The querent’s hands hover over the deck. They have been told to touch the cards, to let their fingers move across the backs as if brushing dust from a manuscript. The room is quiet except for the soft slap of card against card. We wait. Then the querent cuts the deck, pushes one pile toward us, and the session truly begins.
A tarot session is a structured divinatory encounter where a reader uses a 78-card deck to explore a question or situation through symbolic interpretation. The session involves shuffling, cutting, laying out cards in a predetermined spread, and reading each position in relation to the others, all within a container of focused intent and ethical boundaries. What follows is not a script but a living framework, one that has been refined over centuries.
Where Did the Tarot Session Come From?
Tarot cards first appeared as playing cards in northern Italy during the mid-15th century. The Visconti-Sforza decks, painted around 1440 for Milanese nobility, had no divinatory function. They were used for a game called tarocchi, a trick-taking game akin to bridge.
The shift from game to oracle began in the late 18th century. In 1785, Jean-Baptiste Alliette, writing under the pseudonym Etteilla, published the first dedicated tarot divination manual. He inverted the traditional order of the Major Arcana, assigned astrological and Egyptian associations (many of them invented), and prescribed specific spreads and meanings. Etteilla’s sessions were lengthy, didactic affairs, with the reader assuming the role of a priest-like interpreter.
The next major transformation came with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888. Golden Dawn members, including S.L. MacGregor Mathers and Arthur Edward Waite, systematized tarot correspondences: the Hebrew alphabet, the Tree of Life, planetary hours, astrological decans. Waite’s partner, Pamela Colman Smith, illustrated the Rider-Waite-Smith deck in 1909, the first deck to depict scenic Minor Arcana. That deck made reading intuitive. The session evolved from a scholar’s ritual into a portable conversation.
By the mid-20th century, tarot sessions had moved from occult lodges to living rooms, cafes, and eventually screens. The structure, however, remains remarkably stable: a reader, a querent, a deck, and a question.
What Actually Happens Inside a Session?
A session has three phases: opening, reading, closing. Each carries its own weight.
Opening. We prepare the deck before the querent arrives. This might mean a brief cleansing (passing the deck through incense smoke, tapping the edges on the table to clear residual energy) or simply a moment of silence to center our attention. When the querent sits, we explain the process: they will shuffle while holding their question, cut the deck, and then we will lay the cards. We do not predict. We do not promise certainty. The boundary is set.
Shuffling and cutting. The querent shuffles. We ask them to think of the question — or, if no specific question exists, to let the deck reflect what needs to be seen. Some readers ask the querent to cut with their left hand, the hand traditionally associated with receptivity. Others let them cut with whichever hand they choose. The cutting is a physical choice that marks the deck as belonging to that moment.
Laying the spread. The spread is the map. The three-card spread (past, present, future or situation, action, outcome) is the most common for beginners. The Celtic Cross, a ten-card layout formalized by Waite, remains the most iconic. Each position has a fixed meaning: the center represents the present, the crossing card represents obstacles, the base represents foundations, and so on. We place each card face down in its position, then turn them in order.
Interpreting. This is the heart of the session. We read each card individually, noting its suit, number, figure, and imagery. Then we read across positions: how does the past card connect to the present? Does the obstacle card reinforce or contradict the base? We look for patterns, multiple Cups suggest emotion, multiple Swords suggest conflict or clarity. Reversals (cards appearing upside down) are read either as blocked energy, internalized meaning, or simple counterbalance. We speak in a calm, factual tone, offering observation rather than decree.
Closing. We summarize the narrative the cards have built, then ask: does this resonate? We leave the querent with actionabil questions, not prophecy. The deck is gathered, sometimes tapped again to clear it. The session ends with a threshold: the querent leaves, the cards wait for the next.
How Does the Spread Shape the Reading?
The spread is not a container, it is a lens. The same five cards can tell wildly different stories depending on where they land. In a three-card past-present-future spread, the Death card in the past position suggests a transformation already completed. In the future position, it warns of an ending yet to face.
Waite’s Celtic Cross remains the standard for in-depth sessions, but many readers use custom spreads. A relationship spread might have positions for the querent, the partner, the dynamic, and the lesson. A career spread might map current role, hidden factors, opportunities. The key is clarity of position meaning. Vagual positions produce vagual readings.
Some traditions, particularly those rooted in the Marseille deck, read the cards as a sentence: the left card modifies the card to its right, the center card is the subject. This syntactic method, favored by French cartomancers like Jodorowsky and Camoin, treats the spread as a single visual phrase.
What Role Do the Querent and Reader Play Together?
The session is a collaboration. The querent brings the question, their energy, and their willingness to engage. The reader brings technique, vocabulary, and neutrality. A reader who imposes their own biases, such as reading the High Priestess as “you’re hiding something” when the card actually suggests intuition, is doing a disservice.
Etteilla insist that the reader act as a “translator between heaven and earth.” The Golden Dawn took a more psychologal view: the cards mirror the querent’s subconscious. Carl Jung, who corresponded about tarot indirectly through the work of his colleague Jolande Jacobi, saw the archetypes of the Majoe Arcana as representations of the collective unconscious. A session, in that framework, becomes a form of active imagination.
Modern readers often blend these approaches. We neither claim to channel spirits nor pretend the cards are random. We treat the session as a structured conversation where symbols do the heavy lifting.
Comparing Tarot Sessions to Other Divination
Unlike rune readings, where each symbol has a fixed cluster of meanings, tarot cards carry layered associations that shift with context. A rune session often involves drawing a single rune or a short sequence, with less emphasis on positional meaning. Tarot’s spread architecture is its unique feature.
Compared to I Ching coin tosses, tarot allows for more narrative freedom. The I Ching delivers a specific hexagram with a judgment and commentary; there is room for interpretation, but the text is fixed. Tarot cards are images, and the reader’s eye can zero in on a detail, the winged cup in the Four of Cups, the distant mountains in the Hermit, that no book can prescribe.
Oracle cards, which lack the structured 78-card system, offer more flexibility but also less depth. Tarot’s 78 cards form a closed system of correspondences, one reason it has sustained four centuries of practice.
Common Misconceptions About Tarot Sessions
“Tarot predicts a fixed future.” It does not. Every card is a snapshot of current energies, tendencies, and choices. The future moves with each decision.
“You need psychic powers to read.” Some readers identify as psychic. Many do not. The skill is symbolic literacy, not clairvoyence.
“Death means you will physically die.” Death is the trump of transformation, of endings that make way for new cycles. In twenty years of sessions, we have never seen it predict an actual death.
“You can not read your own deck.” You can. Self-readings are common and valuable. The challenge is objectivity, not out-of-bound rules.
FAQ
Do I need a specific question for a tarot session?
No. An open session, “what do I need to know right now?”, works well. A focused question sharpens the reading but is not required.
Can I have a tarot reading online?
Yes. Remote readings rely on the same structure: shuffling, intent, and interpretation. Many readers use video calls or send recorded interpretations. The connection is one of focus, not physical proximity.
What if I draw a “scary” card like the Tower?
The Tower represents sudden disruption, but disruption clears the ground. It is not a curse. We explain its constructive side: a wall that falls was blocking the light.
How often can I have a session?
As often as you choose. Some people space sessions months apart to let changes settle. Others use weekly readings as a reflective practice. There is no rule.
The session ends when the cards are gathered and the querent has their interpretation. The deck returns to its box, the room resets. If you are new to tarot, start with the mechanics: how to shuffle, how to cut, how to lay a three-card spread. Then let the images speak. For more on the foundation of this practice, see our guide on the history of tarot decks and our glossary of tarot symbolism. The full arc of this branch of knowledge lives in our tarot vertical hub.