The Magic and Mayhem of Tarot Cards
This is me from a photoshoot for People magazine while promoting my memoir Psychic Junkie back in 2006.
People love getting psychic and tarot card readings. Some people love them a little too much. As anyone who has read my book, Psychic Junkie, would know, I was one of them. I loved them a lot too much.
What started as a mystical fun time that lifted me up like a hope-filled helium balloon eventually devolved into an endless quest to find the Holy Grail of psychics who would have all the answers to soothe my raggedy, deflated soul.
As an actor living in LA, it was easy to get caught up in finding hope in psychics, runes, iChing, palmistry, coffee grounds, astrology, etc. For me, it was mostly all about the Tarot. I love me some Tarot cards.
At one point, before a friend had me get rid of them at the height of my psychic and tarot card addiction, I had over a dozen different decks.
My first Tarot card deck was given to me as a gift on my first film, Roosters. It was the Inner Child Cards: A Fairy-tale Tarot. It was a Tarot deck primarily designed for children, so there were no stabbings or devils or skeletons—the Big Bad Wolf was as scary as it got.
I later learned to read Tarot on the slightly scarier Aleister Crowley deck, but now I tend to stick to different versions of the Rider-Waite-Smith.
By the way, I’m fine now. I read tarot occasionally with respect for the cards and am no longer a psychic junkie. These days, very rarely will I get a psychic reading from others because, after decades of trial and mostly error, I discovered I am my own best psychic.
What’s a good tarot deck to start with?
Nowadays, there seem to be a million different tarot decks out there for every taste. I highly recommend the True Heart Intuitive Tarot by actor and author Rachel True.
The artwork is modern, gorgeous, and inclusive, and it comes with an awesome book, which is part memoir and part instructional. I love how she weaves the stories of the tarot cards with fascinating tales from her own life, from her early days in New York City to her trials and tribulations in Hollywood, including her time working on the iconic film The Craft. And as her tarot deck is based on the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, it’s a wonderful deck for beginners.
True Heart Intuitive Tarot by Rachel True.
Rachel dedicates her book to Pamela Colman Smith. Not knowing much, if anything, about Pamela other than she was the artist responsible for the iconic illustrations of the Rider-Waite tarot, I was fascinated to learn more about her as I continued reading.
I had no idea that the original Rider-Waite tarot, designed in 1909, was illustrated by a woman of color. Pamela’s artwork went uncredited for over a century! Shocking, but not shocking.
If you’re interested in learning more about this great artist responsible for some of the most iconic imagery of our times, here’s an interesting article: Pamela Colman Smith Was the Artist and Occultist Who Designed the Iconic Tarot Deck. Why Has No One Ever Heard Her Name?
Full disclosure: Although this is not a sponsored post, I do know Rachel personally. We were in Gregg Araki’s Nowhere, part of the Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy films from the 90s, together. Her character Mel had a far better time than mine did (poor Egg).
I feel as though Rachel and I are on a similar mission: to encourage people to develop their own intuition, get in touch with their inner psychic and realize that all the answers are within.
The tarot is a wonderful and powerful tool at our disposal, as long as we don’t misuse it!
Can tarot cards tell your future? The cards themselves are simply wood pulp and ink, the “magic” is in their ability to tap into your unconscious desires and fears. Tarot is exceptional at laying out possible future outcomes based on present energies. However, nothing is set in stone; your future is always shifting based on your choices.
- Rachel True from True Heart Intuitive Tarot guidebook
True Heart Intuitive Tarot, Guidebook and Deck by Rachel True is available on Amazon. Makes a great gift too. 💝
Rachel and I at the Academy Museum’s Restoration World Premiere of Gregg Araki’s Nowhere in 2023.
Warning: Just as one can become addicted to psychic readings, one can also become addicted to tarot cards. See Addicted to reading your own Tarot Cards? As I mentioned earlier, it happened to me. I would obsessively shuffle my tarot cards for hours on end, asking the same questions over and over until my hands ached and my mind short-circuited.
It was a way to self-soothe my anxiety, but unfortunately, it eventually had the opposite effect. Instead of feeling better, calmer, and more hopeful, my nerves became totally shot, my anxiety reached Mars, and I became wracked with despair.
Having too many tarot card readings, whether you’re reading for yourself or being read for by others, can really mess you up. At the very least, it will lead to muddled and inaccurate tarot readings.
Assuming you have a healthy relationship with your tarot cards and don’t abuse them by over-asking, I’m going to share with you two of my favorite tarot card reading spreads. ☀️
My Two Favorite Tarot Card Reading Spreads
The Next Step Tarot Spread
This one is great when you find yourself feeling stuck and not quite sure of your next move, whether it’s about career, relationship, friendships, or anything really.
I can’t remember where I first came upon this particular spread, so if you know the original source, please comment below so I can give proper credit.
If you read my book Psychic Junkie, this is the spread I chose to use when I was pushed into reading tarot cards at parties by my event planner roommate. I certainly didn’t consider myself particularly psychic at the time and I needed a simple spread that would work no matter what question was thrown at me.
This simple spread really tells a story. Let your intuition guide you while interpreting the cards you pull.
The Next Step
1st Card- The Present Situation.
How you see the present situation regarding what you’re asking about, the current energies, etc.
2nd Card- What Is Important Right Now.
What action or focus is important for you to take right now to reach your most desirable outcome.
3rd Card- What Is Not Important Right Now.
What action or focus is NOT important right now. Perhaps this is something you have been worrying about, feeling you should be doing, or have been focusing on, but isn’t actually important right now.
4th Card- The Next Step
This card can either be a prediction of the outcome if you follow the advice of the prior cards and/or advice on what action to take next to achieve your desired goal. Let your intuition guide you.
Relationship Tarot Spread
One of the main subjects people want psychic readings about it love. Glorious, torturous, blissful, confounding— all-you-need-is-love, love.
Now, this spread may be controversial as it involves asking about another feelings, intentions, and actions. But this was my favorite spread and saved me a lot of money over the years.
After “Are we getting back together?” “How are they feeling about me?” is probably the most asked question to psychics.
This spread has been consistently more accurate than any psychic I ever got a reading from.
This simple spread involves 3 columns. You pull cards in each column until you get a Major Arcana card. If you pull a Major Arcana card on first draw, you stop there for that column. If there’s more than one card, read each column like a story progressing from top to bottom.
Relationship Spread
1st Column (on the left): You in relation to the person in question.
This can represent your feelings, intentions or actions towards the other party.
2nd Column (on the far right) : The person in question in relation to you.
The thoughts, feelings, intentions or actions towards you from the other party.
3rd Column (middle): The dynamics of the relationship.
This column represents the relationships itself. It can tell a story of where the relationship is at present and into the immediate future.
Tips on reading the tarot cards.
Whether you’re reading your own cards, or getting a reading by someone else, do NOT over-ask! A good rule of thumb is not to ask the same question again until something changes. Otherwise, you’ll muddy the waters and get inaccurate reads. The tarot cards don’t mess around. Don’t mess around with them.
It’s best to treat your tarot card readings as a sacred ritual. Get out your crystals—I recommend Azurite, the stone of intuition. Light a candle. Say a prayer.
I use this one that I was taught ages ago when I had one of my first tarot card readings: “I call upon the Great Spirit God/Goddess that is all to be here in conscious, loving support. And I ask that all parts of you be present, open and relaxed. I call upon my guides to help me in giving the most truthful, accurate, and empowering reading possible.” Feel free to tweak or make up your own that resonates with you.
I shuffle my tarot deck at least seven times. I then cut it into three piles, put them back together, and then repeat two more times. Everyone has their preferred way of choosing cards. I like to just cut the deck randomly and pull out a card. Some people like to spread them out into the shape of a rainbow and choose the cards they feel most drawn to.
I also like to take photos of my tarot spreads for future reference. This can also help you from over-asking when you get an itch, as you can just look back at your last reading.
These are a couple of my favorite cards from the True Heart deck. Aren’t they beautiful?
How to best interpret your tarot card readings.
In terms of interpreting the cards, I find the best way to is notice what comes to mind when you first draw a card.
Then when you have laid out the whole spread, look at it as a whole. Notice any relationships between the cards. If there are any court cards, are they facing or turning away from each other?
Don’t necessarily worry about the actual formal interpretations, at least not at first. Let the images tell a story and spark your intuition.
Then after you’ve recorded your first impressions, you can refer to books or look up meanings of individual cards online.
A particular card can have a totally different meaning from one day to the next based upon the spread, its placement, and your own intuitive hits while reading it.
Reading your own tarot cards does come with the danger of misinterpretation. We see what we want to see or sometimes our fears take over. I’ve found that it’s best to read my tarot cards in conjunction with my Be Your Own Psychic readings using self-hypnosis.
In the theta brain wave state achieved during hypnosis, you quiet the noise of your conscious mind and its wants and needs to receive the raw, unvarnished truth.
Your Higher Self and Spirit Guides will always set you straight and provide you with what you most need at that time, for your highest and greatest good. I developed my signature Be Your Own Psychic hypnosis session as a simple protocol to connect with Higher Self and Spirit Guides to give yourself readings whenever you want clarity, guidance, or just some celestial support.
If you’ve never done hypnosis before—it’s basically an active form of meditation, like a guided meditation with a goal. It’s nothing like you see in the movies; it’s very similar to daydreaming! Speaking of daydreaming…
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Please feel free to comment below if you have any questions or to share your experiences. I’d love to hear from you and your tarot card reading adventures or misadventures!
🧡 Sarah
I'm Sarah Lassez, Certified Hypnotherapist and Author of Psychic Junkie. (INFP, HSP, ♈︎ Aries Sun, ♋︎ Cancer Moon, animal lover & California Mountain Girl with her 🧡 in Paris)
For years, I obsessively searched for answers from psychic after psychic. After thousands of readings over decades, the evidence was clear: 97% of those future predictions never came true.
Many moons later, I finally found what I'd been searching for—a psychic who was truly accurate, had my highest good at heart, and connected me to the divine guidance I needed.
That psychic? It was me. My journey down the psychic rabbit hole wasn't in vain, I discovered something valuable! The "best psychic near me" wasn't a stranger with a crystal ball or tarot cards— as Edgar Cayce, the most documented psychic of all time, said: "You are your own best psychic." I am my own best psychic.
I learned this truth the hard way so you don't have to. Now I help others bypass the psychic middleman and connect directly to their Higher Self and Celestial Support Team—where the most honest, accurate guidance has been waiting all along.
Hypnosis is simply the key that unlocks your Superconscious—the doorway to all your intuitive and manifesting Superpowers. We're all born with this gift; I'm just here to help you remember it.