Tarot · History and Practice
What to Include in Tarot Reading Notes
- Author
- Ellie
- Published
- 2024-07-14
The most useful tarot reading notes do not start with a conclusion. They start with evidence: the question, the spread, the observable card facts, the interpretation, and any later feedback. That order turns intuition into something you can review, revise, and compare over time. My own view is that it is usually more valuable to record what is visibly there first, then ask what it might mean.
Begin with the Question and the Spread
Write down the question exactly as it was asked, along with the spread positions. The wording of the question changes the range of possible answers, and the position in a spread tells you what each card is being asked to address. If a later reading feels unclear, these two details are often the fastest way to recover the original line of thought. At this stage, the goal is not to define everything, but to keep the consultation’s frame visible.
Record Card Facts Before Interpretation
Card facts should be concrete. Note what the figures are doing, which direction they face, whether any elements repeat, and whether the color or structure echoes across the spread. For example, if several cards in one spread face the same direction, or if a similar gesture appears more than once, that repetition deserves to be written down before any symbolic reading is added. When you move to interpretation, note where it comes from: a museum reference, an author, a teaching tradition, or your own immediate inference. That makes it much easier later to separate what was seen on the card from what was added afterward.
Separate Sources into Layers
One of the easiest mistakes in tarot study is treating the most widely circulated keywords as if they were the card itself. A more careful approach is to sort the material into four layers: archival card and edition information, texts by creators or publishers, later teaching traditions, and the reader’s inference in a specific consultation. Early tarot in the fifteenth century belonged to the history of playing cards; divination, esoteric correspondences, and psychological reading were added gradually afterward. So interpretations can certainly be studied, but they should not be compressed into a single timeless tradition. Museum collections, such as the records held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum, are especially useful for checking date, suit structure, and image versions.
Add Follow-up Feedback
A note that only records the initial reading quickly becomes a static excerpt. Once you add follow-up feedback, you can see which judgments held up and which were only plausible at the time. A simple extra column works well: what happened later, which details were confirmed, and which interpretations need revision. I find this the most honest part of the record, because it acknowledges that inference can change instead of pretending it was fixed from the start.
Mark Temporary Hypotheses Clearly
When a judgment cannot point back to a card detail, a source, or the consultation’s context, it should be marked as a temporary hypothesis rather than a conclusion. The value of tarot notes is not in saying everything about a symbol, but in making the reasoning visible: what the material was, how the interpretation formed, and where uncertainty remains. That is what makes the notes easy to revisit and worth checking against new questions.