Open any book on the tarot and you will find tarot spreads. In fact many authors have attempted to collect spreads like one collects trading cards, or stamps, and compile them in a book as if there was one right spread for every occasion. This is one of the things that limits tarot learning and confuses students. While it is good to see what other people think makes a good card layout, the sheer assault on the senses of hundreds of spreads tends to paralyze the average reader or force them to retreat into the spreads they know that work for them.

I invite you to learn new tarot spreads, casually perusing the various offerings and spread variations offered by authors who come from different parts of the world and different backgrounds, but I want you to remain skeptical at all times. I do not want you to join the ranks of overwhelmed tarot students and readers who have been bludgeoned to death with far too much useless information.

The term “information paralysis” refers to a state where one is so saturated with data (data=information; and not necessarily “useful information”) that one cannot make forward progress. Information paralysis becomes toxic mental stress overload and the body reacts violently, shutting out all external awareness to “flush the toilet” of crap that has been crammed into your conscious awareness.

Don’t do this to yourself. Have a handful of spreads that you have tried and found to work for you. In The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot—EVER!! I have given you a short ensemble of basic spreads that are easy to learn and real workhorses. They will serve you well over the years. You may use these or ignore them, but find a collection of spreads that is roughly similar to what I offer: a handful of 1, 2, and 3 card spreads, a good Celtic Cross variant, and at least one form of astrological spread. These will handle any situation you encounter; remembering that you can always open cards up or extend a reading.

Trying to build an overly large collection of spreads or inventing new ones to be cool is a recipe for disaster. If you want to design your own spreads that is fine but learn and master some basic spreads first or you will just be another pedestrian reader, and we have far too many of them as it is.

So . . . which spread is right for the occasion? What spread should you use when _____? Let’s start with the smallest spreads and discuss their best uses and add cards and see when larger and larger spreads are more effective. A word of advice here however: Spreads can become ineffectual when you try to use too many cards. When you start creating spreads that are over 12 cards for the initial layout (this does not include shuffled and focused on clarification cards or extenders) you are requiring that every card be just right.

Spreads are based on random probability enhanced by “divine intervention” in direct proportion to your skill and attention level. If you are untrained, or worse unfocused, you will get truly random cards that are nowhere near accurate no matter how you try to twist their meanings.The more cards you add to the initial cast, the more likely that some cards will be wrong.

A 1, 2, or 3 card spread with a good clear focus can be highly accurate as you only need to get one answer to one question about one thing. You can do one card readings all day long in the course of an overall reading. This requires great sensitivity and focus, and frequent reshuffling of the deck, but it is an acceptable method of divination that has worked for tens of thousands of readers.

When you add more cards to a spread you clarify the answers you do get, allowing for greater finesse and detail. This all works to a point. After that you start to muddy the waters. “More” is not always “better.”

One-card spreads are great for simple answers of quickie clarifications. Yes/no, did he/didn’t he, or any variation of a yes or no question. These are also great to subtly indicate whether your querent/client is telling the truth or not. If you hear something that sounds suspicious as they are talking casually draw a card from the middle of the pack. Know in advance what your qualifications are: reversed means a lie, or Swords or Wands means they are lying; whereas a “major” Arcana can mean that they don’t really know what they are talking about or are missing too many facts for their opinion to be correct. Whatever you choose—be consistent. You can’t change the rules in the middle of a reading. Well, you can, but you risk becoming so chaotic that the answers you get are random and unreliable.

One-card spreads are best for simple, hard choices, or completely trivial matters. They do not offer depth or explanation of their reasoning. They are alike a traffic signal: Go. Stop. “Why?” Because it is the law. Do not question the law. Don’t rely on one-card spreads to give you in-depth answers. 

Trust in your larger spreads and take the time to do them. Also, don’t put too much faith in one-card spreads. I see a lot of information on the internet, mostly copied from a book out of context and with no quality explanation, that you “should draw one tarot card every day to see how your day is going to go.” Okay, let’s do that. Today you get The Devil. Tomorrow you get the Tower. The next, Death, and after that Judgement.

Hmmm . . . really? Okay so your week is going to suck that bad? Unless you line in a war-zone it is highly unlikely those cards will be correct and the dominant force in the day’s activities. And what if you got The Lovers of the Nine of Cups (“the wish card”) and your day completely sucked?

You put yourself under tremendous stress when you draw a card for the day and expect to receive that energy, whether it is good or bad. If you must draw one card every day (and this is not a bad idea in and of itself) do it as an exercise. Use that card throughout the day to apply to things. Casually look around and see if that card matches anything you see on the news or in passing. Don’t look at the tarot as fatalistic but as a way of describing events of the day.

Three-card spreads may be the most useful-mini-spreads ever invented. Four and five card spreads just can’t compete with these powerhouses of information. The combine simplicity with just enough depth to round out information and give you the answers you seek. You can use them in a linear fashion (this THEN that THEN that over there) or you can blend them, have two gang up on one for an industrial strength “this versus that” spread where one card acts alone or “against the group” or is ganged up on. These are all choices you make before you throw the cards.

Look in The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot—EVER!! for a good selection of three-card spreads, including the exercises I give. The book Power Tarot has a decent selection of possible three-card spreads you may like. Be picky. Choose no more than two or three to use. Note how I keep you flexible by showing you HOW to combine three cards into various spreads rather than give you a pre-set “here’s a spread—use it” dogmatic formula. Don’t get sucked in by anyone’s spread and force yourself into a box of having to make yourself fit their spread. Do what works for you. All the rest is commentary.

When to do a “big-spread” or a Celtic Cross or astrological spread. Your most commonly-used spreads for paying clients and close friends will be either a variation of the Celtic Cross or an astrological spread. Either of these spreads provide a good “all around” view of the situation at hand.

I can already hear groans at the word astrological and I can see attention-spans darting away in search of ice cream.

An “astrological spread” has very little to do with actual astrology. It is simply an arrangement of cards in a circle where you have twelve card positions.

These positions can indicate hours of a day (each card gets two hours), months of the year, seasons (each season gets three cards), or the astrological signs or houses. The song remains the same. The cards are the cards. The card positions simply relate to events or situations that correspond to an astrological blueprint. Astrological spreads (in all of their variations) work. They work very well and you don’t need to know astrology to use them. 

In The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot—EVER!! I introduce you to a simplified astrology spread for the non-astrologer called the roundabout spread. It gives you basic instructions, like this is what you have, this is what other people have (and you may need), this is what your friends think, and so on.

These all are rooted in deep astrological study but they are superficial meanings that allow you to give extremely reliable readings without having to study astrology like I do. Similarly an astrological spread (twelve cards in a circle) that is a “one year spread”

—Dusty