If you have just bought or been given your first pack of Tarot cards and don't know where to begin, read this section first. If you are a complete beginner, you will find that the booklet that accompanies your new deck of cards will give you a little basic information, but you will need something far more comprehensive than this. My book Fortune Telling by Tarot Cards is designed for beginners, and there are many other books on the market these days.
In addition to this, look around your neighborhood for classes, read the psychic magazines, and check out the Internet. You might gather a few friends together and approach your local Tarot Reader to see if he or she would be willing to teach you. You will also need to have a reading yourself from time to time, so that you can see how it works when done by an experienced professional Reader. In the meantime, try to ensure that you become reasonably familiar with the cards and their basic meanings as a foundation for future readings.
Simply handling the cards will begin the process of energizing or charging up; however, there are other ways of doing this. A Tarot Reader named Edward Ubels showed me the following method many years ago.
Take the new cards out of their packet and spread them out face upwards on a table or on the floor. Borrow an old pack of well-used Tarot cards from a very trusted friend and lay each card face down on its companion in the new deck. After this, ask for a blessing for the cards so that they will bring peace and healing to all those who look for their help and protection so that they won't pick up any unpleasant vibes along the way. After this, keep them safely in a box. Many people wrap their cards in silk to keep them protected from evil influencers. I keep mine in an Italian cigarette box and don't wrap them in anything.
You can give the cards to your Questioner to shuffle and then you can deal them straight off the top of the deck. Alternatively, you can ask him to cut the cards and then discard one half. He can cut them three times with the left hand, moving to the left, and then put them back together. You can even shuffle them yourself on behalf of your Questioner (this is very useful for readings that are carried out on the telephone). Try everything until you find the routine that suits you best.
A card can be chosen to signify a person or situation. The card choice is entirely personal.
It's not essential to learn the meanings of all the cards by heart just yet. Confine yourself to learning the Major Arcana and the underlying meaning of the four suits of the Minor Arcana without worrying yet about each individual card. Get some idea about the Court cards and, even at this early stage, begin to give some mini readings to your friends. Remember to be flexible in your reading of the cards and accept that your interpretation of each and every card will change slightly with every reading you do.
Don't focus too much on the meanings of reversed cards while you are just beginning to learn to read the cards. You may never use them, but you might need to look up the odd reversed meaning on occasion. For example, a reversed Court card suggests that the person is not helping the Questioner, while any reversed card can work against itself. As it happens, I use reversed cards quite a lot; many Tarot Readers do not.