the same for your other people that you are reading for. The
more negative they are about their situation, the more likely the tarot
cards will show a challenging outcome going forward.
If you can approach a tarot reading or your tarot learning from a neutral
perspective or even start to feel that you are ready to take empowered
action over your situation, then your reading is likely to be more
empowered and constructive.

Nine of Wands – Positive or Negative?
To illustrate this, I had a card come up for a card of the day reading,
which was the NINE of WANDS.
I did this card reading earlier on in the day, when I had just got up and
just noticed my HUGE To-Do list that I am constantly adding to. I was
feeling a bit grumpy and a bit overwhelmed, so my first thought was
“Battling not yet done – What else is coming that I am going to have to
fight?”
This was a big “STOP AND THINK” moment! What have I just said
about my day? What expectations am I giving the Universe for my day?
I realised that this card can be interpreted in several different ways,

depending on your frame of mind. It might be a reaction like mine, which
was a negative “Glass is half empty” reaction of “What other problems
are coming my way?” or it can be a more “Glass is half full” approach,
which would be more a case of “Great, problems are coming to an end.
The worst is over. I am 8 / 9 th of the way through it. The rest can only
be easy.”
The interpretation of Tarot cards are greatly affected by the emotions

and moods of both the Reader and the person asking the questions.
With the NINE of WANDS card I can have a grumpy perspective and go
through my day expecting problems to come (which greatly increases
the likelihood that things will go wrong and it becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy) or I can go through my day being grateful that problems have
virtually finished, which means that good things have got to be coming.
Either way I will be right.
If you do a reading and do not really like what you see and then you
change something, particularly in your attitude, your thinking, emotions
or a decision and then do the reading again, with the same question, it is
likely it will have changed.

This is because you are feeling more empowered, so you are open and
receptive to more creative and empowered solutions, so the cards can
offer you more empowered answers and options.
When something has happened, it can be an almost instinctive reaction

to reach for your deck of tarot cards to see what has happened and
what is going to happen next.
This is not always the best thing to do. Sometimes it can be wise to wait
a while before you do or ask for a reading because that gives some time
for the initial reaction to pass and for you to calm down and think more
rationally.

Chapter Four - The Power of Doom and Gloom Predictions
Doom and Gloom, Death, Accidents and Destruction Predictions can

have a very powerful effect on a person’s subconscious mind and can
set up a power of attraction that draws that event into a person’s life.
Many people give Tarot Readers the same sort of elevated power as
they would give their doctor. If their doctor tells them they have six
months to live, they believe it, take it on board and almost to the day and
sometimes to the minute, they obediently drop dead.
People often take the comments of tarot readers in the same way. A
tarot reader said they were going to have an accident or get hit by a red
bus or contract some mysterious disease and they do.
This is not because that accident or event was pre-planned, part of their
fate or destiny and was going to happen anyway. It is because a
powerful seed was planted in that person’s mind from a tarot reader,
that they believed and trusted and gave their power to.
Although it might have been forgotten consciously, the subconscious

mind heard the request, accompanied by some very strong emotions,
and set to work to find ways to deliver it – right on cue.
The Life Destroying Effect of Negative Predictions
I had an experience of the power of negative predictions not long after I

started reading and the impact of it has stayed with me for nearly 20
years.
I was doing readings at an antiques/ craft fair. Late in the afternoon, a

gentleman in his 60s sat down for a reading. He looked very distressed
and upset. He did not really want a reading- he just wanted someone to
talk to.
He told me that he had just come from visiting his wife in a nursing
home. I felt cold shivers run up my spine because I had a pretty good
idea of what he was about to tell me.
A few years previous he and his wife had been a very active couple, in
their early 60s. They were very close and used to do a lot of dancing.
Then one day, his wife a reading from a very irresponsible tarot reader

who told this lady that within 2 years, she would be paralyzed from the
waist down and would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.
Guess what happened!
Virtually to the day, the lady had a stroke and was told she would never
walk again. She was told she would spend the rest of her days in a
wheelchair and would need to go into a nursing home, where she could
receive 24 hour care.
Was that pre-destined?
I don’t think so. The lady took on board what the tarot reader had said
and her subconscious mind did the rest.
I get so angry when I hear stories like that because that tarot reader
contributed to ruining that lady’s life. That reader had no right to do that.
Unfortunately, this kind of behaviour is still very common because it

gives tarot readers some sort of power trip and they seem to get some
sort of kick out of ruining people’s lives.
As you can probably tell, this gets me really angry because it is so

unnecessary.
When you learn to read tarot cards for yourself, you can stop this kind of
nonsense. You can receive your own information for yourself. If you do
read for other people, you can use your readings for empowerment,
rather than destruction.
As a tarot reader, your words are very powerful!

Chapter Five - Set an Intention
It is quite easy to learn to read tarot cards for yourself and others and to
use it in your life.
It starts with setting an Intention of what you are going to do and how
easy it is going to be for you to do.
Write it in the Present tense and make it Personal to You. It can be

useful to incorporate some of the positive beliefs about Tarot in general,
yourself and your ability to Learn to Read Tarot Cards that you wrote in
the last chapter.
An example of this might be:
I intend to Learn to Read Tarot Cards, quickly and easily, whilst having
as much fun as possible. I absorb everything I need to know from my
cards each time I work with them, my intuition is getting stronger and
stronger and I use this valuable tool in my daily life.
Use the space below to write your own Intention for Learning to
Read Tarot Cards.
Then take a moment to visualise yourself looking at the cards and

feeling a sense of wellbeing and connection with yourself. See and feel
yourself with a feeling of satisfaction that you are easily absorbing
everything you are learning.

Expectation of Success
Expect that you will be able to succeed easily and effortlessly and you
will find your tarot learning journey much easier. It might be a good idea
not to share your tarot journey with anyone else, until you feel confident
with your learning. This is a topic where other people often have a
secret fascination but they also have a load of negative beliefs and
perceptions. If you mention that you are learning to read tarot cards, you
may find that you are on the receiving end of their negative feedback
and opinions.
Beware of the Dream Stealers
One of the biggest factors that destroys success is someone else telling
you that they don’t think you can succeed, along with all the reasons
why they think you are wasting your time.
Keep your Tarot goals and expectations to yourself, until you are ready
to surprise your friends with a reading. Don’t ask for their opinion on
your project because their views may not be what you want or need to
hear at this moment.
Relaxation and Visualisation for Success
Create a picture in your mind of yourself as successfully reading tarot

cards and using it in whatever context is appropriate for you. See
yourself in the picture and get a sense of feeling pleased with your
success as a tarot reader. Play with these images in your mind. The
happier you can feel with your progress, the easier you will find it to
attract that same situation to yourself in reality.

Prepare Yourself for Success Audio Relaxation
This is a powerful relaxation, which helps you to create a picture of

yourself being successful at a goal that you want to accomplish. In this
case it is successfully learning to read tarot cards. That may also involve
your longer term plans of what you would like to do with your new Tarot
Reading Skills.
This relaxation also allows you to step inside the YOU on the screen
and to experience the desired success from the INSIDE OUT.
It is 30 minutes of deep relaxation, so do not listen to it whilst driving,

operating machinery or doing anything that requires your full attention.
Please go and listen to the Prepare Yourself for Success Audio

Relaxation that came with this package.

Chapter Six - What is your Tarot Learning Style?
What is the fastest and easiest way to Learn to Read Tarot cards?
The answer to that question depends on How you Learn things in

general?
There are Three main learning styles. They are called Visual, Auditory
and Kinesthetic. Simply put, this means do you learn best from things
you SEE, what you HEAR or how you FEEL about something.
Visual People
Visual people like materials they can SEE.
You will probably like books with more PICTURES than words and you
are likely to find VIDEO (either streaming online or as a DVD) very
useful.
When you are choosing a deck of Tarot cards, make sure you choose
one that appeals to you VISUALLY.
You may need a deck where the PICTURES tell the stories and where
there is plenty of COLOUR and detail, so a good choice might be one of
the Rider Waite decks, as the pictures tend to be clear and easy to
understand.
You might be best avoiding decks that look more like traditional playing
cards or which are purely symbols because you may find them harder to
get on with.
Auditory People
If you are an auditory person, you learn primarily by what you can
HEAR. You may not be a big written note-taker, however you absorb
material by LISTENING.
You probably prefer CDs or AUDIO BOOKS or AUDIO DOWNLOADS or

taking part in teleseminars where you can interact with others by
SPEAKING.

A good learning tip for you would be to LISTEN to audios books or audio
versions of your favourite course as you are doing other things.
If you have a favourite Tarot book or course, it may be a good idea for
you to READ it aloud yourself and RECORD it, so that you can LISTEN
to your own voice and REPEAT things aloud in your own voice.
Kinaesthetic People
This means you learn by FEELING and TOUCHING. You are likely to
rely a lot on your intuition and gut feeling in making decisions and tend
to go with things that make you FEEL good.
You like to have something you can physically TOUCH, whether that is
a MANUAL or a BOOK or HANDLING your deck of TAROT CARDS.
When you pick up a card, you are quite likely to get an immediate
FEELING REACTION to it.
For learning, you may choose a Physical COURSE or WORKSHOP

where you can EXPERIENCE and INTERNALISE the learning. You can
also GET a FEEL for the teacher and the other people there.
You are likely to be a person who could do very well with SYMBOL
based cards because you will probably get an immediate FEELING
about the cards and will not really need to have pictures to trigger off
your INTUITION.

Which Style are You?
Most people are a mixture of a couple of styles, with one being more
dominant than the others. People can have different learning styles
depending on what it is that they are learning and also depending on the
other people around them, as they are undertaking a particular course of
study.
If you work with your dominant learning style and choose appropriate
resources, you will learn a lot faster and your Tarot journey will be much
more fun and much easier.
Once you know which style you prefer, you can then find learning
materials and resources that suit your preferred Learning style.
How long does it take to learn to read tarot cards?
I am often asked this question and the answer is “how long is a piece of
string?” It can be as long or as short as you want it to.
I have seen claims that you can learn to read the Tarot in a couple of
hours from a book or a DVD. Yes, you can get a very basic grasp of the
meanings of each individual card from doing this.
Often, though, what is lacking is an understanding of how the cards

interact with each other or how their meanings alter depending on their
position in different spreads.
The rapid learning works best if you are just looking at the cards and
using them as a trigger for your psychic abilities.
Some people can do this quite easily and don't need to do anything
further with learning the card meanings. Other people can lack the
confidence to trust their intuition to this level.
For anyone who has seen the film “The Golden Compass” or read the
book it was based on, “Northern Lights” may remember Lyra with the
alethiometer.
In the beginning she cleared her mind, focused on her question, spun
the needle and as soon as it landed on a symbol, she got an immediate
picture in her mind and often a strong feeling as to what it meant.

Everyone else who worked with the device had to learn and study the
symbols to get an understanding of it.
I know that was the case for me. I needed to learn to read the cards and
over time I came to trust the intuitive prompts.
For me it took many hours of practising with the cards, looking at the
pictures, noticing any intuitive prompts I received and making a note of
those in my Tarot Journal.
I had fun "playing" with them, until I built up a relationship with my cards
and they spoke to me individually.
The time it takes to learn the tarot also depends on your reasons for
wanting to learn and how much time you have available.
For many people it is such a passion that it becomes a life-long study. I

have been reading tarot cards for nearly 20 years and I still see new
things in my cards. I might suddenly notice a detail that I have not been
aware of before and this adds an extra subtlety of meaning to my cards.
Tarot has multiple layers to it. You can probably have enough
knowledge to do a very simple reading in about an hour, just from
reading the booklet that comes with the cards. However, for most people
that does not give enough detailed information.
I have taught courses which were 2 hours a week over 6 weeks, and we
found that was not really enough time to cover the cards and spreads in
detail.
If you can spare a couple of hours a week to understand a new card and
to see how that card interacts with previous cards, your knowledge and
skills will build up very quickly.
The more you can look at your cards and practise with them, the quicker
you become familiar with them and start to build your own personal
relationship with them.
Take your time, have fun and enjoy the process.
You can learn to read tarot cards as quickly as you decide you want to
learn them.

Chapter Seven - Choosing a deck of tarot cards, preparing

yourself and your cards for a reading
How to Choose the Best Deck for You
When you would like to learn to read tarot cards, one of the first
decisions to make is which deck you are going to work with.
The tarot deck that you start to learn with is often not a matter of a
conscious choice. It may be that the deck of tarot cards was a gift from
someone else or it may be that you have had readings over time from a
Tarot Reader and that is the deck that the reader has always used. It
may be that the deck has been well reviewed somewhere and you have
bought a deck sight unseen.
Many people, who acquire a deck of tarot cards in any of those ways,
often find that they really don’t get on very well with the cards when they
try to learn to read them.
This can be especially difficult if the deck is based on a particular time in

history or a certain culture or a mythology or ideology. Some of these
decks are exquisitely beautiful to look at, yet are not very practical
unless you know a lot about the topic they relate to.
If you feel you are already quite psychic and intuitive, you may get on
well with cards which are more like traditional playing cards, in that they
are purely symbolic. That may be enough to trigger your psychic card
reading skills.
Ultimately, it comes down to your personal choice. Pick a deck where

you like and understand the images and you feel comfortable with the
cards themselves, as you are going to be building up a long term
relationship with them on your journey to learning to read tarot cards.

The Rider Waite Smith deck of Tarot Cards
My recommendation it that you start with the Rider Waite Smith deck of
Tarot Cards.
One of the easiest decks to work with when you are starting to learn to
read tarot cards is the Rider Waite deck. This deck is probably one of
the most popular ones; it certainly has most books and material written
about it.
It is not tied to any specific set of beliefs, although it draws symbolism

from most of the major world religions and cultures dating back into time
immemorial. Each of the cards has a picture, rather than merely
symbolism. This means that you can look at the card and observe what
is happening in the image.
As the human mind thinks in pictures, this can be a very effective way to
learn to read tarot cards. It really is the case that a picture speaks a
1000 words.
In addition to clear pictures, the Rider Waite deck of tarot cards does not
have scary images, as is the case with some decks of tarot cards.
The system we are working with should work with any deck of Tarot
cards, however it has only been tested with the Rider Waite Smith deck
of cards.
All of the information that follows about use of colour, pictures, symbols
and storytelling work very well with the Rider Waite Smith deck. They
may or may not work as well with other Tarot decks.
Prepare Your Tarot Cards Before a Reading
Before you start a Tarot Card Reading, it is important to make sure that
the energies of the previous reading, whether that is for yourself or for
someone else have been cleared from your cards and from your space.
There are various ways you can do this, from waving your cards through
incense or a sage stick to clear them to shuffling them, asking that all
old energies be released.

You may want to light a candle in the space you are going to use for
your reading or spray some clearing and cleansing essences around the
area.
You can also imagine the Blue Flame of St Germain, which is used a lot
for clearing and cleansing. This is a blue fire or flame, which consumes
anything negative and turns it into something positive. You can imagine
that all the previous energies are leaving your cards and anything
negative is either being sent off into to Universe to be transformed into
positive energy or thrown into the blue flame for clearing, cleansing and
releasing.
Prepare Yourself Before a Reading
Prior to starting a reading, it is also important to make sure that you are
prepared and are in the most receptive frame of mind.
It is important that you release any negative baggage for your day or
your life because that negativity can colour your reading. If you cannot
let go of your own troubles completely, it can be useful to imagine that
you are putting them in a wooden box and firmly closing the lid. Your
own worries can stay there until after your reading.
You can cleanse your own energies in a similar way that you cleansed
your cards. Simple deep breathing works very well. As you breathe out,
release any negativity and as you breathe in, fill yourself up with light
and peace.
It can be a good idea to ground yourself by imaging roots coming out of

your feet and going deep into the Earth. You can then connect yourself
upwards to the Universe, so that you are drawing in light and energy
from that source as well.
Prior to starting a reading, you can also ask your angels and guides to
bring you the information you need for yourself or your client from a
place of highest love, highest truth and highest rightfulness and that
what is coming through is for the highest good of all concerned. Trust
that will be the case
Remember to thank your angels and helpers when you have finished
your reading.

The calmer and more peaceful you are when you are doing a Tarot Card
Reading, the clearer and more useful the answers will be that you are
receiving.
Relaxation and Breathing
Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed and sit comfortably.
Take a few deep breaths. Breathe out any tension form your day.
Breathe in confidence and peace.
A useful breathing exercise is to breathe in to a count of 7, hold the

breath for 7, and then slowly release to a count of 7 and then hold for 7
before taking another breath.
When you feel calm and relaxed, pick up your deck of cards and shuffle
them. A good question to ask would be something like, “What would be
most useful for me to know about my situation right now?”
When you feel ready, stop shuffling, cut the cards, spread them out in
front of you and choose one. Notice the first thoughts, feelings,
impressions that come to mind.
Prepare Yourself Before a Tarot Reading
I have created a short relaxation “Prepare Yourself Before a Tarot

Reading”. This is designed to help you to put aside any troubles and
worries you have from your day and to focus on your Tarot Learning and
your readings. It is 7 minutes long and it is a very powerful audio.
The “Prepare Yourself Before a Tarot Reading” Audio relaxation is

included with this package.
It is a short seven minute relaxation. Do not listen to this audio whilst

driving, operating machinery or doing anything that requires your full
attention.
Please listen to the “Prepare Yourself Before a Tarot Reading” Audio

relaxation” that is included as part of this package.

Chapter Eight - Protect Your Energies
When you start to raise your energy vibration and to tap into your
Intuition, you tend to become more sensitive to energies around you,
both positive and (unfortunately) negative ones. You can often find
yourself inadvertently taking on the negative energies of others or of
situations around you and it is crucial that you understand how to protect
your own energies.
Have you ever felt really up, and positive, full of confidence and off to
conquer the world? And then you come into contact with someone who
is miserable, down on themselves and just about dragging themselves
through every minute.
Have you noticed that it often does not take long before you also feel
down and low, and your optimism has evaporated?
You just came into contact with an energy vampire, who literally
siphoned off your positive energy.
As you work more and more with energies, it is vital that you learn to
protect your positive energies. Most negative people do not realize that
they are draining energies from others, yet there are also people who
deliberately set out to flow negative energies to others with a view to
causing them harm or upsetting their balance in some way.
There are some very simple techniques you can use to protect yourself
and your loved ones. Most involve visualization and some involve the
use of crystals, colour and mirrors.
1) Angels or Universe as protectors- You can call on your

angels to protect to in any circumstances or to protect your
property. I always use this when I leave my car or am away
on holiday. I imagine the angels as policemen with big
truncheons and Rottweiler’s guarding my property. In my
mind’s eye, I have caught sight of Angels with huge swords
casually sitting on my car or my house.
2) WHITE LIGHT- imagine yourself wrapped in a big bubble of

WHITE LIGHT. Imagine it is all round you, including around
your feet and head and see it stretching about 3-4 feet (1-
1.5m) metres beyond yourself.

3) A variation on this is to imagine a cross of white light. Draw it

with your hands- from top to bottom and left to right and then
circle your hands around yourself like a spiral or vortex.
4) You can then green all round yourself for healing and then
purple over the top for extra protection.
5) Even more powerful is a bubble of GOLDEN Light because it

allows love and good things into your energy field and
converts negative energy back into positive and returns it to
the sender as positive energy.
6) WORD of WARNING- some people will advise you to use a

mirror to return any negative energy to the sender. I would
strongly ADVISE AGAINST this because it can set up a very
negative and destructive flow of energy.
7) Imagine yourself inside a dark blue cloak. It totally surrounds

you and comes down to the floor. Imagine wrapping it
around yourself and zipping up the hood, so you are
completely inside
8) You can imagine yourself with a shield around yourself. I

imagine mine rising up or coming down to the music from
Thunderbirds, so you are inside and you are protected from
any negative. Yet you can still connect with people and are
not closed off to them. You just do not take on any of their
negative energies.
9) Crystals- If you are working on your computer, set a piece of

quartz on your computer. It will absorb a lot of the negative
energies.
10) One of the most powerful crystal protectors is a dark brown

stone called "Tigers Eye". It has a long history of protection
going right back to ancient times. You can either carry it with
you or imagine it as another layer of protection around you.
11) If you are using crystals, it is important to wash them first,

preferably in salt water, let them dry in natural light and them
charge them up with your intention, of what you would like
them to do for you- whether it is healing or protection.

These are just a few ways to protect your energies. If you have worked
so hard to be positive and in the flow, protect your energies and don't let
others pull you down.
Negative Energy during a reading
IMPORTANT– you may feel a surge of negativity as doing the reading,

especially if trying to find out about other people and they don’t want you
to access that information or are negative or controlling towards you.
People have a right to their own privacy and you may need to ask
permission – yes, energetically, from another person if you are trying to
access information about them.
The person you are reading for may think they have an automatic right
to that information because they are interested in or concerned about
the other person. The other person may not wish for them to have that
information, so you may find it difficult to access information about
people other than the person you are reading for.
You can only make changes and take decisions or actions for yourself. It
is very difficult to get other people to change their attitude, actions,
thoughts and behaviours.
Clearing away negativity from client after a reading
Once you have done a reading, especially if it has been quite

emotionally charged, it is very important to clear your energies and your
space.
Your client may go away feeling refreshed and lighter because they
have released all their “stuff” and that is great, however it is important
that you have not taken it on board. Unfortunately many readers
unconsciously take on the baggage left behind by their clients and it can
make you ill!
Once a client has gone, thank the Universe and any helpers that may
have been present, clear your cards, using one of the cleansing
methods listed above. This may include, shuffling the cards and
imagining negative energies leaving, waving your cards through incense
or however you clear them.

Then clear the energies around yourself. This may be by breathing

exercises and imagining all negativity leaving your energy field or you
can do an exercise where you disconnect yourself.
Stand up, take a deep breath in and out, stretch your arms above your
head and bed forward. As you do, wave your arms in front of you, as if
you are slicing up the energy in front of you. Actually you are breaking
up any negative energy, so it can be dissolved. Then you can push all
the broken up energy away from you and out into the Universe. You can
imagine a blue flame around you and all the negative energy being burnt
up in the flame and transformed into positive energy.
By releasing the negative energy into the Universe, you client no longer
has it and you don’t have it either.
Once you have cleared any negative energy, imagine yourself

surrounded by a nurturing ball of white and golden light, which is
healing, cleansing and restoring your energies to their sparkling best.
Audio Relaxation for Clearing Negativity after a Reading
I have created a short audio relaxation, which is only 7 minutes long, to

help you to clear away negative energies that may have built up during
the reading, either from you or from your client.
This is also a free audio, which is included as part of the package.
This is a relaxation, so please do not listen to it whilst driving, operating

machinery or doing anything that requires your full attention.
Please listen to the audio relaxation for Clearing Negativity after a

Reading.

Chapter Nine – Asking Questions
How to ask questions to get the best results out of your Tarot
Cards
If you have a tricky decision to make, or are wondering whether you

should trust someone, Tarot cards can be a great help.
They can help you to quickly access your intuition and all your inner
resources to help you to make the best choices for you. It is very likely
that you already know the answer in your heart.
If you can hear it or feel, it may be that you are not trusting it and the
cards can confirm your intuition or gut feeling for you.
Take a few deep breaths to relax and calm your mind and then ask your
question. Ask that the answers will be for the “highest good of all
concerned”.
Yes-No Questions
The most commonly asked question is a question requiring a Yes/No

answer, such as “Will I get that job?” “Will he ask me out on a date?”
“Should I move house?” “Is my daughter going to pass her exams?”
“Should I marry that man?”
These can be very difficult questions to answer because they have an

underlying presumption that our life is mapped out for us, that everything
is pre-determined by someone or something and that we have little or no
influence over it, other than just showing up on the day.
This is obviously not the case, as we have free will and make our own
choices.
There may be situations that come into our lives, over which we appear
to have no control, however we can always choose how we react to
them.

Yes-No questions on things that have already happened
If you are asking about something that you know has already happened,
then you will probably get a clear answer when you ask a Yes-No
question. Tarot readers can easily pick up on what has already
happened because the event has left an energetic imprint. This is the
reason many tarot card readers spend a lot of time telling you about the
past. Not only does it make a good party trick to pick up on information
from the past and tell people things that “no-one could possibly know”
but it is also relatively easy to do.
With many psychics, this in-depth accurate knowledge of the past is also
their logical reasoning as to why you should believe every word of their
future predictions. The past has happened and is recorded however the
future has not yet happened and is not pre-determined.
Be careful to only ask one question at a time. The best types of

questions to ask are “has this happened?” Useful questions can be
things in the present, such as “am I pregnant?” or “is my child being
bullied?” If these are things that have happened or are ongoing, then
you will probably get a fairly clear Yes or No answer.
You can use a single card for an answer. Some people use a single
card in the reversed or upright position to mean No or Yes. Or you can
decide in advance that certain cards will mean Yes and others will mean
No. This can be a bit hit-and-miss.
We will talk more about a good Yes-No spread a little bit further on in
this course.
Yes-No questions on things that have not yet happened
These are the most common questions that I get asked when people
ask for a reading. These can be very vague general questions, such as
“will I move house?” “will I change jobs?” “ will I get married or have
children?” “will I be ever be happy?” or “will I win the lottery or will I be
rich?”
There can be some more specific questions such as, “I have applied for
a job at xyz company, will I get that job?” or “I have put my house on the
market, will it sell?”

The first set of questions can be almost impossible to answer. They

assume that a person’s life is fixed and all that someone has to do is
wait for events to happen to them, either positive or negative. Before I
attempt to answer those kinds of questions, I would usually try to clarify
exactly what they are asking me, whether that is something they would
like to happen and whether they have done anything about their
question.
With the second group, these questions can sometimes be a little easier
to answer because the person has taken a specific action and they
would like to know whether that is going to work out as they would like it
to. Even then, there can be other factors at play, which are as yet
unknown.
It may be that someone else has to make a decision, as in the case of

someone asking about a job or it may be that at the moment of asking a
decision has not yet been made. It can also be the case that, at the
moment of asking, a decision has been made and then at the last
moment, something changes.
Answers to Yes-No questions are rarely as straightforward as a simple

categorical answer either way. There will often be other factors that
need to be taken into account. Often the answer to a Yes-No question
will be vague and take the form of “Yes, but” or “No, maybe.”
Better questions to ask are ones based on your own actions. You could
ask a question such as “If I take a specific action, will the outcome be
positive for me?” In that instance a better question would be “what would
or will the outcome be for me if I take this action?” and that is best
answered with a different spread.
Yes-No questions on other people and their behaviour
Yes-No questions are often about other people and what they might or
might not do. Typical questions might be “is my boyfriend going to leave
me?” or “will my boss fire me?” or “what will be the reaction if I send in
that letter?”
It is difficult you get clear answers when asking about other people,
because they can – and do- act in ways that are out of character or
change their mind and do something completely different.

When asking about other people, the assumption is that they will react
and act in a predictable way, which they may or may not do. They may
have access to other information, that you know nothing about, which
may affect their decision and their actions.
People also say one thing and then so something completely different,
so it is very difficult to predict what they may or may not do.
The most powerful questions always relate to yourself and what you can
or can’t do in a situation.
Readings about other people and what will happen to or for them
Often you will be asked to do readings about other people and what may
or may not happen to or for them. Whilst the person asking the
questions may be genuinely concerned about another person, it is often
not very appropriate to try to a reading. There are several reasons for
this. Firstly, the person being enquired about may not want other people
to know their business and the person who is asking may be the very
last person that they would want to know about their business.
Secondly, the questions will be coloured from the point of view of the
person asking and not necessarily from the perspective of the person
asking.
Thirdly, the person asking may not have all of the facts and information,
although they probably think they do.
Fourthly, the person with the problem may not appreciate the person
asking about them to be telling them that a “tarot reader said you should
do….”
This is a situation where you may find that you don’t get any information
because the person asking does not really have permission to be asking
and the information may be blocked by the subconscious of the person
being asked about.
The exception to this may be if the person being asked about has given
their permission, although they would be better having a reading
themselves, so that the information is not coloured by the filters and
prejudices of the person asking the questions.

The other exception may be if the actions of the person being asked
about will directly affect the person asking for a reading.
Even then, when doing readings about other people, it can be very
unreliable because people can be very fickle and change their mind at a
moment’s notice. The reading might indicate that they currently have
intentions to do a certain thing, however moments later they may
change their mind and do something completely different.
The most empowering readings are those for you personally or for your
client personally and are the ones that are focused on “what can I do in
this situation?” because you can control that. You can look at the
potential or likely responses of other people to your actions, however,
that is also not an exact science. This is because the other person may
react in the predictable way that you have expected or they may
suddenly surprise you and act in a totally unexpected way.
Formulating a question so that it is ONE clear question
- and not questions several mixed together, which could have

multiple answers
There are several reasons why you might not get clear answers to your
questions. Sometimes a question can be a complex question, which is
actually several separate questions mixed together. Part of that question
might be a known fact, part of it might be an assumption about
something, part of it might be a ‘Yes’ answer, part of it might be a ‘No’
answer and part of it might be a ‘don’t know’ answer.
When the question is not clear, the answer cannot be clear.
It is really important that you ask your questions in the simplest possible
format, with no assumptions.
This might mean asking several questions, however the answers will be
much clearer to you and much more useful to you.
Where there are multiple parts to the question, you don’t really know
whether the answer relates to the whole question or whether it relates to
part of the question, and if it relates to a part of the question, which part
does it relate to?

Why questions - and the reason they are not helpful
When something major or life-changing happens, especially if it is

challenging or difficult, the first questions are often “why has this
happened?” or “why me?” or “why did they do that?”
This is a natural part of the search for a meaning and the desire to
understand something.
‘Why’ questions frequently have no answer. Sometimes something

happens that you have to deal with and it is only when you have got
through the situation and you have seen the chain of events that
following that original occurrence that you can begin to understand the
reasons why it happened.
A more productive question can be “how has it happened?” or “what

caused it to happen?” or better still “what did I do to bring that situation
into my life?” If you ask yourself that last question, it is important that
you are total objective and you do not fall into the trap of guilt or blame.
It is not about fault or blame. It is about establishing the causes. This is
very different from a ‘why’ question.
Power Questions
Be very careful with trying to answer a Yes/No question, as it may be

more be more appropriate to ask a question such as
“What would be the likely outcome if I did this or that?” or
“What do I need to know to make a decision about?”
“What would most help me to move forward in this situation?”
“How can I improve the communication between me and …?”
The most powerful questions to ask are about what we personally can
do about a situation. What actions can we take? What decisions could
we make? How could we change our feelings or reactions about
something?
When asking about the outcome of a situation, remember that the cards
will give you a likely outcome IF you continue on exactly the same path
and you do not make any changes. The cards assume you don’t change
anything. However, as soon as you do something differently, the whole
thing will change. This can be very useful for looking at alternate futures.

So you could ask questions such as “What would be the outcome if I

took the job I have been offered?” or “What would be the outcome if I
stayed in my current job?” or maybe “What would be the outcome if I
applied for a promotion?”
You can look at the different likely outcomes and then you can make the
decision that is best for you.
When asking questions, it is important to remember that we cannot

change the behaviour of someone else and it can be difficult to get
information about another person because they might change their mind
and do something completely different.
The clearer you are about what you want to know, the easier it will be to
get a meaningful answer and some helpful guidance.
Six Honest Serving Men
Rudyard Kipling once said that he had six honest serving men and these
are six powerful words that you can use to phrase your questions to
your tarot cards, in order to get the most helpful answers. These are
What? Who? When? Where? How? Which?
When you use these words to start your questions, you are opening
your mind to possibilities without getting stuck in a rigid mind-set or
needing to answers to come in a particular format.
The most powerful questions are things that involve you and what
actions you can take, rather than trying to change another person.
What is your question – and – what do you REALLY want to know?
When you are asking questions of your cards, be HONEST with

yourself. Ask the question that is in your heart and the question that you
really want answered. Don’t try to trick the cards by asking questions
that are vague. Equally unhelpful is trying to phrase a question with the
positive language that you think you “should” be using or that Personal
Development books have told you that you “should” use.
Ask it like it really is and you will get the most useful answers.

It may be that, deep in your heart, you know the answer to your question
but you don’t want to face that answer and you are desperately hoping
that, by phrasing your question in a different way, the cards will give you
the answer you would like to hear rather than the truth.
Unfortunately that is unlikely to happen.
The cards are a link to your unconscious and they can visually represent
what is truly going on deep inside you. The cards have no power of their
own and they simply reflect back your deepest thoughts, feelings,
desires and fears.
Your mood and emotions when asking questions
You state of mind when asking questions of the cards, either for yourself
or for others, is very important because this will reflect in your reading. If
you do a reading when you are very agitated or angry about a situation
those emotions will show in the cards. Your future outcome is then
likely to be filled with more anger and the situation continuing in the
same way that it is right now.
However if you can do a reading about a situation when you feel a little
calmer about it, then the reading is likely to show that and the solutions
being offered to you are likely to be more constructive and useful to you.
When you don’t like the answers
This can be a very common problem, especially when you are reading
for yourself. It can be very tempting to dismiss the answers that the
cards are giving you, shuffle the cards up again, ask the question in a
slight different way and put them down again.
If you think of the cards as a direct link to your own Intuition and Higher
Guidance, then the answers have come directly from that source.
When you ask your questions from your heart, the answers come from
the same place. The first card will usually be the right one in that
situation, so try to work with it, despite your resistance because you may
get some real gems of information.
When you don’t like the answers, it is important to pause for a moment
before you re-shuffle the cards and ask yourself a few questions.

These may include, “what don’t I like about that answer?” or maybe,
“OK, that was my first reaction, what else might that mean?” Cards do
not have a fixed interpretation and the answers we get are coloured by
our own filters and perceptions.
You could ask something like “what is that card REALLY trying to me?”
or “what is the REAL message I need to get?” or maybe “how could I
use this card to resolve this situation?” “how could this card be positive
for me or how could this card give me the strength or courage that I
need?”
It is often said that our greatest growth comes from our greatest
challenges and it frequently does.
You will probably find that the cards will keep giving you a similar
answer through different cards until you take notice of the message.
Interpretation as You want to hear it and Objectivity
One of the challenges with reading for yourself or for people close to
you is that your interpretation can be coloured by what you want to see
or think you want to see. It can also be coloured by what you know
about people close to you and what you think they might want to hear or
not hear about a situation.
There can also be a danger of disguising your own opinions in the form
of your reading. It can be very difficult to be objective, especially when
your words could have a big impact on the lives of someone close to
you.

Asking the same questions repeatedly or trying to trick the cards

by asking the same questions in different ways
This is unlikely to get you very far. You will probably find that you will get
the same or very similar cards for the first couple of times that you ask
the question. After that the cards are likely to be nonsensical or totally
irrelevant.
It is almost as if the message is “Well, we have given you the answer to

your question. Take it or leave it and stop asking! The answer is not
going to change unless YOU change!”
If you step back, take a few deep breaths and try to get a different
perspective on your situation and then ask the question again, you may
get a different answer, but that is only likely to be the case if something
in you has changed – that may be the way you feel about the situation
or a willingness to be more open to hearing the answers.
Loaded questions
Sometimes people try to ask what might be called “loaded questions”

where they ask the questions in such a way that they think it will force
the cards to answer in a certain way, in order to get the answer that they
require. This type of questioning is frequently used by the police,
solicitors or attorneys in a court of law and salespeople. It can be very
manipulative and is designed so that whichever way you respond, you
give the answer that they require.
Unfortunately this does not work very well with your True Inner
Guidance or your tarot cards. At best you will get an answer that is
totally meaningless. At worst, the cards will simply reflect back the
confusion of what you have asked.
You cannot trick your cards in this way. If you find that your clients are
trying to ask questions in this way, you may have to try to help them to
rephrase their questions.

Cards that sulk
Sometimes your tarot cards will seem to take on a mind of their own and
appear to sulk and to be un-co-operative. This may seem like a very
strange thing to say as we have gone to great lengths to stress that tarot
cards are merely 78 pictures and do not have any power of their own,
other than the power that is given to them by the reader or the reader’s
clients.
If you have asked the same questions repeatedly or tried to trick the
cards, you will often see that the cards coming out are completely
meaningless.
This is the same as a parent who loses patience with a child when that
child has asked the same question 50,000 times and has not taken any
notice of the answer. At the next asking, the parent may switch off and
just grunt or ignore the child or tell him or her something completely
meaningless in order to get them to stop asking the same question.
Your Inner Wisdom, as reflected through the tarot cards is exactly the
same.
How many cards does it take to get an answer?
That really depends on the complexity of your question and what you
want to know. You can get a simple answer with just one card. I have an
online card of the day reading, which you can find at –
http://www.learntarotonline.com/freetarotcardreading.html
which gives you one card and a couple of lines of text. I have had lots of
people tell me that they have received the answers they needed from
that one card.
In other readings I have used all 78 cards to try to resolve a situation.
I tend to get a feeling when the answer is complete and I do not need to
put any more cards down.
Sometimes you can get a general answer from a simple spread however
there may be one card in one position that you feel you would like to
expand upon, so you can do a complete spread as a follow up to that
one card.

This often happens with the Celtic Cross Spread where you have 10
positions, representing 10 aspects of the situation but only one card per
position, so you may want to see, for example, if there is more
information on the influences of other people or on the fears. You can
then add further cards or do a whole new spread for more in-depth
information.
Meaningless answers and getting clarification
If the card that comes up as an answer to your question appears to be

meaningless to you, there can be a number of reasons for this. It may
be that you have not clearly phrased your question or you have asked
two or more contradictory questions in your sentence. It may be that
your question needs re-phrasing or simplifying (which is not the same as
repeating the question) in order to get a clearer answer.
It may be that you need to sit with the card and ask a clarifying question
such as, “what message are you trying to give me?” or “what do I need
to understand from this card?” It may be that you need to put another
card beside the first one in order to clarify the answer.
When you are stuck in a place of “I don’t know what this means,” a great
coaching question to free up your thinking can be, “I know I don’t know
what this card means in relation to my question, but IF I did know, what
might it mean?”
It is a strangely worded question, but somehow it moves you beyond “I

don’t know” or “I don’t understand” to a more open-minded place, where
answers can pop into your head.
If, after trying all of the above, you are still not getting any answers, then
take a deep breath, set an intention for a clear answer, re-shuffle your
cards and ask your question again as you select another card.

Timing in Tarot Cards
One of the questions I am frequently asked is about TIMING of events

and how to gauge this from Tarot cards. It is a very difficult question to
answer because our lives and life events are not fixed.
It is often said that things happen “in their own good time” or that events
have a “divine timing” and sometimes it seems that events occur totally
in their own way and own time.
It depends on your viewpoint as to whether you feel that there is a

“Divine Force” that is controlling the timing of events or whether we, as
humans, can control timing.
Most people have, at some point in their lives, tried to control events and
to force something to happen, in a particular way and in a specific
timeframe. Sometimes this works for people, however very often it does
not work as planned or desired.
In my early days of reading Tarot cards, I used to offer a six month

reading and each layer of the spread represented a month. I did that
until I did a reading for a lady, who was going through a very messy
divorce. I gave her a sequence of events for the following six months
and was very surprised when she phoned me up about 3 weeks later
and told me that the whole lot had happened in the space of about two
weeks.
I believe that the reason for that speed of events was due to a change in
her own energy. She had seen that things were moving forward in her
favour and this had given her the confidence to take a more pro-active,
assertive approach, which had resulted in the matter being solved in two
weeks instead of 6 months.
When people ask questions about timing, there is often an underlying

assumption that “things are fixed” and events are going to happen
anyway and there is not much anyone can do about it.
This attitude is clearly seen in questions such as “when will I get

married?” “will I change jobs?” “how many children will I have?” “when
will I move house?”
The answers to questions about timing are often determined by the

actions that someone takes or does not take in relation to the matter. If,

for example, someone asks “when will I change jobs?” I would want to
know whether they have actively taken any action towards changing
jobs. If not, then I would look to see if there is anything around their work
that is likely to force a change.
If not, then it is likely that their work situation will stay the same until they
do something to change it.
The answer to many questions of “when will something happen?” is

often as vague as “when you are ready to let it happen” or “when you
take action on it.”
Questions of timing can also appear when someone desperately wants

something to happen, but the outcome may be determined by someone
else. This is frequently seen when a person is in a love-triangle
relationship with someone but that person is still married to someone
else.
Your client will often desperately want the cards to tell them that the love
of their life is going to leave their marriage and it is going to be soon. No
matter how they phrase the question, they unlikely to get the answer
they desire because the timing of that wish, if it is going to happen at all,
is determined by the decisions and actions of the other person.
Sometimes people will ask “when will something happen?” questions

when they are in the middle of a situation and they want to see how
things are unfolding or when a specific event is going to occur or not.
This can sometimes be easier to see, as the cards may indicate an ease
or flow of activity or things moving forward rapidly and favourably for
someone.
There may be a lot of wands cards, particularly the 8 of Wands or

favourable cards such as the 10 of Cups or 6 of Wands or maybe The
Star Card or the World Card. This might indicate a favourable outcome
is imminent.
There is a strong surge of positive energy within the cards.

You can also see whether things seem to be stuck and not moving
forward, which may be down to the person themselves or external
factors. The person may not be ready to make a decision and to move
forward.

As a reader, you can often see why a particular event is not moving
forward and what your client may be able to do about it. Sometimes this
can be a change of attitude or a different decision or a different
approach on the part of your client that can make a huge difference.
I have frequently seen this situation with positive opportunities, which

are trying to come to a person but nothing is happening because the
person is not open to receive them.
The timing of events is frequently determined by the energy of your

client. Change can happen in an instant and trying to put a specific time
on something can sometimes be counter-productive.
If your client desires for something to happen, they probably want that
outcome NOW rather than in a few weeks or a few months, so it may be
helpful for them to look at their own beliefs and attitudes, to see what
blockages they may need to remove in order to draw in their desired
outcome.
When someone asks you, as a Tarot Reader, about timing, it might be

useful to find out whether they have the approach of “It’s all mapped out
and there is nothing I can do about it” or “ I can create the timing of
events in my life” and tailor your reading accordingly.

Why do readings change in a matter of minutes?
A reading will change as soon as the reader or the client looks at the
situation in a different way, however small that might be. Often, at the
start of a reading, there may be a lot of stress or anxiety and all the
creative problem solving muscles may be totally closed off, so the
person cannot see any way forward.
If that state of mind continues, then the reading is likely to show an

ongoing outcome that is equally bleak. However if you or your client can
make even the smallest change in how you view the situation or how
you feel about it or you can make a different decision about it, the
possible or likely outcome of that reading can change dramatically.
I have seen this happen in readings when my client has suddenly had
an idea or a flash of inspiration and asked me a question along the lines
of, “Well, what about this?” or “What if I did that?” and they have a flash
of inspiration – which, incidentally has come straight from their own
Inner Wisdom – and there is suddenly some hope or positivity in their
thinking.
Taking cards out of the deck
There are cards in every tarot deck that can be very challenging, not
only from the visual images, but also from the feelings they invoke and
from the messages they are delivering. Everybody goes through
challenging times and most people, when they are in the middle of a
crisis, do not want the information to be sugar-coated. People often want
to know that there is some hope or some light at the end of the tunnel,
but they do not necessarily expect or want to see only happy and
positive cards.
I have seen readers take cards out of a deck because they are
challenging. I would not recommend this because your Higher Guidance
will still find ways to get the message to you.
Sometimes the toughest of messages can come through what seems

like the nicest of cards. I had a couple of situations where I considered
that the people I was dealing with were complete idiots and totally
incompetent – and I had told them so, in my rather tactless style.

I got the STRENGHT card, which is a really beautiful card, with the
message of “take a softly-softly, gentle approach; try to understand the
other person’s point of view and use your inner strength rather than
brute force to get what you want!” Hmm, not really what I wanted to
hear!
Unless you have a very good reason for taking cards out of a deck, I
would recommend that you leave them all in your reading. They are all
there for a reason and they can all add subtle differences of meaning to
your reading.

Chapter Ten - The Fastest Way to Read Tarot Cards System
Ultimately you want to build a relationship with your own deck of cards
and over time you will build your own interpretations of each card. This
is so that you can work with them and get useful answers for yourself
and others.
When learning to read tarot cards, one of the most important things to
do is to put any books to one side and take a really good look the cards.
Take your tarot cards out of the box or the packet.
Start with the Fool Card, which is numbered zero in the Major Arcana in
most decks.
Put the card onto a blank piece of paper, so you have the card in the top
left hand corner and the rest of the paper is blank. Write the name of the
card in the top right hand corner.
Then look at the questions in the section below and write some notes on
the paper of your own thoughts, feelings, intuitive hunches, inspirational
ideas and any sounds or pictures that might come up for you.
There are no wrong answers with this exercise. It is your subconscious

speaking directly to you personally.
Look at the Picture
1) What can you see?
2) Who is in the picture?
3) What do they look like? How are they dressed?
4) What are they doing?
5) What is happening in the scene?
6) What are the dominant colours?
7) What shapes are there?
8) Can you see any symbols?

9) Is there anything that leaps out of the picture at you?
10) Do you get any immediate feelings or reactions as you look at the
card?
11) What is the mood of the card? – happy/sad? Bright/dark?

Hopeful/challenging? Expansive/restrictive?
12) Does anyone in your life come to mind as you look at that card?
13) What do you think the person in the card might be saying to
themselves?
14) What might the person or people in the card be saying to each
other?
15) If the person in the card had something to say to you, what do you
think it might be?
16) Reverse the card and ask yourself the same questions. What can
you see now? How do things look different?
If you are an Auditory person and you learn best by the sounds you
hear, you might want to talk to yourself out loud as you are you doing
this exercise.
By the way, talking to yourself is a sign of Great Genius. It helps you to

get a lot of clarification of your ideas and considerably accelerates the
learning process.
If you find yourself saying, “But I am not getting anything!” or “I don’t

know what the cards mean!”
STOP!
My question to you would be:

“I know you don’t know what the cards mean BUT if you could get
something from the card, what might it be?”
Look back at the card and see what bubbles to the surface for you.
Fill in all the spaces on the page with YOUR thoughts, ideas,
impressions and feelings about the card.

This is a very important step in building YOUR relationship with YOUR

cards.
You MUST do this step BEFORE you look at the suggested definitions
in my books or the booklet that comes with your cards or any other
books that you might be using.
Difference of Opinion
As you compare what you wrote to what I have written, you may notice
some difference. That is BRILLIANT if you do because it means that
your own Intuition and Higher Self is starting to work for you and give
you insights that are personal to you.
Use the information I have provided in my books (if you are using the
Rider Waite tarot deck) as ADDITIONAL to what you have written
yourself. It is designed to provide you with extra insights and other ways
of thinking about things.
The meanings that you are most likely to remember and use are those
that you come up with yourself.
There is much written on the subject of Tarot Cards. There is no

categoric right or wrong and Tarot authors vary enormously in their
opinions. It is important for you to find the definitions that make sense to
you.
The definitions I have given you are the ones that have developed for
me over the 17 years that I have been reading and teaching tarot cards.
These are still evolving for me.
Examining the cards is a great starting point for your Learning. One of
the main goals of learning to read tarot cards is to use them to trigger
your Intuition, so that you have always got the answers that you need.
The idea of this exercise is start to develop your Intuition and for you to
start to recognise those promptings from your inner wisdom and to be
able to trust them.

Rinse and Repeat
Take the next card and repeat the process. Whilst this process may take
a little bit of time in the initial stages, it will rapidly accelerate your
learning and your understanding.
These are your building blocks. If you set these in place and build your
foundation strong from the start, then your whole Tarot learning journey
will be so much faster and so much more fun than if you don’t do this.
Over time, certain cards will come to mean certain things to you. Despite
that you can still find that you will suddenly get an intuitive flash as you
look at a card and it may mean something that it has not meant before.
Often in readings, people will take one look at a card and there is an
immediate connection for them. You may get a feeling of “That is exactly
how I feel.”
Again that is brilliant because you are connecting with your cards and
your Intuition and Higher Guidance is coming through.
Reading Tarot Cards with the Art of Storytelling
Having had a really good look at all the cards individually, the next step
is to start to build up a story with them.
Choose a card as your starting point. Most people start with The Fool
card as that is the first card in the deck. Then choose another card and
then lay it next to the other card and see how the story has changed.
One card may be light and bright and the other may add a more
challenging aspect.
As you look at the two cards, allow yourself to build up a story of what is
going on. How have things changed from one card to another?
This is particularly useful if you take a bright card such as the Empress
Card and put it next to something more challenging like the Tower card.
Then take one of the cards and turn it into a reversed position. What can
you see now that the picture is upside-down? How does that alter your
perspective of the picture? Is there now something that you can see that
you did not notice when the cards was the right way up? Does
something else suddenly leap out at you as being more prominent?

Imagine you are telling a story to a child (or to another adult if you have
picked very challenging cards). Use the pictures to stimulate your
intuition.
When you are reading tarot cards, you are offering an interpretation of
the cards in front of you, whether for yourself or for others, it is very like
a recounting a story and the more you can let that ability flow, the easier
you will find it to learn to read tarot cards.
It may feel like imagination and that you are just making things up,
however this is a very powerful way for your intuition to connect with you
or your client and to learn to read tarot cards.
If you are doing a reading for someone else and you simply describe to
them what you can see going on in the pictures, you will be amazed at
how accurate your reading is. It may not make much sense to you,
however your client’s subconscious mind takes your words along with
the visual image of the picture and creates the exact right message for
them. This also happens when reading for yourself.
You can then add another card and continue the story. A reading based
on 3 cards is one of the simplest spreads. It is often used as a Past-
Present-Future situation, although it does not need to be. We will
discuss spreads in the next section.
Sometimes people will do this storytelling process with the cards in

sequence and sometimes people will pick a few cards at random. It
does not really matter. The idea is to start to think and feel how the
cards fit together and how each card can change its own meaning and
that of other cards when placed side by side.
With 78 cards in a deck of tarot cards, there are infinite possibilities and
combinations of cards, which is fantastic because it allows you to be
fluid and flexible in each situation and for your intuition to give you the
answers that you need in each moment. This also means that you do
not get stuck with a particular card always having to have the same
meaning.
Cards may well mean different things in different readings and this is a
good thing because you are using the cards simply as a way of
accessing your Intuition and triggering your Higher Guidance. It is not
about the specific meanings of individual cards.

The meaning of Colour in Tarot Cards
Colour plays a very important part in a deck of tarot cards, particularly in

the Rider Waite Tarot deck, which is a great deck to start with on your
journey to learn to read tarot cards.
The dominant Colours of a card have an immediate impact on our

senses, how we feel about that card and any messages that your
intuition may be trying to give you.
When you draw a card, take a moment to have a good look at it, to
notice the Colours and to observe how the card makes you feel. The
first reaction you get will be the right one for you, so it is very important
not to dismiss it.
Look at the pictures. What is actually happening in the card? Does

anything leap out at you? Do you get any particular feelings when you
look at certain cards? Do some cards give you an instant feel-good
feeling or an instant feeling of dread?
Make a note of any observations that you make in your Tarot journal.
Yellow as a dominant colour generally gives a bright, optimistic,

sunshine feel to the card. This will often relate to our feelings and our
outward expression of things.
Red as the strongest colour will often be pointing towards material

things and matters to do with external world.
There are several cards with Blue as the predominant colour and this
will often relate to matters of the emotions, the inner self and intuition.
A dominance of Green indicates things to do with the Earth and Nature.
White is colour of purity, innocence and light. Cards with a dominance

of White may contain important messages in relation to our spiritual
side.
There are some cards which are very dark in colour or have a
predominance of Black in them. As first sight those can cause a sharp
intake of breath and maybe a momentary fleeting fear.

Black can have different Meanings across different cultures. In some

places it is symbol of death. In others it is a symbol of resurrection and
new beginnings. In others it is a symbol of power.
Grey is traditionally associated with old age and wisdom.
Colours also relate to the chakra points or energy centres in our bodies.
Each of those colours and chakra points has a different meaning and
are also very relevant to our interpretations of the tarot cards.
It is important to bear them in mind when you are reading your Tarot
cards.
The cards in the Rider Waite deck of Tarot Cards are very colourful and
some of the variations of the Rider Waite deck have sharper colours and
some are more pastel in nature.
Many of the cards have several colours and it is important to notice

which colours leap out at you as you are reading. Your own mood can
affect what you notice in the cards. If you are feeling bright and
optimistic and fully connected to life and the Universe, then you will
probably notice more of the Yellow and Green in the Cards.
If, however, your mood is a bit darker, the strong black colours will
probably leap out at you.
If you notice the same colour in numerous cards, as you are doing your
reading, it may be that you need more or less of that colour in your
environment. Take a deep breath and ask your Higher Guidance
whether there is an imbalance around you in relation to a particular
colour and if so, what steps you need to take to correct that.
Reversed Cards
There is a great deal of debate about reversed cards and what you
should do about them. Many readers ignore reversed cards altogether
and simply treat them as if they were upright, like everything else. This
is often the case if the deck of cards contain upright and reversed cards
and there is no attempt to distinguish between them. This can also be
the case if someone has just put cards on the table and muddled them
up.

Other readers will tell you that reversed cards indicate a blockage of the
energy of the upright card. To some extent that is true, although with
some reversed cards, such as the Devil, the energy of the reversed card
can be easier and less challenging than the energy of the upright card.
My suggestion would be to make sure that all of your cards are upright
before you start a reading, so that if any do end up in the reversed
position, then that card will have a significant meaning.
If you find yourself with reversed cards in your readings, then treat them
in the same way as you would any other card. Follow the same
procedure of looking at the colours, shapes, symbols and what is going
on in the picture and allow the intuitive answers to bubble to the surface
of the what that particular card means for you.
The four elements in the suits and cup cards
When learning to read tarot cards, there are some quick and easy tricks
you can do to help you to understand and remember the meanings of
the cards.
Traditionally a deck of tarot cards consists of 78 cards, which are broken

down into five sections. These are the Major Arcana and the Four Suits.
The Major Arcana is made up of 22 cards.
If you see a lot of Major Arcana cards in a reading or a spread, then it is

likely that those issues are very important and deep-rooted and that the
impact of the situations may well be there for some time.
The Major Arcana covers virtually every aspect of your life. It can also
be seen as a more spiritual journey and the lessons that need to be
learnt to move through various life situations.
The Major Arcana also indicate personality archetypes. These may be

things that we can recognise in ourselves or see in others. Although the
figures in the cards may show as male or female, the characteristics can
relate to either gender.
Major Arcana cards can also represent events.

Minor Arcana and Suits
The Suits are Cups, Wands, Swords and Pentacles and represent the
four elements of Water, Fire, Air and Earth. Tarot Cards have a lot of
cross-over with Astrology.
Suits
The Suits in the Rider Waite Smith deck of Tarot cards are each made
up of 14 cards. These consist of an Ace, which usually denotes the
number ONE, a further nine cards which represent the numbers TWO to
TEN and then four COURT CARDS. These are PAGE, KNIGHT,
QUEEN and KING.
All the cards in each suit relate to the same element, which makes
learning to read tarot cards quite easy.
The first is the Suit of Cups, which usually represent matters to do with
emotions and feelings.
Astrologically they represent the element of Water and the signs of

Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces.
The next is the Suit of Wands, which refer to matters to do with action,
work, career, business, creativity, moving forward.
Wands are represented by the element of Fire and can point to the
zodiac signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius.
Then we have the Suit of Swords, which points towards mental activity
and head stuff with thoughts, ideas, fears, logic.
Swords represent the element Air and the astrological signs of Gemini,
Libra and Aquarius.
Lastly, we have the Suit of Pentacles, which represent money, material

things, matters to do with the earth and the home.
Pentacles represent the element of Earth and the astrological signs of

Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn.

Suit of Cups
Cards in the suit of Cups represent matters to do with the heart,

emotions, feelings and memories.
They can also indicate new ideas and projects. These will usually be at
the creative thought level. They represent deep hopes and wishes –
your real “heart’s desires.”
One of the strongest keywords associated with the Suit of Cups is

LOVE. The Cup cards can indicate when Love is present and life seems
amazing and full of good feelings as well as when love is absent and
everything seems a real challenge because the feelings are negative.
They can also highlight your deepest fears, which are often emotionally
based. These can often be totally irrational and illogical, however they
are very powerful and can override most logic.
Cup cards can indicate how someone is really feeling about something
or someone and also the feelings they are showing the world.
From the Cup cards you can see the whole range of human emotions,
from the depths of despair to the height of elation.
The court or people cards can indicate people with certain character
traits. They can also indicate emotions that people experience.
The suit of Cups represents the element of Water. Astrologically water is

associated with the signs of Pisces, Cancer and Scorpio. In a Tarot
Card reading the traits themselves are more important than the
astrological sign.
On the positive side, the traits commonly associated with the element of
water are:- loving, caring, giving, compassionate, healing, psychic,
intuitive, dreams, nurturing, empathy, profound, artistic, deep feelings,
imagination, creativity, gentle and peaceful.
On the negative side, some of the traits can be:- moody, inconsistent,
daydreaming with no action, crabby and nit-picky, struggle to express
emotions, self-destruction, insecure, unfocused, self- critical,
uncommunicative, deceitful, over-sentimental, living in the past and
living in victim mode.

The position of the Cup card in a spread will usually indicate whether it
refers to a person or a situation.

Suit of Wands
The suit of wands is about energy and creativity. It is an action based

suit of cards and often represents work or business. These are usually
doing cards. These cards are about taking creative ideas and turning
them into reality.
They can also indicate hobby based projects that a person is passionate
about or charity or voluntary work. Just because there is a lot of energy
going into projects, it does not always mean that there is money with it.
In astrological terms, this suit corresponds to the element of FIRE, which

is about making things happen. The element of fire is associated with
the signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. The self, the ego and external
appearances can be very important to FIRE people, as can the need to
be the centre of attention.
On the positive side, the sort of qualities associated with WANDS and
FIRE are energy, passion, creativity, big vision, big picture, drive,
enthusiasm, generous, originality, leader, loyal, hard-working, outgoing,
happy, cheerful, optimist, bright, sunny disposition, affectionate,
demonstrative, courageous, adventurous, self-starter, initiative,
enterprising, assertive, forceful, persuasive, action oriented, making
things happen, organised, high standards and expectations.
On the negative side, there can be impulsiveness, not thinking things

through properly, blind optimism, excessive risk taking, rash, explosive,
fiery temper, selfish, lacking tact or diplomacy, intolerant, aggressive, a
drama queen, prone to exaggeration, intolerant, a slave driver,
impatience with others, riding roughshod over the feelings of others, big
ego, inability to listen, know-it-all, lack of attention to detail, boredom
and inability to complete things, take on too much and unable to
delegate.
In the pictures in many decks, the Wands are shown as wooden poles
with little leaves sprouting out of them. This is new life, new growth and
new things sprouting out, even when the situation around may look a bit
grim.

Suit of Swords
The suit of swords is about things going on in our heads and minds. It
often represents the analytical, logical, reasoning part of us. It is the
“head stuff” part of us.
The swords often indicate our response to stress and how we cope with
stress.
Astrologically it represents the element of Air and can point to the signs
of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius.
The element of air represents thoughts, ideas, intellect and

communication.
In the Suit of Swords we often find the worries and fears that people
have. Some may be day-to-day worries and some may be deep- rooted
fears and strongly held beliefs and convictions.
The Swords can also indicate the “might be” or “what if” fears, some of
which may be valid and some of which may be unfounded. The Suit of
Swords can appear very challenging because they not only indicate the
events of our lives, but they also indicate our reactions to them.
People displaying Air tendencies can be great visionaries with fantastic

ideas and they can be amazing communicators. They are often quick
witted and have razor-sharp brains. They can be people who seem to
live on their nerves. Some of the other qualities can be analytical,
inventive, original, versatile and curious. The element of air can also be
associated with space, computers, scientific and technological matters.
On the negative side, their heads can be full of a lot of ideas and very
little action. They may be fickle and whimsical and find it hard to
complete things. They can be nit-picky and critical and can tie people up
in knots with their words. They can be argumentative, lacking empathy,
cynical, inflexible and eccentric.

Suit of Pentacles
The suit of Pentacles represents practical and material things in our

lives such as money, business, prosperity and studying.
Pentacles represent the Element of Earth, which in Astrology points

towards the signs of Capricorn, Virgo and Taurus.
Earth type people are often rooted, grounded, practical people who can
be very good at doing things with their hands. They often have a strong
connection with nature and the earth.
On the positive side, the type of qualities that spring to mind are salt-of-
the-earth, dependable, reliable, honest, trustworthy, straight-forward,
organised, methodical, completes the job, know the value of money,
enjoy the good and in particular good food, steady, secure, goal
oriented, determined, pragmatic, persevering, unflappable common-
sense, no nonsense approach and providers.
On the negative side, you can find indications of being stuck, being a
plodder, unable and unwilling to make change, unexciting, boring, rigid,
inflexible, placing excessive value on material things, pedantic, over
cautious, fault finding, unimaginative, pessimistic and a worrier.
The Pentacles are about tangible, practical, reality based actions and
events. They signify “DOING” and “ACTION”

The Multiple layers of Court Cards
When Court cards show up in a Tarot Card Reading, they can have
several different meanings, depending on the cards around them. A
Court Card can represent one, or more, of the following:
1) YOU, if you are doing a reading for yourself or the person you are
reading for. Traditionally a Court Card has been used as a
“Significator” to indicate the person you are reading for. Often this
has been done from either an Astrological sign or from the
physical appearance of the person you are reading for. Used in
this sense, the best way is the character traits, rather than a
specific sign. A court card can represent the basic personality.
2) YOU if the sense of how you are acting and behaving in this
moment, which is likely to be a result of the situation. This may
be very different from your basic personality.
3) The Court card may be asking you to look at behaviour and ask
yourself whether you need to bring the energies of that card into
your actions or whether you are in fact displaying the negative
aspects of that card and you need to tone down your actions. As
an example, a King of Swords card may be telling you that you
need to be logical and analytic in your approach, particularly if you
are an emotional person, or it can be telling you that you are too
cut off from your feelings and maybe you are being too cynical,
sarcastic or inflexible.
4) OTHERS. Court cards will show other people around you, who are
important in your life. These may be family or important friends or
people you live or work with. The Court Cards will show both their
basic nature and their behaviour in this moment, particularly if the
latter seems very out of character. Sometimes you see two court
cards together, which seem to represent one person, where one
card is the personality and the other is the current behaviour.
5) SITUATION. If a Court Card represents a situation, this can mean

that the situation calls for the character traits that you would
normally find in a person. As an example, a King of Swords is a
logical, analytical, clear-thinking, straightforward person with little
emotion. It may be that a situation calls for the people involved to
act in that manner in order to resolve it.

The meaning will depend on who is doing a reading and for whom and
on the other cards around a court card. If you are using a tarot card
spread that has positions, then the meaning of a court card will depend
on whether it has appeared in a position that relates to people or to a
situation.
In isolation, Court cards can mean a plethora of things and the definition
is really dependent on the subjective view of the reader and on the
question that has been asked.
Court cards as answer cards and outcome cards
When you receive a Court Card as an outcome, which is one people

cards that are usually represented by a King, Queen, Knight or Page (or
whatever they may be in your particular deck), there can be several
possible interpretations.
Look at the card to determine which suit it comes from, whether that is
from the Suit of Cups, Wands, Pentacles or Swords, as that will give you
an indication of the overall energy of the card. Please refer back to the
section on the Suits for more information.
In the interpretation, it may be that you need to seek help or advice from
a person who has the type of qualities personified in the card; it may be
that you need to take on more of those qualities in order to resolve the
situation or to move forward; it may be that you consider that a person
with those qualities is standing in your way or is somehow to blame for
your situation or it may simply be a way of the cards telling you that the
outcome is unclear because you have not fully made up your mind
about which way you would really like it to go.
A Court card as an outcome is likely to lead to further questioning and

may need you to rephrase your question and perhaps add further cards
or do another spread on that particular issue.

Using a Significator or Not
If you are not familiar with the term, a Significator is a card that the
reader picks to represent the person they are doing the reading for, who
is frequently called the Querant.
This is usually a Court card, that is to say, a King, Queen, Knight or

Page or whatever the people cards are called in the deck you use. They
are cards that represent people. It may also be a Major Arcana card.
There are several ways that you can choose a Significator. These can
be based on the gender of a person, so a King would represent a male
and a Queen would represent a female. This can be further divided by
age, so a King might represent an older male, whereas a Page would
probably be a child or a young teenager and a Knight would probably be
a teenager or a young adult.
Another way of determining a Significator is by Astrological sign
The Suits themselves are frequently linked to astrological signs, so, for
example, the suit of Cups would be linked to water and the emotions.
The astrological signs traditionally associated with Water are Pisces,
Scorpio and Cancer. If someone is born under a Fire sign, that would be
Aries, Leo and Sagittarius and this would be signified by the Suit of
Wands in a Tarot deck. Likewise the Earth signs of Taurus, Virgo and
Capricorn would be represented by the Suit of Pentacles or Coins in
Tarot deck and the Air signs of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius would be
represented by the Suit of Swords.
You can ask someone their astrological sign and then pick a card based
on that sign, their gender and age. So, for example, a 40 year old Leo
woman could be represented by the Queen of Cups, a 25 year old male
Capricorn could be a Knight of Pentacles and a 50 year old male Gemini
might be a King of Swords.
This can work in determining the Significator, however there are

numerous downsides to this.
Firstly, the Sun sign is a very small part of Astrology and there are very
few people who match a text-book description of any sun sign. There
are many other factors that affect an astrological birth chart and often
these can be stronger in a person’s chart than the Sun sign.

This is the case with me. I am born under the sign of Scorpio, which
makes me a Queen of Cups. This is a very sensitive, emotional sign and
yes, I can be like that, however I associate myself more as a Queen of
Wands, which is a more fiery, outgoing type of person.
Secondly, in their basic nature, the person may be quite like their sun
sign, however, at the moment, they may be acting and reacting in a very
different way because of the situation that they find themselves in.
Thirdly, if you pick a Signicificator, there can be a tendency to prejudge

that person, based on the astrological information and how they “should”
be reacting or feeling.
I tend not to pick out a Significator before I start the reading. I rarely ask
people for their sun sign because I want to give them information that is
as unbiased as I can.
Frequently, as I put the cards down and start to see the situation
unfolding, a card will leap out at me, which will indicate the person
themselves ( the Querant). This will often be in the context of how they
see themselves in this situation, how they are reacting and how they are
coping (or not) and dealing with the situation.
They may well be acting in a way that is perhaps “out of character.” The
card or cards that come up to represent the person may be Court Cards
and they may also be Major Arcana cards.
The Major Arcana cards are considered to be archetypes of a Human

Being and show major things that can be going on deep inside
someone. If a Major Arcana card comes up as a Significator, then this is
likely to be a very important situation, where the person may be dealing
with some very fundamental issues and with things that are very
significant to their Core Being.
Major Arcana cards can point towards qualities that the person may
already recognise within themselves and know that they need to bring to
the surface. They can also indicate the qualities and skills that a person
needs to develop, or, more likely, to find within themselves in order to
overcome what might they might consider to be insurmountable
obstacles.
I don’t personally think that selecting a card as Significator before you

start a reading is very helpful because it can lead to pre-judging the
person and jumping to conclusions about them and their situation.

However, I believe it is very valuable to watch carefully to see which

cards are emerging that represent the person, their current state of mind
and their potential for resolving their problems.
This approach allows you to cut across Gender issues. Sometimes you
can get a male court card come out for a female querant. This may be a
male in their life who is also part of this situation.
It can also be that the male card represents the woman you are reading
for and is indicating that she is either already adopting more male
characteristics in her approach to the situation or perhaps that she
needs to do that in order to move forward.
With the court cards, it can be helpful to look at the characteristics of

that card, rather than the gender of the figure in the picture or the name
of the card. That approach can be much more helpful because we all
have both male and female characteristics in us and different aspects
become more prevalent, depending on the situation we find ourselves
in.

Chapter Eleven Shuffling Your Cards
Now that you have started to become familiar with your cards, the next
step is to shuffle them up and to have a go at some simple spreads.
There are a couple of ways you can shuffle your cards. You can hold
then upright and mix them up.
Or just put on the table in front of facing downwards and mix them up
however feels most comfortable for you. Shuffle for as long or as short a
period of time as feels right for you.
If I am reading for someone else, I would shuffle the cards first to make
sure that all the energies of previous readings have been cleared and
then give the deck to my client to shuffle.
Put them all back together as one pile, still with the pictures facing
downwards.
Then with your left hand cut the deck into 3 piles. Traditionally this is
using the hand you don’t write with, so if you are left-handed you would
use your right hand. The idea behind this is that you have less control
over that hand, so you are more likely to allow in the influence of your
unconscious mind.
That’s the theory anyway.
Also if you use your left hand, it connects to the right side of your brain
which is do with the creativity and intuition.
Cut the cards twice, so you have three piles and then put them back
together as one pile.
I would then take the cards off the top of the pile to use for the reading.
However you can also spread them out, mix them up and simply pick
however many cards you are going to use from anywhere in the deck.
I tend to make sure that the cards are all the right way up before I start,
so that if any do end up reversed, that is likely to be significant for that
reading and not just a left-over reversed card from a previous reading.

What happens if a card falls out while shuffling or you drop them?
If a card flies out or you drop a couple of cards, they are likely to be
significant to the reader. Take a look and them and note what they are.
If you are reading for someone else and they are shuffling the cards, ask
to see what that card is and make a note of it. It may come up in a
prominent place in the reading. If it doesn’t then, it was just a matter of
slippery cards.
Put the card back in the deck and continue shuffling.
If you drop the cards, pick them up, without looking at the pictures and
carry on.
The whole point of shuffling is for you to make a connection with your
cards, so that your energy is in them.
While you are shuffling, it is a good idea to think about what you want
the cards to help you with. The clearer you can phrase a question in
your mind, in terms of “what do I need to know right now?”, the clearer
the answer will be for you when you put your cards down.
Mixing cards on a table
If you or the client put all the cards on the table and simply mix them all
up in a very haphazard fashion, you can be certain that the cards are
mixed up and you will end up with a good number of cards that are
reversed. The only challenge with this method is that you don’t know
which way up your deck should be and run your risk of giving a
completely false reading.
Reversed Cards and shuffling
I have seen tarot readers and teachers state that you should make sure
that some of the cards are already reversed before you give them to
someone else to shuffle. I would disagree with that because firstly, who
decides which cards are reversed and secondly how do you know
whether the reversed cards are actually relevant to the person you are
reading for or whether that was actually applicable to a previous
reading.
As a personal preference I always make sure that all the cards are in the
upright position before shuffling them and doing a reading, whether for

myself or for someone else. If then, cards end up reversed through

shuffling or through the cards being dropped or flying out of the deck. If
there are then any reversed cards in the reading, then they are very
relevant to the reading and can be interpreted as such.

Chapter Twelve - Tarot Card Spreads
Storytelling versus Cards in a Position in a Spread
Up until now, we have looked at the cards from a storytelling approach,

where we have simply laid cards next to each other and built up a story
as we have gone along.
You can do this with as many cards as you like. Keep putting cards next
to each other and change some of them to reversed positions, so you
see how the story changes.
This method can build into quite a substantial reading. One of the
spreads that I use a lot is called the 21 Card Romany Spread and it
consists of three rows of seven cards. You can read this as a Past,
Present, Future type of spread or you can simply read the cards from
bottom left to top right as a sequence, with each card building on the
next and adding to the next.
The other method of reading cards is to use a Tarot Card Spread, where
the cards are laid out in a particular way, with each position being
assigned a meaning. This may be as simple as Past, Present and
Future or it can also build into something quite complex.
Tarot card spreads can be very powerful because each of the positions
in the spread has an allocated meaning. This forces you to relate the
card in that position to the context of the meaning.
So, for example, if you have a card in a “Past” position, you can look at
that as being in the past or the influences of it are just leaving. This can
be very helpful if you have just gone through a challenging situation and
the cards are pointing towards the worst of it being over.
If you have a card in the “other people” position, you can look at the card
as how other people may be helping or hindering in the situation. You
may or may not get a “person” card in that position, so it is important to
look at the pictures and the energies of that card.
The meanings of the positions in spreads will vary from reader to reader
and more experienced readers often create their own spreads, where
they allocate a meaning to a particular position. Once you decide on a

meaning for a particular position, it can be useful to stick with that

meaning for that position as it helps to focus your mind.
3 card spread – past, present, future
For the moment, one of the simplest spreads is a simple 3 card spread,
with the cards laid out from left to right and with the meanings of Past,
Present and Future, from left to right.
The Past is on the Left, the present in the Middle and the Future on the
Right.
Remember the future is not fixed. The cards can indicate the likely
outcome of a situation IF nothing changes, however you are in control of
that.
Using the first three cards of the Major Arcana or any three cards, lay
them out side by side from left to right and have a good look at them.
Notice the story. What is happening? What can you see? What feelings
do you get?
Write down your thoughts, feelings and impressions in the space below.

Reading One
Now move the cards into different positions within the spread. How does
the scene change? What is happening now? How are the cards different
now that they are in different positions?
Write down your thoughts, feelings and impressions for the new reading.
Notice especially any distinctions and any additional insights.

Reading Two
As the third part of this exercise, REVERSE one or more of the cards
and notice how things change. How are the pictures now different?
What is now happening in the scene? What are the people now doing?
Write down your thoughts, feelings, ideas and observations.

Reading Three
This simple exercise is a hugely powerful way to practise and to build up

your understanding of the meanings of the cards and how they relate to
each other in different positions in spreads.
Listen to my interpretation of the first THREE cards of the Major Arcana,

the Fool, The Magician and the High Priestess in different combinations
and in different positions, both upright and reversed in the Rider Waite
Smith deck of Tarot Cards.
You can follow this same process with all the cards in the deck. You will
be surprised at how quickly you learn to read tarot cards, particularly
when you are using your own interpretations and using my definitions as
an extra to your own information.
Keep practising and make notes of your observations and your

readings. Whilst practising, try to use the same question and make sure
you phrase it in the same way because if you ask your questions in a
different way each time you do a reading, you are likely to get a different
answer each time.
Asking your questions in the most empowered way is very important for
getting meaningful and useful answers.

Celtic Cross Spread
In starting out, one of the most basic and most frequently used spreads
is the “Celtic Cross” Spread.
There are 10 positions to this spread. Below are the meanings of the
It is important to remember that the outcome is based on the person’s
current state of mind and emotions and assumes that the person does
nothing to change that outcome.
This is a useful spread for answering the question, “What will be the
outcome if I do…?”
It can also be a useful spread to compare outcomes if certain actions

are taken. This is often called the “Alternate Future”. For example “what
will be the outcome if I stay in my current job?” and “what will be the
outcome if I take this new job I have been offered?”
The Celtic Cross Spread can be used as a general introductory spread,

which can highlight specific issues for further exploration. It can then be
used very effectively to explore those issues.
The Celtic Cross Spread is also very useful in looking at goals. You can
see very easily what the Querant’s true hopes and fears are around this
goal, as well as what might be blocking him/her from achieving the
success he/she desires.
You can also see how other people might be helpful or not in achieving
this goal.


There are 10 positions in the spread.
Position 1 is the situation.
Position 2 crosses position 1 and this will often bring up the real
issue or the challenge. This is the opposing factor.
Position 3 is below 1 and 2 and this adds further detail to the

present situation. It is the root cause of the problem.
Position 4 to the left indicates the past.
Position 5 above the cross indicates influences which are leaving

and the immediate future. It can also be the goal of the querant.
Position 6 to the right is close future.
Position 7 at the bottom of the vertical line indicates the fears of

the querant. This can also be how you see yourself.
Position 8 directly above 7 indicates other people. It can represent

matters of the home.
Position 9 directly above 8 indicates the hopes and wishes of the

querant. There is often some key guidance with this card.
Position 10 at the top of the row indicates the outcome.
For more information you can put another row from bottom to top beside
the first one. You can continue adding rows, which will give even more
information.
You would normally only do this if the outcome is not clear. This may be
that the question is unclear or has not yet been decided.
When you add extra rows to the Celtic Cross spread, it can add
considerably additional insight to the reading.
You can read up the columns from the bottom to the top. You can also
read across each line, so you have additional information on Your
Fears, The Influence of Other People, Hopes and the Outcome.

Shuffle your cards, cut them and put them back together as one pile of
cards. Take the first ten cards from the top of the pile and lay them out
in the positions shown in the diagram above.
Firstly, get an overview of the cards that have come out. Are there more
Major Arcana Cards than Minor Arcana Cards. If there are more Major
Arcana cards, the issues are likely to be very important and come from
the core of the person you are reading for. Major Arcana cards can often
be very fundamental to the BEING and personality, whereas the Minor
Arcana cards are more day to day things that are going on.
Notice which suits of cards have come up and the balance of cards from
each suit. If there are a lot of Cup cards, for example, the influence of
the emotions is very strong, whereas a lot of Sword cards might point to
a lot of ‘head-stuff’ and stress. Please refer back to the meanings of the
suits in earlier chapters.
Concentrate on each card in each position and think about that card in
relation to that position. If you are unsure, you can ask yourself, “How
does this card relate to the past or to other people or to my fears?” and
listen quietly for an answer.
Readers will often look at the outcome card in position ten first to see
where the reading is going. That can be very useful, as the other cards
will be contributing to the outcome and offer more explanation as to why
that outcome is what it is.
Read each of the cards in each position and make a note of your
thoughts, feelings and impressions, as well as what you can see and
what is going on.

Make your notes below.
Reading One
Now move the cards into different positions within the spread. How does
the scene change? What is happening now? How are the cards different
now that they are in different positions?
Write down your thoughts, feelings and impressions for the new reading.
Notice especially any distinctions and any additional insights.
Reading Two

As the third part of this exercise, REVERSE one or more of the cards
and notice how things change. How are the pictures now different?
What is now happening in the scene? What are the people now doing?
Write down your thoughts, feelings, ideas and observations.
Reading Three
This simple exercise is a hugely powerful way to practise and to build up

your understanding of the meanings of the cards and how they relate to
each other in different positions in spreads.
In this exercise you are working with the same ten cards and it is
designed to help you to become even more familiar with your cards and
to think of them in different ways as you move them from position to
position and then reverse them.
This is only a practice exercise to help you to familiarise yourself with

your cards. It is not a real reading. This exercise can also be very useful
to show you that cards do not have any hard and fixed meanings and
may mean different things to you in different readings or contexts of in
different positions within a spread. This means you are using the cards
as a trigger to tap into your Intuition and Higher Guidance, rather than
trying to learning a fixed meaning for each card.
There are hundreds of different spreads that you can use in readings
and more experienced tarot readers will often make up their own
spreads or a spread will evolve for a person over time.

There are books that are dedicated solely to different spreads that
people have designed over time, in order to deal with specific issues or
to answer particular questions.
This is a sample reading using the Celtic Cross Spread. It is a career

situation. You can listen to the audio recording, as well as download the
notes on this spread and the cards used.
This is included as part of this package. It is taken from my Easy Learn

Tarot Audio Course.
On my website, I have some other spreads you can try, including the 21
Card Romany Spread, the Astrology Spread and a spread for identifying
limiting beliefs about money.
http://www.learntarotonline.com/tarotcardspreads/tarotspreadsmain.html
Over time you may want to create your own spreads. If you do that,
make sure that the positions remain the same each time you use the
spread and make sure that you are very clear on what information you
want from each of the positions in the spread.

Chapter Thirteen - Develop Your Intuition Through Tarot
The Tarot can be a fantastic way to develop your intuition, Inner

Wisdom, Higher Guidance or whatever you want to call it or give you the
confidence to trust your intuition.
Ideally, you want to get to a place where your intuition automatically

kicks in whenever you need it and you do not have to think about it. You
just know that something is right or wrong and you trust it completely.
Tarot can also help you safely explore potential options before you
commit yourself to making a decision and can give you guidance in any
area of your life.
What is Intuition?
It is a way of knowing something or accessing information that is not

immediately obvious to the five senses of sight, touch, hearing, smell
and taste.
This might be a feeling that something is very wrong and you should be
careful or a sense that something is perfect for you and you should go
ahead and do it. It may be a voice in your head or a picture or an almost
instinctive reaction.
This may also be in relation to a person and whether or not you can trust
them.
It is often a first reaction and may actually seem quite illogical and
irrational to you as it first occurs to you. However it will usually be right.
Your intuition or gut feeling is there to help you all of the time.
Sometimes you have so much chatter going on in your head and so
many feelings in your body that you cannot hear or feel or see your
quiet, all knowing truth. It is important to learn how to distinguish the
unhelpful mind-chatter from the genuine Intuition.
Intuition is like any muscle. The more you use it, the more it will work for
you and the more it will be there for you when you need it.

The Power of Pictures
Your mind think in pictures and the Tarot consists of 78 colour images
and symbols, many of which are very ancient, which makes it one of the
most powerful ways of connecting directly with your subconscious mind.
Pictures are the oldest form of teaching and learning, as they tell stories
and tap straight into the right side of your brain, which is all about
creativity, imagination, inspiration, ideas and insights.
The more you can trigger the can trigger the right hand side of your
brain, the more you can tap into your intuition or gut feeling.
The pictures, colours and symbols speak directly to your subconscious

mind to give you the answers that are right for you. This is why different
people can look at the same cards and give a different interpretation
because the cards speak to everyone individually.
Sights, sounds and Feelings
When using tarot cards to develop your Intuition, it is very important that
you are aware of any sounds, voices, thoughts, feelings, pictures or
sensations that come up for as you ask questions and look at the cards.
These are likely to be very important.
When you look at a card, do you hear any words or voices? What is
said? What is the tone and volume of the voice? Is it inside your head or
outside of you?
What feelings do you get when you look at the card?

Where in your body are the feelings? – heart, head, legs, tummy area,
back, other?
Where are the pictures? - inside your head, in front of you? Are they
colour or black and white, still or moving?
Are there any sensations in your body and if so where are they?
Do you get any pictures flash through your mind?
Trust those first answers as they will most likely be the right ones for
you.

Don’t look at the card for too long because your logical mind will
probably start to analyse and may end up rationally talking you out of
accepting those first insights.
Once you learn to recognise the signals that your intuition is using to
communicate with you, you can identify them more quickly in another
situation.
With a bit of practice you can soon distinguish between the answers
from your intuition and the logic of your analytical mind.
Both are important and the analytical mind can be very useful once you
have gathered all your creative insights.
When you are ready, relax, calm your mind and pick another card.
Exercises for Developing Intuition
Intuition will usually function in two ways and those of 1) trying to warn
you of danger, so that you don’t do something or you stop doing
something and 2) to alert you that something or someone is good and
will bring you a positive outcome.
Sometimes the feelings associated with Positive or Negative can be

very different and quite easily recognisable. Sometimes, however, they
can be hard to distinguish because you may be feeling nervous, which
can be very close to fear, or your logical, analytical mind may have
immediately kicked in to tell you not to do something – for all sorts of
logical reasons – when in fact that action may turn out to be really good
for you.
This may be the case where you have a strong inclination to make
contact with someone, as it could lead to something good for you, but
you hesitate and you don’t pick up the phone because you are afraid of
that person’s position, or afraid they won’t talk to you or afraid that they
will reject you.
Sometimes, in order to take advantage of something good, you have to

step out of your comfort zone and take a risk beyond what you would
normally do and, at that point, fear and logic come into play and
opportunities can be missed. The fear is often that the actions will not
bring the desired gain and instead will bring pain, loss and suffering.

An intuitive flash, and most likely will, happen in an instant and it is very
easy to miss the message. This is why it is important to know in
advance how intuition looks, sounds and feels to you in both negative
and positive situations.
I would imagine that you have had situations in your life where you have
had a gut feeling or an intuitive flash about someone or something.
Sometimes you will have listened to it and followed the instinct, no
matter how illogical it might have seemed. Other times you will have
ignored it and done what seemed a more logical course of action.
I would venture to say that the times where you have followed your
Intuition, you have been right and this has led to a positive outcome and
the times, more often than not, where you have ignored your intuition,
things have not worked as well as they could have done.
Intuition is not called “gut feeling” for nothing, as your body seems to
know exactly what is right or wrong for you.
Here are a couple of exercises to get you in tune with your intuition. This
will also help you when you when you are asking questions of your
cards and needing to get quick, reliable and accurate answers.
We are going to look at the sights, sounds, feelings and sensations

associated with warnings and also those associated with good things.
These will be different for everyone because everyone has different

memories, situations and associations. The exercises are designed to
help you tap into your personal triggers, so you know what they are for
you personally.
Listening to your Intuition
The most powerful exercises to do for your Intuition both trying to warn
you and to encourage you are the ones where you listened to your
Intuition, took action and had a positive and wonderful outcome.
However, be aware that your mind may throw up the times when you did
not listen to your Intuition and things did not go very well for you. Do not
use these exercises as a tool for beating yourself up because that is not
really the point of them.

If your mind does throw up negative memories for you, then I have
included some exercises for you to clear away the negative feelings and
emotions attached to them.
Exercise One – How to recognise when your Intuition is trying to

warn you
This is an exercise in awareness and not to dwell on things from the

past, especially if you felt you made a mistake or you have beaten
yourself up over it since.
You have probably had situations in your life where your Intuition tried to
warn you of danger or not to trust someone or that something bad may
happen. If you listened to your Intuition, you probably felt pretty good
about yourself afterwards, especially if things worked out well for you.
If you did not listen to the warnings and things went wrong for you, then
there may be still be feelings of guilt, blame, regret or recrimination
towards yourself or others.
As you think about Developing Your Intuition and negative thoughts and
feelings or painful memories come up, then it is important to clear those
before you start, as they can have an impact on your ability to listen to
your intuition. The last thing you need is an unhelpful voice wittering in
your ear, with comments along the lines of “remember what happened
the last time we tried to warn you.”
You can use some the Clear Limiting Beliefs audio relaxation, which is
included with this package, to clear that negativity or maybe it would be
helpful to simply come to a place of peace with the incidents and errors
of judgment of the past.
If that is the case, you may like to listen to the Acceptance Audio
Relaxation, which is available from my website.
Your Higher Guidance does not bear grudges. It does not stop providing
you with useful information, just because you have ignored it or not
listened to it.

Recognising Warnings
Take a deep breath, calm your mind and think of a situation in your past
where your intuition tried to warn you about something or someone
negative.
This can be done as two exercises. One is where you listened to the
warnings of your Intuition and one is where you didn’t listen.
You can choose to remember either situation. It does not really matter.
Take yourself back to the situation. Try to remember yourself being in

the situation, noticing who else was there, what was being said and
what was going on.
At some point in that encounter, you probably made a decision or took

an action. Take yourself back to the point just PRIOR to making that
decision. Notice any sights, pictures, sounds, voices, feelings, body
sensations or anything that may have very subtly changed in an instant.
This would be your Intuition trying to connect with you to warn you
against going any further forward or dealing with the person in front of
you or about something that was not good for you in some way.
Remember this happened in a split second and it would have been very
easy to miss in the instant it happened. Or perhaps you did not miss it
and you heard or felt the intuitive prompts and you acted differently.
Try to reconnect with those sights, sounds, feelings, sensations

BEFORE the decision and try to really notice them. What were they?
Where in your body did you experience them? Was it a picture or a flash
of impending doom? Was it a loud voice? If it was a voice, what kind of
tone did it have that caused you to stop in your tracks and change your
decision?
From my experience, voices warning of danger tend to be loud, clear,

commanding and often use your name.
Did you hear something else? If you were at home, maybe your door
bell started to ring or your phone suddenly rang.
A friend of mine told me that when she met new people at Networking
events, she would heard a voice in her head that clearly said “NO” when
that person would not be a good person for her to go into business with.

The voice was always right as she found to her a cost a few times when
she did not listen to it!
Did you get a feeling in your body that something was not right? If so
what was it? Where was it? A lot of people report prickles running up
their back or a cold sensation. What was it for you?
If you ignored the warnings of your Intuition, did you get an immediate
voice or feeling of “Should not have done that or should not have said
that?”
The stronger your intuition is generally, the easier you will find it to use
tarot cards to gain intuitive insights. Further on we will talk about using
tarot cards to develop intuition.
You can then repeat this exercise with another memory and see if the
sights, pictures, sounds, voices, feelings, sensations and experiences
were the same in a different situation where your Intuition was trying to
warn you.
Try it in a situation where you were dealing with a person and your
intuition warned you that they were untrustworthy or that something bad
was going to come from the encounter. Again, you can look at
situations where you listened or you did not listen and your intuition was
proved right.
This is not an exercise in judgement - it is an exercise in observation. If

these memories have brought up negative feelings such as regret or
recrimination, then it is important to do some clearing exercises to break
up that energy and to let go of them.
Clearing Negativity
If you find negative feelings and memories coming to the surface as a

result of this exercise, it is important to STOP and CLEAR them in the
moment they arise.
You could try the following as Quick Energy Clearers:
1) Wave your arms and cut round yourself in a triangle shape from the
top of your head to under your feet as if you are slicing up the negative
energy and releasing it into the Universe.

2) Use the Blue Flame of St Germain. Imagine you are standing inside a
blue flame of light, which is clearing away anything negative and
transforming it into positive energy.
3) Use the audio meditation of Acceptance to let go of the negative

emotional charge that is attached to event and view it with the neutrality
of “what is” or “what was.” The event happened and that cannot change,
however your feelings about it can change.
4) Wave a lighted sage stick around to clear negative energies.
5) Breathe deeply and release negative feelings out into the Universe.
6) Take a deep breath and as you breath out, expel all the air out of your
lungs and then laugh deeply as Ho, Ho, Ho to release even more old,
stale air from your lungs.
Exercise Two - How to recognise when your Intuition is trying to

help you
When your Intuition is trying to help you or support you or encourage

you to move forward or take a certain action or trust someone, the
experience may be different. There may be a rush of joy or well-being or
a clear knowing that everything will be all right or some other very
positive thoughts, feelings, sights, sounds, emotions or sensations.
However, as mentioned before, it may not be quite so easy to recognise

as the Intuition may fly in the face of logical, rational behaviour. It may
completely contradict the messages that you are getting from your other
senses – particularly those of sight and hearing. There may be this
internal conflict going on inside you of “Yes, go for it!” and “No, don’t do
it!” This often comes about when you have thought too long about
something and your logical mind has had chance to make its
contribution or your “fight or flight” mechanism has fired up.
This is where choosing a tarot card can be quite useful as you also have
an immediate visual representation of the answer to your question.
GO For IT!
Repeat the exercise above. This time, think of a situation where your
Intuition was trying to encourage you to take an or to make a decision or
to take a risk or to trust someone.

Take a deep breath, calm your mind and think of a situation in your past
where your intuition tried to encourage you about something or
someone negative.
This can be done as two exercises. One is where you listened to the
prompts of your Intuition and one is where you didn’t listen.
You can choose to remember either situation. It does not really matter.
Take yourself back to the situation. Try to remember yourself being in

the situation, noticing who else was there, what was being said and
what was going on.
At some point in that encounter, you probably made a decision or took

an action. Take yourself back to the point just PRIOR to making that
decision. Notice any sights, pictures, sounds, voices, feelings, body
sensations or anything that may have very subtly changed in an instant.
This would be your Intuition trying to connect with you to you to go
forward or advising you that dealing with and trusting the person in front
of you was going to lead to something fantastic and wonderful.
Remember this happened in a split second and it would have been very
easy to miss in the instant it happened. Or perhaps you did not miss it
and you heard or felt the intuitive prompts and you acted differently.
Try to reconnect with those sights, sounds, feelings, sensations

BEFORE the decision and try to really notice them. What were they?
Where in your body did you experience them? Was it a picture or a flash
of bright colours or a positive outcome? Was it a voice? If it was a voice,
what kind of tone did it have that caused you to feel comfortable to go
forward with something
Did you get a feeling in your body that something inexplicably exciting,
wonderful, unbelievable and amazing was about to happen?
You can then repeat this exercise with another memory and see if the
sights, pictures, sounds, voices, feelings, sensations and experiences
were the same in a different situation where your Intuition was trying to
help you.

Try it in a situation where you were dealing with a person and your
intuition was trying to guide you to trust that person, even if your other
senses were not in agreement..
This is not an exercise in judgement - it is an exercise in observation. If

these memories have brought up negative feelings such as regret or
recrimination, then it is important to do some clearing exercises to break
up that energy and to let go of them.
Regret can often come in the form of “I wish I had bought that stock or
those shares” or “I wish I had bought that lottery ticket” or “I wish I had
trusted that person” or “I wish I had said something to that person.”
In that case, it is very important to clear away any negative feelings

associated with those memories. Those particular opportunities and
people have gone and cannot be brought back. It is important to open
up the space for new ones to come into your life.
Using Tarot Cards to Develop Your Intuition
Tarot cards can be a fantastic way to develop your Intuition further. They
can act as bridge between you and your Higher Guidance. They can
give you an immediate answer in the form of picture.
I have done countless readings where a client has looked at the picture
on a tarot card and said “that is exactly how I feel!”
When using tarot cards, it is important to get past worrying about what
the cards mean, as they are likely to mean different things in each
reading. Use the cards as a trigger for your Intuition and your Inner
Guidance.
Instant Reaction Exercise
The first exercise is an INSTANT REACTION exercise to help you to

start to trust your Intuition and the first reactions that you get.
Take a deep breath, relax and clear your mind. You are going to sort
through the cards and quickly place them into two piles. These are piles
that provoke an immediate negative or positive reaction for you.

Your reactions may be based on the colours, whether the cards are light
or dark, whether your immediate impression of the picture is that it is
happy or sad, whether you get an immediate feeling about a card or
whatever it may be.
This does not make the cards good or bad and it does not make your
perceptions good or bad. This is an exercise taking place in this moment
and it may be that your choices are coloured in this moment by what
else is going on in your life. It also does not mean that the cards will
always have that same meaning for you.
Some cards will give a much stronger reaction than others. That is OK.
Try not to think too much about it. This is an immediate reaction
exercise.
When you have finished, you can look at the cards in each pile in more
detail and notice which ones you have chosen. It is particularly important
to notice the cards where you had the strongest reaction, both positive
and negative. Make a note of any of the details of any of the cards that
leapt out at you, as these may have an important message for you at
this time.
You may end up challenging your own perceptions of the cards.
For example I recently drew the DEATH card, which is a card of change
and transformation. Traditionally the Death Card is often perceived in a
negative light, however I had been going through a period of stagnation
and frustration, so I looked at that card and said “Thank you! Bring it on!
The sooner the better!”
Instant Answers
When you have a question, relax, take a deep breath, formulate your
question in a way that is going to give you the best answer (see section
on asking questions), clear your mind, shuffle your cards and pick 2 or 3
cards.
Trust that these cards are going to be the perfect cards for you and that
the answers you receive will be the perfect ones for you in this moment.

Notice your immediate reaction. Trust that. It will give you the clearest
answers. Once you start to logically analyse the card, then the power of
that intuitive prompt can quickly be lost.
Notice what you can see, what the colours, symbols and pictures are on
the card, notice anything that leaps out of the card at you. Be aware of
any immediate thoughts, feelings, words or impressions.
You can look up the meanings in a book if you would like some further
insights or distinctions, although I would strongly advise that you don’t
do that because you might dilute the power of the answers that have
come from your own unconscious mind or Higher Self or your own Inner
Wisdom.

Chapter Fourteen - Be Your Own Life Coach using Tarot Cards
A tarot reading can be useful to find out what is going on in your life and
what the likely outcome might be of a situation.
However Tarot cards can offer so much more wisdom and guidance
than merely a traditional reading.
Tarot cards can guide you through a complete Coaching process, to

take you from facing a crisis and not knowing what to do next to
empowered decision making, where you take control of the situation and
steer it in the direction that you want to go.
Here are some of the ways in which tarot cards can be useful.
1. Use Tarot Cards to understand the situation, who is involved and

what has happened. It can be useful to ask questions starting with
What? Who? When? Where? For many people the biggest
question is ‘why has this happened?’ That is not always the most
constructive question to ask at this stage. A more appropriate
question may be “How has it happened?
2. Tarot Cards can then be used to explore the root cause of the
situation in more detail. It is important to do this step with as little
blame or guilt as possible. There may be a need to do some
Acceptance of the situation as it is and the people involved – OK,
so this has happened, you cannot change it, how can you move
forward?
3. You can use Tarot cards to understand your true feelings,

emotions, motivations and fears and those of the other people
involved.
4. The next area where Tarot Cards can be useful is to look at the
likely outcomes of the situation IF nothing changes. Remember
nothing is fixed and you have the control over your decisions and
actions and over the direction of your life. As soon as you make a
different decision or think or feel differently, the whole reading will
change.
5. Think about what would be the Ideal Outcome for you of this
situation.

6. Ask yourself what is stopping that from happening? This might be

the situation or other people. It can also be deep-rooted fears and
beliefs about yourself or life in general. The Tarot can help to
quickly identify those issues and once identified they can be
cleared with some simple exercises.
7. You can then use the Tarot for Empowered Decision Making to
explore some possible solutions and look at the likely outcomes of
taking those action steps, including the possible reactions of other
people.
8. Take a deep breath, connect with your Intuition and notice what
feels right for you as a course of action.
9. Use the Tarot cards to confirm your Intuitive feelings.
10. Take action.
Whilst you might want other people to change their behaviour and
actions in order to resolve the situation, that might not always be
possible to do. People have their own agenda. Tarot Cards can be most
useful to you when you explore YOURSELF and what YOU can do to
change a situation and then take Empowered Action.
Be your own Life Coach, using Tarot Cards to help you to connect to
your own Inner Guidance and get the answers that are perfect for you –
then take ACTION!

Process and Questions
Here is a simple process that I would use with a client to help them to
get to the root of a problem, fully understand it, decide on their ideal
outcome, look at options, and then formulate a plan to move forward.
1. Breathe and Clear your mind

2. Ask your question and FOCUS on it
3. Ask ONCE
4. Trust that you will be given the exact right answers
5. When you are ready, pick a card or lay out your spread
6. Notice your immediate thoughts, feelings and reactions
7. Keep with that card or those cards – you can then ask for further
clarification on a point if it is needed, but do not do the same
reading with the same question again
8. Write down the answers
9. Then check with your books and notes to add extra insight if you
need to
10. Make a decision and Take action
As you are working with this process, you may find that there are other
things which come to the surface, which may need to be cleared,
released and healed. It may also bring up painful memories or emotions.
If you find that you are struggling to deal with things that come to the
surface, then please seek appropriate professional advice for your
personal situation.
1) For a general overview of the situation, you can use a simple 3

Card Spread or the 21 Card Romany Spread. This can give you
an overview of what has happened in the Past, what is going on
at the moment in the Present and the likely outcome going
forward IF nothing changes. The 21 card Romany Spread can
give you a lot of information as there are 7 cards for each of
past, present and future.
2) For more information on the root cause of the situation, you can
use the Celtic Cross Spread. This spread will also give some
indication of hopes and fears, as well as the influence of other
people and the likely outcome if nothing changes. You only have
one card per position, so you may want to add extra rows of
cards or do a separate spread to answer questions on specific
aspects of the spread.

3) You may want to look in more depth at your true feelings,

emotions, motivations and fears about the situation. You can
use the Celtic Cross Spread to do this. On the right hand side,
you have the vertical column with the positions, from top to
bottom, of: Fears and worries, influences of other people, hopes
and wishes and outcome. You can continue to add rows of 4
cards, from top to bottom, until you have 3 or 4 extra rows or
you feel that you have put down enough cards. Then read the
cards across from left to right, so read all the cards that are in
the Fears positions, all the cards in the Hopes and Wishes
positions and so on. This can give you quite a lot of additional
information. You may find that the Outcome positions become
more of an “Ideal Outcome” than a “Likely Outcome” and the
cards in the other positions can give you a very good indication
as to what might be causing the Outcome to show as it is.
4) The outcomes that the cards have given you so far are based on
nothing changing. Nothing is fixed, so, if you don’t like that
outcome, you can decide what you would prefer to have and
create your own outcome.
5) You can do an exercise such as the “Ideal Day” where you define
your Ideal Outcome. Make sure that you define this in terms of
what YOU can do to change the situation, rather than relying on
someone else to change (which they may or may not do).
Simply ask yourself the question of “What is the most Ideal
Outcome for me in this Situation?”
6) If may be that you need to do a simple Acceptance Process to

accept the situation as it is, accept that you cannot change it,
accept that you cannot change the people involved, let go of the
emotional sting of it and come to a place of peace with it.
Sometimes some amazing things come to the surface from that
space.
7) As you look at your Ideal Outcome, you may want to ask yourself
what is stopping that from happening? This may bring fears and
beliefs about yourself or life in general to the surface. If the
answers concern the actions of other people, try to shift it over
to yourself, as it is easier to make changes in your own beliefs
and actions than trying to get other people to change.

8) There are various exercises that you can do for changing beliefs,
including breathing exercises and relaxation exercises. You may
want to try our Clear Limiting Beliefs Audio Relaxation
9) Having decided on Your Ideal Outcome, you can then use the
Celtic Cross spread to compare different possible outcomes. As
yourself the question, “What would be the likely outcome if I did
this?” Make a note of the cards that come up, your immediate
reactions to them and how you feel about that outcome as a
possible outcome. If you have several options, then look at
them all separately. You may find that the Ideal Course of Action
for you is a hybrid of some of the other steps.
10) As you ask about the Ideal Outcome for each course of action and
look at those cards, ask yourself, “What else do I need to know
about this situation?” and “What else would be helpful to know?”
and “what else might hinder my progress?” and then quietly wait
for the answers to bubble to the surface.
11) “What else do I need to know?” is a hugely powerful question to

ask because it causes you dig deep into your Higher Wisdom for
answers. You could also try the question “How does it get any
better than this?” and see what comes up as you look at the
cards in front of you.
12) Take a deep breath, connect with your Intuition and notice what
feels right for you as a course of action.
13) Take some action. This is a very important step, as most

situations will require you to do something in order to move
them forward. However you might also get a strong feeling to
“Do Nothing,” which may be the best course of action in that
moment.
Whatever your question and however you ask it, with whatever spread
you are using, trust your own intuition first before you reach for a book
or for your notes.
I hope you found this ebook useful.
Thank you for reading it.
Amanda Goldston

Other Resources
Please come and visit me on my blog or my website, which is

http://www.learntarotonline.com . You can find details of all products and
services, including my book “Develop Your Intuition Through Tarot,”
ebook by the same name and ebook “Tarot Reversals in the Rider
Waite Smith Deck of Tarot Cards” and my “Easy Learn Tarot Audio
Course”.
On my website there are also all the definitions and meanings of all the
Rider Waite Smith deck of Tarot Cards. These are the meanings I have
come to use over the time. Please use them as a starting point for your
own Tarot Journey.
There are videos and Tarot articles on the website and it is all FREE.
We are on Facebook – You can find us at “Learn Tarot for Personal

Growth and Fun”, please LIKE our page and join our community.
http://www.facebook.com/LearnTarotOnline
Please keep in touch.
If there is anything I can do to help you on your Tarot Journey, please

ask.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston
Website: http://www.learntarotonline.com
email me at : tarot@learntarotonline.com
Tel: + 44 (0) 1827 52995

The Fastest and Easiest Way To Learn How To Read Tarot Cards (PDFDrive)

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The Fastest and Easiest Way to Learn How to Read Tarot Cards by Amanda Goldston

The Fastest and Easiest Way to

Tarot Author and Coach

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

First published in the UK in 2012 by Amanda Goldston, 29 Victoria

© Amanda Goldston 2012

Illustrations from the Universal Waite Tarot Deck® reproduced by

Cover design, and all other images © Gregory Goldston 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this workbook may be re-produced or

Amanda Goldston asserts the moral right to be identified as the author

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

The persons who have produced and contributed to this workbook do

Amanda Goldston, her directors, employees and agents make no

Amanda Goldston, her officers, employees and agents have no

We recommend that if there are any health (mental, physical or

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

Tel: +44 (0) 1827 52995

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

The Fastest Way to Learn to Read Tarot Cards ...................................... 8

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

Clearing away negativity from client after a reading ........................... 49

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

Mixing cards on a table ....................................................................... 88

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

The Fastest Way to Learn to Read Tarot Cards

About the Author

I am Amanda Goldston. I am a Tarot Author and Coach, with over 16

I am the author of "Develop Your Intuition Through Tarot,” “Tarot

I am UK based with clients globally.

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

Tarot Cards consist of 78 pictures which encompass symbols, many of

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

Tarot Uses in Your Life and Business

Tarot can be very revealing when someone is struggling with a goal or a

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

There are several very different personalities to be found in the Major

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of these archetypes can

Future Outcomes and Empowered Decision Making

If the outcome is looking rather challenging, you have the opportunity to

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

By using the cards in these different ways, or combined together, a deck

What this book is and isn’t

I have seen many Tarot readers and teachers who seem to be on a

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

In a lot of ways, most people wanted more of a coaching experience,

As I started teaching people to read tarot cards, my students seemed to

Tarot can be a fantastic way for engaging in a deep, spiritual,

Whilst many decks of cards contain symbolism that has become

This book is designed as a practical guide in order to get practical

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

decisions. Empower yourself rather than relying on someone else’s

When someone asks a tarot reader, “what is going to happen?” the

How to use this book

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

They are included for FREE as part of this package.

Have fun and enjoy your Tarot Journey.

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com

Chapter One - Why Do You Want to Learn How to Read Tarot

The answer to this question is very important because it will determine

Or maybe you are fascinated by the historical symbolism of the tarot

It may be that you have a passion for a particular time in history, or a

Your choice of deck also depends on your experience as a tarot card

© 2012 Amanda Goldston All Rights Reserved http://www.LearnTarotOnline.com