Reading tarot is simpler than the mystery suggests. You need a 78-card deck, one open question, and the habit of looking at the picture before the book. Shuffle, pull a single card, say what you see, then check its meaning. That is a real reading. Spreads and reversed cards come later, one small step at a time.
🔮 Tarot is a reflective practice, not a forecast. The cards are not a doctor, a lawyer or a bank. They are 78 small pictures that give your thoughts somewhere to land.
✨ What is in a tarot deck?
Every standard tarot deck has 78 cards, and they split into two families.
The Major Arcana are the 22 big-picture cards: the Fool, the Magician, the High Priestess, the Lovers, Death, the Moon and their friends. Tradition reads them as the large chapters of a life. When one turns up, the theme is bigger than this week.
The Minor Arcana are the other 56 cards, in four suits of 14. Each suit runs from Ace to Ten, then adds four court cards: Page, Knight, Queen and King. These are the everyday cards: moods, choices, money, an ordinary Tuesday.
| Suit | Element | Everyday theme |
|---|---|---|
| Wands | Fire | Energy, drive, creative projects |
| Cups | Water | Feelings, relationships, intuition |
| Swords | Air | Thoughts, words, hard decisions |
| Pentacles | Earth | Money, work, home, the body |
You do not need to hold all 78 in your head. Our tarot card meaning finder lists every card, upright and reversed.
🌙 How do you do your first tarot reading?
Tonight, with the deck you have. No incense required.
- Settle. Sit somewhere quiet, hold the deck for a moment, and take three slow breaths.
- Ask. Say one open question out loud. "What do I need to see about work this week?" works. "Will I get the job?" does not, because a picture cannot answer yes or no.
- Shuffle. Overhand, or swirl the cards on the table. Stop when it feels done and cut the deck once.
- Pull. Take the top card, or fan the deck and slide out whichever card catches your eye. Turn it face up.
- Read. Describe the picture before you touch a book. Who is in it? What are they doing? Then look up the meaning and see how the two match.
When one card feels easy, try three. Lay them left to right as past, present, future, or the situation, what helps, what to let go. Read each card alone, then the row as one short story. Our five tarot spreads for self-discovery take it from there.
💎 Which tarot deck should a beginner buy?
Buy a Rider-Waite-Smith deck, or a deck built on its pictures. Nearly every guidebook describes those images, so your learning matches your cards. Save the art deck for your second.
Three questions settle it:
- Where will you read? A full-size deck suits a table at home. A pocket or miniature deck fits a handbag.
- Do the pictures feel kind? Some readers find the classic Death and Tower cards heavy. The Angel Wisdom Tarot keeps the 78-card structure and softens the imagery; the Light Seer's Tarot retells the same archetypes in a warm modern style.
- Deck or set? A bare deck is cheaper. A set adds a real guidebook, which most beginners need.
Torn between tarot and an oracle deck? Our guide to oracle cards vs tarot settles it in five minutes.
What a first tarot deck costs in New Zealand
Live shop prices, September 2026. They move a little over time.
| Piece | Price | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Angel Wisdom Tarot deck and guidebook | NZ$30 | Gentle first deck, book included |
| The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (book) | NZ$32 | Waite's card-by-card guide |
| Rider Waite Tarot, miniature | NZ$42 | Classic pictures, handbag size |
| Light Seer's Tarot | NZ$60 | Modern, friendly 78-card deck |
| Radiant Rider Waite in a tin | NZ$72 | Brighter colours, booklet, keepsake tin |
| Universal Waite pocket deck | NZ$72 | Classic pictures, 5 x 9 cm pocket cards |
| Original Rider Waite Tarot Pack | NZ$80 | Deck plus Waite's Key to the Tarot |
| The Moon drawstring tarot pouch | NZ$20 | A home for the deck |
| Four-card spread tarot cloth | NZ$40 | Marked cloth for tidy spreads |
A first deck starts around NZ$30, and a classic Rider-Waite set sits around NZ$70 to NZ$80. Everything posts from our Auckland shop, and you can turn the boxes over in your hands at Rivendell in Westfield Manukau. Browse the tarot card collection, or the wider tarot and oracle range to compare both.
🕯️ Where did tarot come from?
Tarot started as a game. In fifteenth-century Italy, the courts of Milan and Ferrara played tarocchi, a trick-taking game with picture trumps called trionfi. The oldest surviving deck, painted for the Visconti family around 1440, now lives in a Yale library.
The fortune-telling came much later. In the 1770s a Paris card reader called Etteilla made the first deck meant for divination, and in the 1780s French writers gave the cards a mystical story. In 1861 the occultist Eliphas Levi coined the names Major and Minor Arcana. A parlour game had become a mirror.
Then, in 1909, the London publisher Rider brought out a deck designed by Arthur Edward Waite and painted by Pamela Colman Smith. It was the first deck with a full scene on every Minor Arcana card, not just three cups in a row. That one change is why beginners can read tarot from the pictures today.
☀️ How do you learn tarot card meanings without memorising 78 cards?
You learn the system, not the list. The Minor Arcana are built from two parts.
- The suit gives the subject. Cups are about feelings, Pentacles about money and home, Swords about the mind, Wands about energy and action.
- The number gives the stage. Aces are beginnings. Fives are usually friction. Tens are endings and full circles. So the Ace of Cups is a new feeling, and the Ten of Pentacles is a household with roots.
- Court cards are people or moods. A Page is curious and new. A Knight charges in. A Queen holds the suit with feeling, a King with authority.
The Major Arcana need a little learning, but their pictures carry most of it. The Fool steps off a cliff with a small dog and a bindle. Death rides past a sunrise. Learn one Major card a day, and in three weeks the deck is yours.
| Card | What it usually points to |
|---|---|
| The Fool | A fresh start, a leap taken lightly |
| The Magician | Skill, will, the tools already in hand |
| Death | An ending that clears the way, never a death |
| The Sun | Warmth, success, a clear yes |
| Ace of Cups | A new feeling, love or friendship arriving |
| Ten of Pentacles | Home, family, wealth with roots |
Keep a journal beside the deck: date, card, one line about your day. The Dreamers Story tarot journal is made for this, but any notebook works. After a month, read it back and notice which cards keep visiting.
What do reversed tarot cards mean?
A reversed card lands upside down. In tradition it softens, blocks or turns the upright meaning inward. A reversed Sun is still the Sun, just a little clouded.
Beginners can ignore reversals entirely. Turn every card upright for your first few months, and add reversals when the upright meanings feel like old friends.
🧿 A one-card ritual you can do tonight
This habit teaches tarot faster than any book. Keep the deck by the bed with a notebook.
Before you turn out the light, shuffle for as long as one slow song. Ask: "What do I need to notice about today?" Pull one card. Look at the picture for a full minute without reading anything. Name one thing in it that matches your day. Write the card and that sentence, then sleep. Over breakfast, give it one more look. That is all it takes.
How do you care for a tarot deck?
Tarot cards are printed card stock. Keep them dry, away from coffee cups and out of direct sun, and the colours stay brighter. A pouch or the original box keeps the deck in one place. A new deck is stiff for a week or two, so shuffle gently.
Many readers also like to clear a deck. Tradition offers three easy ways: knock once on the top before a reading, leave it on the windowsill under a full moon, or rest a piece of clear quartz on top between readings. Clear quartz is the stone readers most often keep with a deck. Our guide to cleansing and charging crystals covers the same rituals.
Frequently asked questions
Can you read tarot cards for yourself?
Yes, and most readers start that way. You already know the context, so it is the best training there is. The one trap is asking the same question five times until you like the answer. Pull once and let it sit.
Do you need a special deck to start reading tarot?
No. Any 78-card deck works, but a Rider-Waite-Smith deck or one built on its pictures makes learning much easier, because nearly every guidebook describes those scenes.
Do all tarot decks have 78 cards?
Nearly all of them do: 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. A few artists add extras; the Dreams of Gaia Tarot, for example, has 81 cards. A deck with far fewer cards, or no suits, is an oracle deck rather than tarot.
What is the easiest tarot spread for beginners?
One card. Ask an open question, pull, and describe the picture before you look anything up. When that feels natural, lay three cards as past, present and future. Larger spreads add detail, not accuracy.
Is tarot bad luck or dangerous?
No. Tarot began as an Italian card game in the 1400s and became a reflective tool in the late 1700s. The Death card means an ending and a fresh start, not a death. The cards are a way to think out loud, not a replacement for your own judgement.
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum, "A history of tarot cards" — deck structure, the Italian suits and game, Etteilla, Levi and the 1909 deck.
- Yale Library — tarocchi, the Visconti deck of about 1440–45, and Pamela Colman Smith.
- Wikipedia, "Tarot" — the 14-card suits and the trionfi of Ferrara and Milan.
Last updated September 2026.