How to Prepare for a Tarot Reading: Simple Tips 

You’ve scheduled your appointment, made the date, and now you’re trying to figure out how to prepare for a tarot reading.  

Most of your preparation will be internal; you’ll need to make some mental shifts before heading out to work with someone who lives largely in a spiritual, universal space.  

You must open yourself up in ways you may have never thought possible, and the joy in this journey is that the tarot reading, if done right, will likely help you open up even more.  

The History of Tarot 

The first and most important lesson in a tarot reading is to grasp that fact that tarot cards are divination tools that many of us in the spiritual world have accepted as powerful, but tarot cards could be any cards. They could be runes, they could be oracle cards, they could be tea leaves, or they could be a common deck of 52 cards.  

In fact, tarot cards were once just that – playing cards used by wealthy people. They originated in Italy in the 1500s with a game called tarocchi, and spread throughout Europe. They were hand painted, which is what made them pretty exclusive to the rich.  

It was not until the 1700s that French occultists began using the cards for divination, which led to a more elaborate deck, with additional cards and custom artists crafting beautiful depictions to match readings.  

Then, along came a man named Jean Baptiste Alleitte, also known as Etteilla, who popularized the tarot deck as a divination tool.  

He is credited with building the deck up to its current 78 cards and drawing references from the ancient Egyptian mystical Book of Thoth.  

It would be another hundred years before Aleister Crowley devised the Rider-Waite deck that is the most commonly used today.  

The most critical piece of information we have about the tarot deck is that it has evolved under the guidance of deeply spiritual people with an intense esoteric knowledge of the mystical arts. Tarot has changed people’s lives over time and helped deepen their relationship with their higher consciousness.  

Tarot, at its best, opens us up, when we allow it to, to thinking bigger than our tiny miseries and mini complaints.  

How to Prepare for a Tarot Reading 

To that end, whether you are reading your own tarot cards or going to a professional reader, or even allowing a novice in training to perform a reading for you, the best thing you can do is be open.  

Open yourself up to what is possible.  

Open your heart to the Universe.  

Open your mind to expand your beliefs, unlearn your conditioning, and challenge your stuck in place stories.  

Beyond that, there are a few other things you can do to prepare for a tarot reading.  

Meditate 

You should always meditate before a reading so you know you have cleared your mind, opened up all your chakras, and opened up your connection to your source,  

Remember, you have a direct line of communication to the divine just like your reader does, but sometimes a reader is just better able to interpret what she reads, while you may have blocks based on your conditioning that won’t let you open up fully.  

Meditation helps facilitate this opening up better and will help your reader see your spirit more clearly.  

After all, your reader is not simply reading cards. She is a line of communication between you and the Universe.  

You can shut it down, disbelieve it, and close it off.  

Or you can accept, allow, and surrender.  

I recommend meditation every day for at least a week before you go to a reading so you can ensure you are softer, lighter, gentler of spirit before you sit down and ask someone else to communicate with God for you.  

Journal 

After each morning meditation, allow your thoughts to flow freely onto a page. Sit for several minutes and free write whatever comes to your mind.  

This process could be an emptying of your troubles that you need to release or a clarifying around an issue you want to dig into but have not quite figured out how.  

Take several deep breaths, inhale positive energy, and get to the heart of the reason you are seeing a tarot reader in the first place.  

If you do this long enough, you may find that you don’t need a tarot reader after all.  

After all, you are the spell, as we say in the world of witchcraft.  

You already have all the answers you need inside of you.  

Abraham Hicks is fond of saying to people who want to be teachers, healers, readers, “good for you. But do realize that those people you want to help, each one of them, has an inner guide, a higher consciousness, Source Energy, raining down love and communication on them all day every single day. If they are not listening to their own infinitely wise inner voice, what makes you think they will listen to you.”  

So be clear: you already have an inner voice that can answer your questions for you. You don’t need a tarot reader.  

But sometimes, it helps to have a little encouragement from someone further along in their spiritual journey to get us to open up.  

Have a Specific Question 

It will help your reader tremendously to give you that encouragement if you go in with a specific question.  

Sure, you can simply go in for a broad reading, but a broad reading can be interpreted in so many ways that it can quickly go awry and leave you feeling more frustrated than when you walked in.  

Remember, your reader is only one person with a clearer connection to the divine. She is not a god any more than you are.  

Don’t expect too much.  

Allow the Answer to Be General 

Which leads to the next tip – allow your reader to give you broad, general answers as to how you may proceed into a life of joy and abundance.  

She will be working with divine forces, a tarot deck, and potentially a closed off client. Give her some leeway.  

Don’t be afraid to ask for clarification but be sure to allow for an open interpretation of her reading.  

Remember, the universe does not speak in omens, cautions, or fear.  

Those emotions are purely human, so if you get those in your reading, they are coming from you or your reader, not the divine.  

Take Notes 

Be sure to bring a notebook so you can take extensive notes on the cards your reader draws, on the words she speaks to you, and on your understanding of those words in the moment.  

It helps a lot to be able to revisit those notes later in the day or even the week to see how it comes to light with a clearer mind.  

Patient and Open Mind 

The Beatles said it, and I’ll say it, “let it be.”  

It is, after all, just a tarot reading, not the end of the world, not doom and gloom, not rainbows and butterflies forever more.  

It is you and another human with a deck of cards sitting and working to communicate with the divine.  

Even the best tarot reader is still human and will be working to open you up just as much as she is working to open up lines with the Universe.  

Consider the Source 

This advice is perhaps the most important of all.  

You must always consider the fact that any tarot reader, witch, tea leaf interpreter, crystal worker, medium, or channel is still just a human.  

We are flawed, we interpret through our own lens, and we have not ascended to the great beyond to our space of infinite wisdom quite yet.  

So our view, even at its most grand, enlightened, and peaceful, will still be limited.  

I had a reading with a medium friend I know to be one hundred percent legit who read me about a year ago and told me I needed to urgently look into nervous system disorders like MS or Parkinson’s.  

I had been experiencing some panic attacks and anxiety, and I had been worrying myself that I had some kind of nervous system disorder.  

Of course, I did not say anything to her, so when she read that in me, for a moment, I freaked out.  

“Confirmed!” I heard the voice in my head say.  

Later, my inner voice soothed me.  

“Of course, she read that in you. That’s your fear. She read your fear, not a universal communication.” It said to me, calmly and with love.  

Oh. Yea.  

I did see a doctor a few weeks later who did all my blood work and labs, gave me a full physical and diagnosed me with… anxiety.  

She told me to see a massage therapist and practice relaxation techniques.  

Considering the source when we deal with a life issue, or an intimate experience is critical in our current situation.  

We have to understand that we are human and so is our tarot card reader. It is a good idea to take it all very lightly.  

The best way to handle even the best reading for your first time is to prepare for your tarot spreads with a list of questions that are specific, an open mind, an expectation of good news, and an openness to this sacred space.  

Each tarot session will be unique to the reader and the client, and you must realize that your free will is the most powerful force in that room.  

While there are many different ways professional tarot readers interpret each single card, when you are in your calm, quiet place, with the right mindset, the divine is speaking directly to you, and often through your reader.  

But you must always trust your own intuition in the world of psychic readings.  

Significant changes occur little bit by little bit, and good things come to those who expect them to. It’s that simple.  

Happy manifesting!