Now we come to our last lesson. We have seen what the Tarot is and what to do with it so now let’s look at what we do with it all. To start with, let’s state that it is impossible to give you definitive knowledge or answers that will tell you everything that you need to know to read the Tarot – this comes with time, practice, and experience so be patient with yourself! Ask your friends if you can read for them while you are learning – they will very rarely say "no"!

Reading the Tarot is an individual thing and there are as many different ways to do it as there are Tarot readers. This course has given you some pointers and guides to finding your own way and your challenge now is to put all that you have learnt together to produce a useful reading for people. So how do you do that when you’re faced with different cards in a spread, maybe all seeming to say different things or lots of things in different ways!

One of the first things to be aware of is that it can be easier to work with less cards than more. More cards in a spread will not necessarily mean more information – it can just be confusing! It is recommended then, especially until you get your confidence up, that you start with spreads that have fewer cards.

On that basis, let’s take an example, using our Diamond Spread again, as this is such a good spread for so many questions. Let’s suppose we are reading for a man who has worked as a Company Accountant for 20 years and is getting more and more bored and frustrated in his work. He has come to us to ask what he should do about his career. Here are the cards selected for his spread and the placing in the spread, as we know from the last lesson:

Card 1 – DEATH – Positive aspects, reasons for Yes
Card 2 – WANDS KNIGHT – Negative aspects, reasons for No
Card 3 – WANDS 10 – The past, what is behind them
Card 4 – WANDS 3 – The future, what is ahead of them

Let’s look at the cards one by one and see what they are telling our client. First, Death as a positive card; this would indicate that he needs a change, this being what the Death card is pointing towards – a deep rooted change at a fundamental level. This tells us he wants to change his career and that he would welcome something happening to force him into it, which with Death here could well happen if he does nothing. So we see the positive side to this card and now look to the negative with the Wands Knight. This is someone who rushes in without thought, acts on a whim or an impulse and often has anger. It tells us he is frustrated and needs to release this energy – Wands Knight is a fiery character with too much energy – he is an accountant sitting down all day – does he exercise or do anything physical – this would turn the negative here to a positive.