Tarot card reading online with decks by independent artists. This site was developed by tarot creators for visitors who wish to read their own cards online. Do a free reading now with the simple form below. A fine selection of seven decks is available, which can be used with seventeen spreads courtesy of Tarotsmith.
1. symbolically explicit art dealing with archetypes, characters, situations and pips, as found in the tarot deck
2. art and written works dealing with the tarot
3. the collection of virtual tarot decks available to read with on this website
How to Read Your Tarot Cards
Even without any experience reading tarot cards, reading your own cards is fairly easy. Tarot reading is similar to other forms of divination, such as dream interpretation: something people may do without even realizing they are doing a form of divination. The most important thing about reading is what the imagery means to you. Typically, a reader asks a question and lays out the appropriate spread, a set of cards arranged in a particular pattern, which answers the query with symbolic art designed to trigger certain thoughts and feelings.
When a person first learns to read tarot cards, it is not crucial to memorise the card meanings right away. What is important is to be open to the messages that come to you, free to accept the messages regardless of whether they are positive or negative. If the artwork on a card seems confusing, the accompanying text description should give you a pretty good hint as to what the card means. With practice, a reader comes to know the tarot deck by heart, like second nature. Of course, there are many decks by many artists, and each varies in structure both on the individual card level and as to the way the deck is organized as a whole.
Many readers like to become highly familiar with a few of their favourite decks rather than using many different decks, as there are well over a thousand decks today. The most common deck to learn first is the Rider Waite Smith, which was stripped of much of the old-school Golden Dawn symbolism in favour of easy-to-read picture scenes. Most modern decks follow the simplistic RWS structure, which does not require the reader, or even the deck creator, to spend a lot of time learning centuries-old symbolism and deck mechanics as in the traditional occult methods. A great way to begin learning how to read the cards is to do Majors-only readings until comfortable enough to move on to the full 78-card deck.