Tarot Reading for Beginners: A Simple Step-by-Step Guide (VIDEO)

New to tarot? This beginner-friendly guide — in an 8-minute video — walks you through how to do your first tarot reading, step by simple step.

If you’ve ever been curious about tarot but didn’t know where to begin, you’re in the right place.

There’s a lot of information out there about tarot readings — and it can feel overwhelming pretty quickly. So I’ve created this simple, beginner-friendly video to help you get started with confidence. It walks you through everything you need to know to do your first reading, without the confusion.

Below the video, you’ll also find a detailed breakdown of the 7-card spread I like to use, plus a written summary of the steps so you can refer back to it anytime. Tarot is one of those beautiful practices you can spend a lifetime exploring — but every journey starts with a single card. Let’s begin!

How to Do a Tarot Reading

1. Relax and center your mind. Call on the Divine in a way that feels powerful for you. Ask for and envision a circle of protective light around yourself.
2. Ask a question in an open ended way that will help you gain insight into the situation you’d like guidance on.
3. Shuffle the deck. 
4. When you intuitively sense it’s time to stop (you can’t go wrong), stop. If you’d like to, cut the deck once or twice.
5. Lay the top 7 cards out, left to right. When you’re first getting started, don’t worry about reversed cards. Just turn them all so they’re facing up.
6. Look at each card. From left to right, the cards are: past, present, future, advice, people, obstacles, outcome. Use the guidebook that comes with your tarot deck to learn the meaning of each card and consider how it corresponds with each designated position in the spread. Below, you’ll find more insight into each card position.

The 7-Card Tarot Spread

1. Card 1 is the past: factors, patterns, and conditions that have contributed to the object of your inquiry.
2. Card 2 is the present: what you are feeling or experiencing now.
3. Card 3 is the future: the natural evolution of the current conditions as they stand.
4. Card 4 is advice: guidance or insight into how to best move forward.
5. Card 5 is people: the people or person who is contributing to or helping perpetuate the condition or challenge.
6. Card 6 is obstacles: what you are learning or overcoming in order to move through this challenge.
7. Card 7 is outcome: the natural evolution of the current patterns of energy at work, or the way things are likely to go if you make the choice you are inquiring about.

Please share your questions and thoughts below!