Tarot – The mind reading spread.

You don’t have to take my word for the fact that the Tarot is so much more than just a divination tool. Carl Jung, the father of modern psychology, believed Tarot could give important insights into a person’s psyche. He realised that the images depicted in the Tarot mirror the archetypal human experiences which have been with us from the dawn of time. We are all familiar with the hero, the mother, the wise old man and even the trickster for example. Jung realised that the major arcana depicts a journey – from the Fool taking the first step to the accomplishment in the final card of The World, in between the Tarot illustrates the changes we all go through in life.

Jung believed that the Tarot linked us to what he referred to as the collective unconscious – part of the universal conscious mind we are all linked to. So, by going deeper into the images shown in the Tarot and understanding how these related to our journey and that of others, we can literally go directly to what’s going on with someone – or in our own heads for that matter! Very often we self-sabotage without even realising it. The Tarot offers us the gift of amazing mind-reading skills so we can better understand ourselves – and others.

So, are you ready to begin reading minds? First as in all Tarot exercises ensure you won’t be interrupted and have your Tarot journal to hand. Take your Tarot cards and separate out the major arcana cards. Set the rest of the deck aside and shuffle the major arcana cards until you feel they are ready to give you the information you seek. As you shuffle, you need to be focussing your mind into one of four key areas to get the best from this.

1: What you need or what you need to do. This can be related to a specific area such as discovering your soul path or the kind of person you need to be with for relationship success.

2: What you don’t need. This can be a behaviour you need to ditch, something that has been standing between you and success which you cannot see, or a toxic relationships pattern.

3: What a specific person is thinking or what a situation requires from you that you need to know about. This may amaze you and enable you to deal more successfully with others as where they are coming from can often be a total revelation.

4: What that person or situation does not need from you. Areas where you need to let go or take a ‘hands off’ approach. This can be somewhat confronting as often we think we are doing the right thing but in the other party’s eyes this is not what they need. However, this kind of insight can free both sides from stalemate.

When you have finished shuffling the cards and concentrating on one of these four areas, spread them face down in a fan shape and allow your intuition to guide your hand and choose a card. Turn it face up and then spend as long as you need to record the thoughts and impressions that come up. Write them down and do not censor them. The trick here is that the act of writing them down allows the card to act as a mirror, reflecting back at you either your true feelings or another’s. This may take some time to really master which is why it is important to write everything down but when you look back you will be able to see how accurate you have been when it comes to tuning in to someone else’s feelings or what was going to happen in a situation. You will see in your own life where perhaps you went into a situation unprepared, you worried about nothing or else you thought someone was thinking one thing only to discover they were coming from another place entirely!

Obviously, when it comes to tuning in to another person’s thoughts or soul journey, we have to act responsibly and respect their privacy. We need to know we cannot change them, that soul contracts can be changed at any time and that if we are asking question 4 – what they do NOT need from us, we need to take that on board! However, we can come from a new place of understanding with them if we phrase things like ‘I get the feeling you may be thinking/felling so-and-so which hadn’t occurred to me until now’ shows that we are prepared to step into their shoes and see things from their perspective.

Above all, understanding the reasons why we think, say or do things ourselves leads to us being more empowered and making better choices for ourselves. So, do a little mind reading – into your own first, and see how knowing what you are really thinking helps you understand what others are thinking too!