Tarot Interpretation: Four Beginner Mistakes You Should Avoid

Find out what those mistakes are… and make it easy on yourself.

The biggest mistake in tarot readings is to use tarot as something it is not: a tool to predict the future, or make decisions for you. Tarot is a tool to gain valuable insights and understand a particular situation better. Of course, you know that already, don’t you? I often see people enthusiastically begin with tarot yet they keep making the following mistakes time and time again.

Mistake No.1: Interpreting the Individual Cards

More often than not, people will interpret each individual card, instead of the pattern in the cards. This means you are stopping, and look at each card one by one, and take the card for its face value. Unfortunately, this method is not effective, since the cards do not have fixed meanings. Instead, you must focus on how the cards in the spread relate to one another, and how they relate to their position in the spread, to determine how it relates to the question.

Mistake No.2: Choosing a Complicated Spread

By choosing a complicated spread with many positions, and many cards, you will only make yourself jump back and forth through a book, among the possible interpretations for reach card and what each position signifies. This will make it difficult to pay attention to the reading itself, and you will need to depend on the book all the time. Until you feel comfortable with card meanings and performing readings, use simpler spreads, for example three card spreads like past-present-future.

Mistake No.3: Not Listening to Your Intuition

When you do not listen to your intuition, this means you are getting a strong feeling about something, and you choose to ignore it. Then you proceed to interpret the cards with it’s “proper meaning”, or the book definition for the card. You could also run into the problem of analyzing each card in detail, and then weigh each possible interpretation, causing you to get caught up in the details. Thus, preventing you from seeing the whole picture, as well as the “unimportant” details, like the unexplained reaction you get out of the blue when picking a card. You should really be actively paying attention to each such reaction to the cards. This is your subconscious trying to signal you to pay attention to something.

Mistake No.4: Reading the Cards Several Times for the Same Question

Reading the cards several times for the same question will only cause you frustration and confusion. If you are really unsure about the answers you got from the reading, you can pick an additional card or two when you need further clarification for a position in the spread, or the whole reading. When beginning with tarot, try to avoid the mistakes discussed above. At the same time, do not be afraid to make mistakes. The most important important thing is to learn to read the cards and have fun. To learn how to do tarot readings check THIS section of the website.