How to Read Tarot Cards: A Beginner’s Guide

Tarot is a mirror

Reading tarot is learning a language of symbols. The cards don't seal your fate. They show the currents moving through your life, so you can decide how to move with them.

The Fortuna Tarot takes its name from the Roman goddess of fortune and her ever-turning wheel. Her lesson is the heart of this deck: fortune is not only what happens to you, but it is also what you make of it. Like the alchemists who sought to turn lead into gold, every reading is a chance to transform what you're living into wisdom, and your purpose into gold.

This guide works with any tarot deck. The meanings and correspondences below are the universal foundations shared by most readers. Wherever the Fortuna Tarot offers its own lens, through alchemy, astrology, numerology, and the balance of Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine, you'll find it woven in.

Getting to know your deck

A traditional tarot deck holds 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. The Fortuna Tarot holds 79, the 78 traditional cards plus a 79th card unique to this deck: Magnum Opus, named after the alchemists' Great Work of turning lead into gold.

Each pip has been renamed to fit the energy of the deck: Wands are Candles, Swords are Keys, Cups are Elixirs, and Pentacles are Talismans. Also, the Court Cards have been renamed as Princess (Page), Prince (Knight), Queen, and King, to create a balance between the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine energies across the deck.

The Fortuna Tarot Deck combines Tarot and Astrology, blending both seamlessly into one, hence why each card meaning takes influence from both divination techniques. To read more about each card individually, read this article

The Major Arcana: the Soul's Great Work

The 22 Major Arcana, numbered 0 to 21, describe the big turning points of a life. Many readers call this sequence the Fool's Journey: the Fool (0) sets out with nothing but trust, meets teachers, trials and revelations, and arrives at the World (21) whole and complete.

In the Fortuna Tarot, this journey is also the alchemist's Great Work, also known as Magnus Opus. The soul is the raw material, each Major Arcana is a stage of refinement, and the gold is the person you become. When a Major Arcana appears in a reading, the message carries weight: this is a life lesson, not a passing mood.

The Minor Arcana: everyday magic

The 56 Minor Arcana describe daily life: feelings, conversations, work, money, and choices. They are split into four suits, each ruled by one of the four classical elements. Each suit has ten numbered cards (Ace to Ten) and four court cards.

Suit	Element	Zodiac signs	Realm	Keywords
Wands	Fire	Aries, Leo, Sagittarius	Will and spirit	Passion, creativity, ambition, action
Cups	Water	Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces	Heart and emotion	Love, intuition, relationships, dreams
Swords	Air	Gemini, Libra, Aquarius	Mind and word	Thought, truth, conflict, decisions
Pentacles	Earth	Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn	Body and matter	Money, work, health, home

The Fortuna Tarot's Minor Arcana are designed in the elegant pip tradition, built around number, element, and symbol rather than illustrated scenes. This invites you to read them the way the old masters did, by combining what the number means with what the element rules. You'll learn exactly how in the section on interpreting the cards.

The court cards: the people and personalities

Each suit has four court cards. They can represent a person in your life, a side of your own personality, or an energy you're being asked to embody. Their gender in the artwork never limits who they can describe.

The Fortuna Tarot rearranges the court to honour the union of Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine forces:

Fortuna court	Traditional name	Role	In a reading
Princess	Page	The student	Curiosity, new beginnings, messages, learning the suit's lessons
Prince	Knight	The seeker	Movement, pursuit, adventure, sometimes recklessness
Queen	Queen	Inner mastery	Embodying the suit's energy with depth, nurture and intuition
King	King	Outer mastery	Directing the suit's energy with authority, leadership and structure

A Princess and Queen paired with a Prince and King gives each suit a full family: two feminine and two masculine expressions of the same element, in balance.

Preparing for a reading

A reading begins before the first card is turned. A few minutes of preparation quiets the mind and tells your intuition it's time to listen.

Create your space

Choose a calm place where you won't be interrupted. A cloth on the table protects your cards and marks the space as special. A candle, a crystal, or a cup of tea can help you ease into the energy you will tap into. However, the only and most essential tool here is your intuition.

Cleanse and charge your deck

Many readers cleanse a new deck, or one that feels heavy after a difficult reading. Choose whatever feels meaningful to you:

Pass the cards through incense or herbal smoke
Leave them under the light of a full moon
Rest a cleansing crystal on top, such as clear quartz, selenite, or obsidian
Knock three times on the deck to shake off old energy
Put the deck back in order, from the Fool to the King of Pentacles, as a reset

Shuffle with intention

Hold your question in mind as you shuffle. There is no wrong method:

Overhand shuffle: slide small packets from one hand to the other
Wash shuffle: spread the cards face down on your cloth and swirl them gently, which also mixes in reversals
Cutting: split the deck into three piles with your left hand and restack them in any order

Stop shuffling when it feels right. Some readers draw from the top, some fan the cards out and choose the ones that call to them, and some take the cards that jump out of the deck during the shuffle.

Get to know your deck

A new deck is like a new friend. Before your first real reading, try a simple deck interview: draw one card for each question below.

What is your personality as a deck?
What are your strengths?
What will you teach me?
How can we best work together?

The ART of asking good questions

The clearer your question, the clearer your answer. The best tarot questions are open, focused on you, and about something you can act on.

Instead of asking	Try asking
Will I get the job?	What do I need to know to give myself the best chance at this job?
Does he love me?	What is the true nature of this connection, and what does it ask of me?
Will I be rich?	How can I build a healthier relationship with money?
Why does this always happen to me?	What pattern am I being asked to see and release?
What will happen next year?	What energy is coming into my life over the next year, and how can I meet it?

A few gentle rules help:

Keep yourself at the centre. You can't read someone else's mind, but you can explore your part in the situation.
Ask one question at a time. Two questions in one reading muddy the answer.
Avoid asking the same question again straight away because you didn't like the answer. Sit with it first.
Leave room for surprise. Sometimes the cards answer the question you needed to ask, not the one you asked.

Choosing a spread

A spread is a layout that gives each card a role. It turns a handful of separate cards into a structured answer. Start small: a single card read deeply teaches more than ten cards read in a hurry.

One card: the daily draw

Shuffle and draw one card each morning. Ask: What energy will guide me today? In the evening, look back at how it showed up. This is the fastest way to learn the deck.

Two cards: Gold and Lead

A simple alchemical spread for any situation.

Gold: what is already working, the strength ready to shine
Lead: what still needs to be transformed, the weight to work through

Three cards: the story

Three cards make a beginning, middle and end. Choose the positions that suit your question:

Spread	Card 1	Card 2	Card 3
Time	Past	Present	Future
Problem solving	Situation	Challenge	Advice
Decision	Option A	Option B	What you need to know
Balance	Mind	Body	Spirit

The Wheel of Fortuna

A five-card spread for times of change, inspired by Fortuna's wheel. Place card 1 in the centre and cards 2 to 5 around it like the points of a compass.

The Hub (centre): where you stand right now
Rising (left): what is coming into your life
The Peak (top): what is at its fullest and asks to be celebrated
Falling (right): what is leaving or needs to be released
The Base (bottom): the lesson that keeps you grounded as the wheel turns

Draw one more card if you want to know your power in the situation: Your Hand on the Wheel, the choice that is truly yours to make.

The Celtic Cross

Once you're comfortable, the classic ten-card Celtic Cross offers a full portrait of a situation: the present, the challenge, the roots, the recent past, the conscious goal, the near future, yourself, your surroundings, your hopes and fears, and the outcome. Treat it as a destination, not a starting point.

Interpreting the cards

Tarot works like a language. Each card is a word, describing a universal human experience: a beginning, a loss, a choice, a celebration. A spread turns those words into sentences, and you are the one who reads the story.

You don't need to memorise 78 meanings to begin. Read each card in layers, from the first feeling to the full story.

Read in layers

Feel it first. Before you open a guidebook, notice your first reaction. A colour, a symbol or a sense of heaviness or lightness is already a message.
Major or Minor? A Major Arcana points to a deep life lesson. A Minor Arcana points to everyday events you can influence more easily.
Find the element. The suit tells you which area of life the card speaks to: Fire for will, Water for emotion, Air for thought, Earth for the material world.
Add the number. The number tells you where you are in the cycle (see the table below).
Layer in astrology. Each card carries a planet or zodiac sign. The Empress is linked to Venus, the Emperor to Aries, the Moon card to Pisces. These correspondences add colour and timing.
Place it in position. The same card means something different as your past, your challenge or your advice.
Tell the story. Finally, step back and read all the cards together as one narrative.

Numerology: the key to the Minor Arcana

Every numbered card combines a number with an element. Learn the ten numbers and four elements, and you can read all 40 pip cards, which is exactly how the Fortuna Tarot's pip-style Minor Arcana are designed to be read.

Number	Core theme	In a reading
Ace (1)	Seed	Pure potential, a gift, a new beginning
2	Duality	Choice, balance, partnership
3	Growth	Creation, expansion, collaboration
4	Foundation	Stability, structure, rest, sometimes stagnation
5	Disruption	Challenge, conflict, loss, change
6	Harmony	Recovery, generosity, flow returning
7	Reflection	Assessment, testing, inner work
8	Mastery	Movement, power, dedication
9	Culmination	Near completion, fulfilment, solitude
10	Completion	Endings, abundance, a cycle ready to begin again

Now combine them. The Five of Cups is disruption (5) in emotion (Water): grief or disappointment. The Eight of Pentacles is mastery (8) in the material world (Earth): skilled, dedicated work. The Three of Wands is growth (3) in will (Fire): plans expanding and taking shape.

Reversed cards

A reversed card appears upside down. Reading reversals is optional, so choose an approach and stay consistent. A reversal can mean:

Blocked energy: the card's message is present but held back
Inner energy: the theme is happening within you rather than around you
Too much or too little: the card's quality is out of balance

If you prefer not to read reversals, simply turn every card upright. The cards around it will still show you whether its energy is flowing or struggling.

Trust your intuition

The meanings in a guidebook are the foundation, not the ceiling. Over time, your own experiences will shape what each card means to you. If a symbol leaps out at you and seems to say something the book doesn't, listen. That is your intuition speaking, and it is part of your unique voice as a reader.

Reading for yourself and for others

Reading for yourself is the best way to learn, and also the hardest. We all see what we hope or fear to see. Write your interpretation down before you check any meanings, and revisit it a week later: hindsight is a wonderful teacher.

When you read for others, you hold a little of their trust in your hands. A few principles keep readings kind and empowering:

Ask for consent. Never read about someone who hasn't asked, and avoid reading about a third party's private life.
Empower, don't predict. Present the cards as possibilities and advice, never as a fixed sentence. The future is a wheel, not a wall.
Know your limits. Tarot is not a substitute for medical, legal, financial or psychological advice. Gently point people towards a professional when they need one.
Speak with compassion. Challenging cards like the Tower or Ten of Swords can be delivered honestly without frightening anyone. Every ending in tarot makes space for something new.
Let them interpret too. Ask the person what they see in the cards. Their own insight is often the most powerful part of the reading.

Building your practice

Tarot rewards patience. Like any language, fluency comes from daily use, not from memorising a dictionary.

Keep a tarot journal

Record the date, your question, the cards drawn, and your first impressions. Over weeks and months, you'll notice which cards follow you, how your interpretations deepen, and how accurate your intuition really is. A dedicated tarot journal gives your readings a home.

Common beginner mistakes

Reading cards in isolation. A card's meaning changes with its neighbours. Look for the story.
Fearing "bad" cards. Death, the Tower and the Devil are teachers, not threats.
Drawing card after card until you get the answer you want. Trust the first message.
Relying only on the guidebook. Use it as a foundation, then let your intuition build on it.
Reading when you're upset. Strong emotions cloud the cards. Breathe first, read later.

Where to go next

Once you're comfortable reading single cards, learn how they speak to each other in Tarot Card Combinations. To explore the meaning, symbolism, and correspondences of every card in this deck, continue to the Fortuna Tarot Guide.

Every reading is a small act of alchemy. Shuffle, breathe, and begin turning your purpose into gold.

I hope this short guide helped you in your tarot journey. Remember, reading the cards is a long-term devotion; your style as a reader will change over time, and that is incredibly powerful and beautiful. We aren't meant to stay the same forever; let the cards guide you through your own evolution

With love,
Maria 💖

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