Liz Dean - The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Spreads: Reveal the Answer to Every Question about Work, Home, Fortune, and Love

2016 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.

Text 2016 Liz Dean

First published in the United States of America in 2016 by

Fair Winds Press, an imprint of

Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.

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Illustrations from the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck reproduced by permission of U.S. Game Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902 USA. Copyright 1971 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. Further reproduction prohibited. The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck is a registered trademark of U.S. Games Systems, Inc.

Digital edition: 978-1-62788-852-3

Softcover edition: 978-1-59233-716-3

Digital edition published in 2016

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Cover and Book Design by Sporto

Cover Image: Glenn Scott Photography

WELCOME TO THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO TAROT SPREADS, a compendium of card layouts that addresses virtually every question you may ask your tarot cardsfrom relationships to business dilemmas, and from angelic guidance to house movesusing both simple and developed patterns of cards. Whether youre a novice or an expert, youll find within these pages a spread (or more!) thats perfect for reflecting on the past, exploring the present, and predicting the future. Tarot has been our oracle for more than 600 years, and it continues to help us divine the answers we seek about every aspect of living purposefully.

The first chapter, Preparing Your Cards and Setting Your Space, shows you how to choose your cards and connect with them, and how to prepare for a tarot reading. , Essential Reading Techniques and Spreads, reveals seven insightful approaches to card interpretation that focus on accessing your intuition and creativity to read the cards through their powerful imagery. If youre already familiar with tarot, youll find that there are additional tips throughout this chapter that will spark your imagination and invite you to view familiar techniques or spreads in a new light. In this chapter, I also share seven essential spreads, which are the staple of many professional readers; these complete your tarot tool kit.

The Tarot, that miraculous work which inspired all the sacred books of antiquity, is the most perfect instrument of divination, by reason of the analogical precision of its figures and numbers. It can be employed with complete confidence. Its oracles are always rigorously true, at least in a certain sense, and even when it predicts nothing it reveals secret things and gives the most wise counsel to its querents.
ELIPHAS LEVI, Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1896)

Next, discover more than 70 tarot spreads arranged into themed chapters, including Love and Romance, Money, Security, and Home, Health, Healing, and Self-Empowerment, Crossroads, Spiritual Development, Creativity, and Timing Spreads and Techniques, plus two chapters of spreads that draw inspiration from influential thought-leaders of the present and past. ). Since the occultists are believed to have been the first to design tarot spreadslayouts with card positionswe owe a great debt to them here.

The Look For and Watch Out For lists that preface chapters 3 through 8 show how a selection of cards might be interpreted according to each chapters theme. Ive found, through the hundreds of readings Ive given over the years, that certain cards often appear regularly to describe a particular event or circumstancefrom house moves to secrets, and from single parenting to business successwhich I share with you here. Theres also a quick guide to the upright and reversed meanings for all 78 cards shown of the appendix with a list of symbol interpretations and Golden Dawn card associations for your reference.

Of course, over time youll develop personalized meanings for your regular cards, and as you experiment, you might enjoy adapting any of the spreads in this book to suit your interests, or you may want to devise your own from scratch (see the chapter for inspiration for approaches and techniques). For this reason, I believe tarot is a journey worth recording. Thats why its a good idea to dedicate a notebook or journal to your tarot readings, dating each reading and sketching out your spread: its an invaluable way to keep track of your insights (and to see how your predictions unfold).

As humans, we have free will, so bear in mind that there are many paths before us in life, and we can choose any path at any given time. When you read your tarot cards, youre tuning into the energy thats around you right now, as well as the most likely futures and outcomes given the present circumstances. Youll find that every tarot reading is different, reflecting your current hopes, fears, thoughts, and feelings, which are fluid and can change at any time. Keep an open mind, and embrace the knowledge these special cards bring.

I hope you enjoy the spreads in this book, and that your readings with them guide you on your true path.

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IN THIS CHAPTER, YOULL DISCOVER EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW to embark upon your first tarot readingfrom choosing a new deck and bonding with it to cleansing and storing your cards. Itll also show you how to create a special space for your readings, whether you conduct them at home or on the go. And if youre already a tarot aficionado, there are plenty of tips for you, too, from attunement rituals and the tarot prayer to crystals that support your intuitive connection to your cards.