multi-card tarot readings

Today on CARD TALK, I’ll cover:
-what i mean by multi-card tarot readings
-why multi-card readings are great
-when multi-card readings are useful
-who can do multi-card readings
-how to get started

Next Level Tarot: a new three-lecture series on multi-card tarot readings, spreads, and telling stories with your cards

For more on Meg, check out 3amtarot.com, and order your copy of Finding the Fool through Bookshop.org or your favorite local bookstore.

Find episode transcripts and more over on the CARD TALK website.

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Chapters

• 0:15 Multi-Card Tarot Readings
• 7:13 Optimizing Tarot Card Readings
• 16:05 Discover Your Tarot Reading Preferences

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

My name is Meg Jones-Wall and you're listening to Card Talk, a mini podcast for tarot basics and evergreen insights. I'm glad you're here. Basics and evergreen insights I'm glad you're here. In today's episode, we are going to be talking about multi-card tarot readings. Now, what do I mean by multi-card readings? I try to use language that's pretty self-explanatory on this podcast and just in my work in general, but just to make sure we are all on the same page, when I say multi-card readings, I mean any kind of tarot reading that involves pulling more than one card. As your response, this can mean tarot spreads, but it can also just mean pulling cards without a tarot spread. In a more open format. The specific format or style that you use for your reading, as well as the number of cards that you ultimately decide to pull, are different kinds of decisions that you can use when you're mapping out your reading ahead of time, and the next episode that I release is going to be all about spreads specifically, but in this episode, I really just want to talk more broadly about any time we're trying to use more than one card at the same time in our reading, because multi-card readings or going beyond the single card tarot reading tends to trip people up right. There's a lot of factors to keep in mind, and so in this episode, we're really just going to be speaking broadly about what you need to know to start diving into the world of multi-card tarot readings. Now, perhaps the biggest question that might come to mind first is why would we do this right? Why would we use more than one tarot card in our reading? And the truth is, you don't have to, right, you actually don't have to, and I'll talk a little bit more about this in a minute but we would really want to use more than one card when we need more nuance, when we're looking for more information. Anytime we're pulling more than one card, it's going to give us an opportunity to look at our question or our situation or our problem or our decision, or whatever we're pulling cards about through multiple lenses, because different cards can layer on one another. They can point things out within each other. We can dig into the relationship between the cards, the commonalities between the cards, the friction between the cards, and it just gives us a lot more to explore. Every additional card is going to add another layer of meaning or another insight or another perspective on whatever it is we're talking about Now.

Speaker 1: 2:31

I think that when we're getting started in a tarot practice, especially once we start to get comfortable with single card readings, moving to multi-card readings does feel like a kind of leveling up or an expansion of our existing practice, and I know that that's definitely how it felt for me. It felt like I needed to wait to reach a certain level of proficiency with tarot before I could really dig into multi-card readings. Now that didn't stop me from trying to do multi-card readings right away, but I did have this sensation that maybe I was doing something wrong. And I just am here to say you can do whatever it is you want. You can try different things out, you can see how they work. You don't have to earn a certificate or a status or a gold star or any kind of thing in order to start playing around with multi-card readings. And, especially if you're getting started, if you see people doing tarot readings on YouTube or on social media or in person, and you might feel like, damn, I want to be able to do that. That's hot, that's impressive, that's really cool and interesting. They're giving these really complex, layered readings. They're digging into something in a really granular way. They're getting all the support they're getting, all these insights. You might look at that and be like I want to do that too. I want to get to that place. You might look at that and be like I want to do that too. I want to get to that place. I think sometimes two multi-card readings or using big spreads or just pulling like 20 cards at a time, or whatever it is, can feel like a real mark of progress or a milestone in our practice, and so it can feel like something that we want to be able to prove, we can do, like a way of showing that we really are good at the tarot and I'm just using the biggest air quotes here Now I'm not just talking out of my ass here or trying to sound judgmental.

Speaker 1: 4:09

One of the first tarot readings that I did was a Celtic cross in like my second week of tarot reading, and it did not go well, not only because I just didn't even know very much about the tarot itself I was still figuring out the basics about the structure and the layout of the deck and because I didn't have a lot of experience with single card readings I just didn't even really know how to do a basic tarot reading for myself, but because I was completely overwhelmed by all of the cards, I couldn't remember what the positions were. I didn't even really understand what the positions meant. It was just it was a big old mess and it really confused me and honestly turned me off from using tarot spreads for a long time. It made me afraid to do multi-card readings in any way because I felt like I wasn't experienced enough and it meant that I hesitated from doing them for a really long time. Now I don't say any of this to warn you off from doing them, but I do just want to affirm that you don't have to do multi-card tarot readings before you're ready or ever.

Speaker 1: 5:05

If you love single card readings, keep doing them. Now I said I'd come back to this and I just want to emphasize that single card readings can be one of the most valuable, consistent and easy to do parts of your practice. It can be the bread and butter of your practice. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and doing single card readings doesn't mean that you're just always going to be stuck at like some beginner basic level. I have done really profound single card readings. I have received really profound single card readings.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Sometimes one card is really actually the appropriate format for your question and regardless of how many years of experience you might have under your belt when it comes to working with the tarot, don't discount those single card readings. Sometimes one card gets the job done, and why make things more complicated than they need to be? On the other hand, there's no prerequisite for multi-card readings. If you feel really good about them, if they feel really natural for you right from the beginning of your practice, that's honestly great and good and fine and wonderful right. You get to make your tarot practice your own and you get to decide for yourself when you want to try these out. And if you do try them out early and you have an experience similar to me, where it feels a little overwhelming, you're not sure you want to revisit it. I highly encourage you to try them again. Just maybe don't pull so many cards right. Sometimes a two card reading or a three card reading really is enough.

Speaker 1: 6:27

Now, I mentioned earlier that multi-card readings allow for a lot of nuance, and that might be why we want to use the cards. But when, specifically, are multi-card readings really helpful? Remember that multiple cards is really about receiving lots of information, and so multi-card readings are going to be the most useful when more information is going to be supportive. Now, that is important here, because we can always get more information on a situation, but sometimes that is going to be more helpful than other times. Right, if you were looking at a situation or you want to do a reading about something that feels complicated or that you are sure you want to address from multiple angles, a multi-card reading can really do the trick, and to my mind, that's kind of what they're designed for.

Speaker 1: 7:13

Let me give you an example. Let's say that you're trying to make a big decision about something in your life, right, it doesn't really matter what the thing is, but you're torn between two options and you've been weighing them back and forth, and you want to pull some cards to help you decide what to do. Now, there are a bunch of different ways you could go about this. Right, you could absolutely just ask your deck which thing should I pick? Which way should I go, which path should I choose? Shuffle the deck up and pull one card out and then interpret that card as directing you to one of the two options. You could make it that simple. You could instead also intentionally pull two cards and do one card for each option and interpret the cards that are showing up for each option as giving you insights or advice or feedback on what that option might look like, or something that you need to know about each path that you want to choose. So you could do a two card reading pretty easily for this, but you could also go bigger. You could do a three card reading and pull a card for each option and also pull a third card that offers some additional insights to consider overall. That tells you something else that you need to know, that acknowledges how you might be feeling or which way you might be leaning, or any number of other things, and so on and so forth. Right, you could pull as many cards for this as you wanted and you could use structure the way that I'm describing, having each card serve a really specific function, kind of like a spread. Or you could just decide that you want to pull a certain number of cards, pull them out and use them to tell a story based on what you think the tarot is communicating with you.

Speaker 1: 8:43

There are any number of ways that you could use the tarot to explore that decision and help you make a decision. All of these different formats, all of these different styles are going to give you support, right, they're going to help you figure this out. But using multiple cards is going to provide more information and it also gives the deck opportunities to support you in multiple ways. You get to decide what is going to suit your situation and your question the best. When you're doing a multi-card reading, it's really helpful to think about what is going to be supportive for you and really think about what you need in order to feel heard or seen or encouraged or inspired or challenged or advised or whatever it is you're looking for.

Speaker 1: 9:28

But anytime you're doing a tarot reading, but especially if you're pulling multiple cards, it is worth taking those extra moments to consider what's going to be useful for you and then think about is pulling multiple cards at a time going to be helpful in making sure I get what I need, or might it actually just be a distraction or make it harder for me to sift through what information the tarot is providing? So if you know that you want to try out a multi card reading but you haven't done them before, I highly recommend starting with just a two or three card reading. This could look like finding a spread that you think would be really fun to try out, or it could look like just starting to pull an extra second card in your single card readings. Everyone is different and you might be more confident reading a lot of cards than I was when I started out, but I think for most people, starting with less cards is going to be a little bit easier than diving headfirst into a massive reading. Now, again, you can do this in different ways, right, you can do it in a more open-ended way and just pull more than one card in response to whatever question you were going to ask anyway. But if you're intimidated by doing multiple cards, if you're stressed out about knowing what each card might be responding to or what it might be offering to you in a reading, I highly recommend using a two or three card tarot spread. It's just going to add some extra structure and help you understand what function each card is serving in the reading. Now, just like in our episode about single card readings, I think it's really important when you're pulling multiple cards to know what you're asking from the deck to either have a clear question, even if it's just something as simple as what do I need to know today, or to use again a spread or some kind of additional structure to help you understand what each card is doing in the reading right.

Speaker 1: 11:10

Every card you pull serves a purpose. It came forward for a reason, but sometimes untangling what each card is doing there, what it's trying to talk about, what it's trying to offer, can be a lot right and, especially when you're getting started, sometimes less is more here. Once you've figured out what you're asking, you have that clear question set up or you've chosen the spread that you want to use. You can shuffle your cards and pull them, and I really suggest moving slowly and thoughtfully here. You want to practice finding connections between the cards in a broad way, looking at the themes of the cards, the vibes, the numbers, the elements, each card's purpose, and also looking at the imagery on the cards themselves and finding different commonalities or themes between the pictures that you see on the cards. You can also think again about what each card brings to the reading and consider how each card is really working together to add depth to the exploration of your question.

Speaker 1: 12:06

If this is something that feels particularly interesting to you or that feels particularly fuzzy to you, you might want to revisit the episode that I did on card talk about weaving cards together, as that can help you figure out how to build connections quickly between your cards. But I also just want to offer that I recently released a intermediate tarot lecture series called next level tarot that is specifically designed to support you in multi-card readings and in spreads. You don't have to be a really experienced tarot reader to benefit from this series. I'm just calling it an intermediate tarot series because we're not going to cover, like, the structure of the deck or basic card meanings. We're instead going to be looking at how to weave cards together, how to build those connections, how to use spreads with confidence and how to navigate cards. In opposition is what I call it Cards that seem to contradict each other or that don't seem to make sense in your reading. So if that sounds appealing to you, if you could use more support around this it's packed with exercises and practices and just like all kinds of things to help you really develop your skills with multi-card readings you can check out next level tarot at 3amtarotcom Also.

Speaker 1: 13:12

My next episode is going to talk more in depth about tarot spreads. You can also just look forward to that. I always like to end these episodes with a tip or a trick, and so today I want to just remind you that there is a lot of wisdom in short and sweet tarot readings. More cards does not necessarily equal a better reading. Sometimes less really is more. Remember that every new card you pull is going to add another layer of meaning and another set of information, another piece of information, another nuance, another perspective that you are going to have to then figure out how to synthesize and how to process. So don't pull more cards than you need to just because it like makes you feel like a badass or because you think that you should be pulling a certain amount of cards. I've been reading for eight years now and most of the spreads that I write and use are between two and four cards. You really don't always need more than that and there can be a real benefit to being able to just hunker down with a couple of cards instead of feeling like you have to untangle 10 or 12 or 14 or whatever cards at a time. But longer readings can be great. They just need to have a purpose and every card needs to have a specific reason for being there. Otherwise, it can get really easy to be bogged down in contradictions or confusion and end up leaving your tarot reading feeling worse than when you started.

Speaker 1: 14:33

I don't want you to be frustrated by your tarot reading, so here are some different questions that you can use when you're trying to consider how many cards to pull for your reading. Think about what you're looking to receive. Do you want advice? Do you want support? Do you want encouragement? Do you need a kick in the ass? Do you need just some like bolstering? Do you need a pep talk? Do you need help making a decision Like what are you looking for from the cards? Then be really honest with yourself. How many cards do you think it's going to take to get what you need, right? What amount of cards is best suited to provide the kind of answer that you want in response to your question? If you know you want a robust pep talk, you might need a couple of cards, but you don't necessarily need 20, right?

Speaker 1: 15:18

It's also really worth being real with yourself about how many cards you can comfortably read at a time. Figure out what your limits are and how many cards actually feels like too many for you, and then pull a few less than that, right? This doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be rocket science. When I'm tired, I would much rather do a short reading than a long one, but sometimes I really want to sink down into a juicy reading and pull a bunch of cards and, like, spend an hour untangling it all. You can do both, but be real with yourself about your energy level, about your focus level, about your emotional tenderness and what's really going to actually support you in this moment.

Speaker 1: 15:53

I also highly suggest, even if you don't track your single card readings, to take some kind of record of your multi-card readings, even if it's just a couple short lines in a journal or a quick photo.

Speaker 1: 16:05

Pay attention to what functionally works for you in multi-card readings, whether you're using a spread or you just pull a couple of cards at a time.

Speaker 1: 16:13

The more you track what you do and the more you pay attention to what works for you and which readings feel really good, the more you'll start to understand your own preferences when it comes to the tarot. And not only is that going to empower you to craft new readings and develop the structures that work the best for you, but it's also going to help you build more confidence in your practice and feel more empowered every single time you reach for your cards. That's all I have for you today, but, as always, thank you so much for hanging out with me, and I will be back soon again with more Card Talk. Card Talk is committed to staying ad-free for everyone, which is possible thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. To pledge your monthly support or make a one-time donation, click the link in the show notes. You can also find episode transcripts, more about me and additional tarot resources through my website, 3amtarotcom. See you next time.