The Psychological Tarot Spread is one especially designed to help you differentiate an actual situation or problem from your personal feeling. Sometimes our fears and hopes totally distort our reality, making it difficult to see clear and make reasonable decisions. By following this tutorial, you will learn how to compare the way a situation is perceived versus how it really is.
To many people, Tarot is a fortune telling tool and nothing more. But Tarot is of course so much more than that. While you can answer specific questions and foresee the future if your reading is sharp enough, you can also use the Tarot as a great coaching tool to understand your own personality. The Tarot can open a window to your soul to reveal things that would otherwise stay hidden or misunderstood.
Some spreads are purely psychological and dive deep into the emotional world of the consultant. They can reveal wounds of the past, fears that paralyze, problems that have been left unsolved. Long before psychology even existed, Tarot readers served as guides to enlighten and help people understand themselves and the direct world around them. I never do a full session without examining the past and the present worries of a sitter. This is an essential part of a Tarot reading.
To illustrate this power of the Tarot I wanted to share one spread I use to uncover the emotional state and understand the psychological behaviour of my sitters. I have to say, this is not exactly a beginner’s spread and I would advise it for readers of intermediate to advanced levels.
This spread can help someone tremendously as it shows the difference between the actual facts of a situation, the way things are being perceived and how the perception and the facts will both serve the possible outcomes. This is a spread that you can of course do for yourself as long as you try to stick to the meaning of the cards without letting your own knowledge influence you too much.
To realize this spread you will need the entire deck with both major and minor cards.
First, mix the major arcana and then the minor one separately.
Choose 5 cards of the major arcana and spread them next to each other to create the first row of the spread as on the picture above.
Then choose 15 cards from the minor deck and create 3 more rows as shown on the picture. Spread your cards from left to right, going down.
You will have then 5 columns and 4 rows just like on the picture above. Each to be read separately and then compared.
Start by reading the major cards on row 1 to discover the situation as it really is. Then read column 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Column one shows your emotional state. Column 2 shows your behaviour, which is directly linked to these emotions. Column 3 reveals the origin of the situation/problem. Column 4 is all about the solution(s) and where help can be found. Column 5 shows the outcomes to be expected from this whole situation including the reality of things and how the situation is managed and perceived.
You can then compare the rows and columns to clarify what is really happening, what the consultant is feeling, where the perception becomes problematic and what possible outcomes must be expected. This will serve as a guiding session and when necessary as a warning session if the consultant’s emotional world is too distant from reality, which can lead to irrational thinking and bitter mistakes.
Tip: If you do this spread for someone else, make sure you are very careful and thorough when explaining the cards. Always choose your words carefully to tell the truth without hurting anyone’s feelings. Even if your Tarot reading skills are strong you could always make a mistake, listen to your instinct and listen to the other person.
If you are reading this spread for yourself, try to keep as much distance as possible and take some notes. Some messages or significations might come to you hours after the reading and reveal important things to you. So make sure you can remember the cards you had and what you felt while analyzing them.
