This section is the most important part of this book, because if you get the hang of this, you will have overcome most of your problems. Have faith in yourself, because it's not as hard as you think; just read through the hints, explanations, and instructions, work through the suggested exercises, and you will soon have it cracked! You will need to use the whole pack of cards with the Major and the Minor Arcana cards all mixed up together.
The following points will be very helpful to you:
1. Don't try to predict the future at this stage. Concentrate on picking up the Questioner's present situation. If the reading begins to drift into the future as you go along, that's great, but don't aim for it. Check your findings after the reading by asking your Questioner for some feedback.
2. Use your imagination. You may feel on occasion that you are simply making up a fairy tale rather than giving a reading, but don't be put off by this feeling, as you will find to your surprise that your story will ring true to your Questioner.
3. If you find yourself experiencing any kind of clairvoyant or psychic happening as you go along, don't try to fight it, but allow it to happen. You may literally see a situation in your mind's eye or you may get a strong impression about something that is occurring in the Questioner's life. When this happens, just go with the flow and allow anything that you feel is right to come out and be acknowledged. Any feedback that the Questioner gives you after the reading will almost certainly confirm that your feelings, etc. were right. Don't be inhibited by the thought of looking foolish—you may find yourself completely wrong on occasion, but more often than not, you will be right. This is one of the arguments in favor of learning and practicing in a group where you can all help and encourage each other.
Incidentally, even if you don't consider that you are using any psychic abilities, you probably are doing so without realizing it; therefore, I suggest that, right from the start, you get into the habit of closing down after each day's work. If you understand psychic techniques and are already using a method of closing that works for you, then please continue. If you are new to the idea of closing down, the easiest way to do this is to imagine yourself stepping into a sleeping bag and zipping it up around you and even over your head. This will protect you and your aura from unwanted vibes. A good shower or bath is also recommended, but you can save this until a bit later in the day when it's more convenient. Professional psychics are the cleanest people on earth, because they are always washing themselves.
4. Remember that your definition of any card is always the right one. You may begin to deviate from the standard Tarot interpretations as your readings progress. If a particular card or an accumulation of cards begins to mean something different to you than it does to everyone else, that is a good thing.
The following technique is astoundingly simple. Get together with your fellow Tarot students, or if there is nobody else around who is interested in learning the Tarot, persuade some friends to join in and help you.
Ask your first Questioner to shuffle the pack a little and to choose four cards at random. Then proceed as follows:
1. Lay all four cards out in a row in the upright position. (Don't even think about using reversed cards at this stage).
2. Take a look at the cards and assess the number of cards in each of the following categories:
| (a) | Major Arcana cards |
| (b) | Cup cards |
| (c) | Wand cards |
| (d) | Sword cards |
| (e) | Coin cards |
| (f) | Court cards |
Some of the cards will fall into two categories; for instance, the King of Cups is both a Cup card and a Court card.
3. If you pick four cards at random from a Tarot pack, the chances are that you will end up with one Major Arcana card and three Minor Arcana ones. The second most likely situation is two Major and two Minor cards. This is because there are twenty-two Major and fifty-six Minor Arcana cards in a pack.
4. Look at any Major Arcana cards that have been chosen and analyze them. This will give you the flavor of the reading. It will show you, for instance, whether the Questioner is happy or unhappy, going up in the world or going down, or whether her situation is stable or unstable. It won't tell you why she is unhappy, unstable, and so on, but the Minor Arcana cards will fill in those details.
5. Now look at the Minor Arcana cards and take a closer look at your Questioner's life in view of the additional information that these provide. If you are really short of an answer at this stage, try muttering the following words: Coins indicate resources and results, Cups denote feelings, Wands refer to day-to-day activities, and Swords suggest powerful ideas and worries, while Court cards relate to people.
6. Don't worry about the meanings of individual Minor Arcana cards at this stage.
Here we have The Sun, the Three of Swords, The Fool, and the Seven of Cups. The first step is to find any connection between any of the cards. In this case, there are two Major Arcana cards and two numbered Minor Arcana cards.
Now look at the two Majors and try to find the flavor of the reading. The Sun represents joy, happiness, success, and children, while The Fool represents a journey, a fresh start, and/or the beginning of an enterprise. Therefore, you as a Tarot Reader could arrive at any of the following conclusions (and probably one or two more of your own as well):
Another way of reading these two cards is to read them from left to right (most people take to this method of reading without being prompted, as it seems natural to do so).
Now let's look at the Minor Arcana cards and see which suits are represented.
Here we have the Knight of Swords, the Page of Coins, Justice, and the Six of Cups. First, look at your ratios and groupings. In this case, there is one Major Arcana card, which, being alone, is very powerful. There are two Court cards, which may or may not represent people, and there is one numbered Cup card.
Let's look at the Major Arcana card first. The key ideas are legal matters that produce a just result, fairness, an apology given or received, and also a restoration of balance and harmony. Therefore, we now know that the reading is about a real or supposed injustice of some kind.
The two Court cards suggest that other people are involved in this situation. The Knight of Swords card might represent a skilled and knowledgeable advisor, possibly even a professional lawyer of some kind, but it could just as well suggest strife and problems coming from an aggressive person. The Page of Coins suggests that the injustice is about money or some other kind of resource, or that someone may be behaving unfairly about money or resources. The Six of Cups shows that there is quite a lot of emotion being generated here.
Now try out some more four-card readings for your friends.