Okay, so I have been curious about tarot for a while. Not in a ‘let me set up a velvet-draped table and speak in riddles’ kind of way — more in a ‘what is everyone actually doing with those cards’ kind of way.
Because tarot has had a serious image problem. Horror movies did tarot dirty for decades. The ominous music, the Death card, the cloaked stranger telling you your doom — none of that is really what tarot is about, and the gap between the Hollywood version and what people actually use these cards for is pretty significant.
What tarot actually is, for most people who use it, is a tool for slowing down and asking yourself some honest questions. That’s it. No crystal ball required.
What even are tarot cards?
Tarot is a deck of 78 cards, each with its own imagery, symbolism, and meaning — and it has been around in some form since the 15th century. Originally used for card games in Europe, the cards didn’t pick up their reputation for divination until the 18th and 19th centuries, when psychics started assigning meanings to each one.
The deck is split into two sections: the Major Arcana (22 cards covering big life themes — think The Moon, The Tower, The Lovers) and the Minor Arcana (56 cards split into four suits covering everyday situations). Each card has a meaning. Each position in a spread has a meaning. Put them together and you’ve got something to think about.
That’s honestly the core of it. It’s a structured way to reflect on what’s going on in your life.
Why do people actually use tarot?
Most people who use tarot regularly aren’t trying to predict the future — they’re using the cards as a mirror. You pull a card, you sit with it, and you ask yourself why it landed the way it did.
Some therapists have actually used tarot cards in sessions to help patients open up about fears and situations they wouldn’t otherwise name out loud. Pulling a Death card — which, by the way, almost never means actual death and usually signals transformation or an ending — can crack open a conversation about what you’re afraid to let go of. That’s useful. That’s real.
Tarot reading isn’t a replacement for therapy, and nobody with any sense is claiming it is. But as a daily check-in tool? It’s surprisingly solid. Better than doom-scrolling at 7am, that’s for sure.
Is tarot tied to a specific religion or belief system?
Not really, no. Most people who use tarot describe themselves as spiritual rather than religious, but you don’t have to be either. Plenty of fully secular, deeply skeptical people use tarot as a journaling prompt or a creative thinking tool.
The cards work because the imagery and archetypes they draw on — justice, the fool, the high priestess, the wheel of fortune — are universal enough that almost anyone can find something personally resonant when they pull one. Your brain does a lot of the work.
If you believe the cards are magic, great. If you think it’s just a structured way to get out of your own head for five minutes, that works too. I’ve talked to people on both ends of that spectrum and they all keep coming back to the cards. But what do I know?
A super short history of tarot (the useful parts)
European artists created the first tarot decks in 15th-century Italy, originally for games. The Visconti-Sforza deck — commissioned by a wealthy Milanese family — is one of the earliest surviving examples and it is stunning. Painted by hand. Gilded. Not exactly something you’d shuffle on your coffee table.
The deck that most modern tarot is based on came much later. In 1909, Arthur Edward Waite and illustrator Pamela Colman Smith published the Rider-Waite-Smith deck — the first to include detailed human figures on every single card, not just the Major Arcana. That was a huge deal. It made the cards readable by anyone, not just people who had memorized abstract symbol systems.
Over 100 million copies of Rider-Waite-Smith decks are still in circulation. Over a century later, that deck is still the gold standard starting point for beginners, and almost every other deck made since has been directly influenced by it. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the modern use of tarot for divination and personal reflection grew significantly through the 18th century esoteric revival in France.
What’s the best tarot deck for beginners?
Start with the Rider-Waite-Smith. Every card has a full illustrated scene on it — which means you can often intuit a meaning just from looking at the image, even before you crack open the guidebook. That matters a lot when you’re starting out and you don’t want to memorize 78 card meanings before you’ve even done your first reading.
There are beautiful modern versions of the RWS deck if the original art style isn’t your thing. The Everyday Witch Tarot, the Modern Witch Tarot, and the Light Seer’s Tarot are all RWS-based with updated, more inclusive imagery. Any of those work great.
The one thing I’d say about choosing a deck: don’t let the search for the perfect deck become the reason you never actually start. Pick one that doesn’t annoy you visually, and go.
How do you actually start reading tarot?
One card a day is the most beginner-friendly way to start, and also the most underrated. Pull a single card in the morning, write down what you notice about the image, look up the meaning, and then check back at the end of the day to see if anything clicked.
You don’t need a complicated spread to get something out of tarot. A three-card pull — past, present, future, or situation, action, outcome — is plenty to work with and will teach you more about how the cards interact with each other than any amount of reading about it will. I go deeper on that in my breakdown of how to read a three-card spread.
The other thing that helps a lot early on: keep a tarot journal. Even just a few sentences per card. Over time you’ll start to notice patterns — which cards keep showing up, which ones make you immediately uncomfortable, which ones you keep hoping to pull. That’s all useful information.
Do you have to be psychic to read tarot?
Absolutely not. This is the myth that keeps the most people from ever picking up a deck.
Tarot doesn’t require any special gift. It requires attention and honesty. You look at the card, you sit with what it brings up, and you’re real with yourself about it. That’s the whole skill. Anyone can do that.
The readers who seem ‘psychic’ have usually just spent a lot of time with the cards and gotten very good at asking the right questions. It’s pattern recognition and emotional intelligence, not supernatural ability. The more you practice, the more fluent you get — same as anything else.
What does the Death card actually mean?
Not death. Almost never literal death. This is the single biggest misconception about tarot and it’s responsible for so many people panicking mid-reading.
The Death card — card number 13 in the Major Arcana — typically signals transformation, an ending that makes space for something new, or a chapter of life closing. It’s actually one of the more hopeful cards in the deck once you understand it. The imagery usually shows something ending so that something else can begin.
Same goes for The Tower, which looks terrifying — a building struck by lightning — but usually just means a sudden disruption that clears something away. Uncomfortable? Yes. Devastating? Rarely. The cards that scare beginners most are often the ones pointing at things that need to change.
Tarot isn’t some secret art that only certain people get access to. It’s a deck of cards with really good questions built into it — and those questions are available to anyone willing to sit still long enough to ask them.
If you want to get started, grab a Rider-Waite-Smith deck and pull one card tomorrow morning. Don’t overthink it. The cards will meet you where you are.
Frequently asked questions
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