Free tarot reading: the Marseille Tarot in one or three cards

The first tarot decks appeared in northern Italy in the 15th century. They were playing cards, hand-painted for princely families, with an added series of illustrated trumps. The game spread to France, where card makers printed it from woodblocks and coloured it with stencils. In the 17th and 18th centuries, workshops in Paris, Lyon and then Marseille settled on a recognisable pattern: this is what we now call the Marseille Tarot, a name that only took hold much later, in the 19th and above all the 20th century.

Divinatory use is more recent than the cards themselves. It developed at the end of the 18th century, when French authors began to give the images a symbolic meaning, sometimes at the cost of unfounded legends such as a supposed Egyptian origin. The word arcanum, meaning secret, was later popularised by 19th-century occultists.

The Marseille deck keeps features that this reading respects: the Fool has no number, arcanum XIII has no name, and numbers are written the old way (IIII, VIIII, XIIII, XVIIII). Justice is numbered VIII and Strength XI, the reverse of many English-language decks.

A reading is only as good as the question you bring to it. An open question gives more material than a closed one: “What should I understand about this situation?” or “What can I act on?” let the card speak, whereas “Will I change jobs this year?” locks it into a yes or no that tarot cannot guarantee.

A few pointers help:

— Start from yourself. Tarot sheds light on how you experience a situation, not on someone else's thoughts. “How can I live with this distance?” is more useful than a question about what the other person thinks of you.

— One question at a time. Mixing work, your relationship and a house move in the same sentence muddles the reading.

— Stay with what depends on you. A question about a choice, an attitude or a priority always finds a useful answer; a question about a precise date or a figure does not.

— Accept the answer. If the card surprises you, take time to think about it before drawing again.

Choose a quiet moment, write the question down if that helps, then start the reading.

The one-card spread is the simplest and most direct. It suits a question of the day, a quick need for advice, or a first approach to tarot. Read the card's general meaning first, then ask yourself what it says about your question: which word, which detail of the image speaks to you? The card's advice sums up the lead to keep.

The three-card spread tells a movement. Here, the positions read as follows:

— The past: what led to the situation, what still weighs on it or what has already been gained.

— The present: what is at stake now, the core of the question.

— The direction: where the situation is heading if nothing changes. It is not a written future but a slope, which your choices can bend.

Read each card in its place, then look for the thread that links them. A bright card after a difficult one tells of a way out of a crisis; two cards of movement in a row, an acceleration. Many tarot readers also use other three-card layouts, such as situation, obstacle and advice: none is truer than another, what matters is fixing the positions before drawing.

A complete Marseille Tarot deck has 78 cards: 22 major arcana, from the Fool to the World, and 56 minor arcana, split into four suits (Coins, Cups, Swords and Batons), each with its court cards: page, knight, queen and king.

The major arcana carry the big themes: a beginning, a choice, a transformation, an accomplishment. The minors fill in context and everyday life: a meeting, a discussion, a tension, a project under way. In a consultation, a tarot reader often combines both to refine the reading.

This reading uses only the 22 majors, for three reasons. They are the best-known and most evocative cards, even for someone discovering tarot. They can be read without prior knowledge of the suits and their symbolism. And in a short spread of one or three cards, they give a clear indication rather than a detail that is hard to interpret alone. To go further with all 78 cards, our guide to learning tarot explains the structure of the deck and the first spreads to practise.

A tarot reading is a tool for reflection. The images of the arcana offer angles you would not think of spontaneously: they help you put words to what you are going through, spot a blockage, ask yourself a question you were avoiding. Many people use it as a ritual, one card in the morning to set the tone of the day, or as a starting point for writing, talking or deciding.

A reading cannot, however, predict an event with certainty, or say what someone else thinks or will do. It does not replace professional advice: for any question about health, pregnancy, money, law or legal proceedings, turn to a doctor, a lawyer or a qualified adviser. Nor should it make an important decision for you.

Finally, a card with a difficult reputation does not announce misfortune. The Nameless Arcanum, the House of God, the Devil or the Moon speak of transformation, questioning and awareness. If a reading worries you, it is often a sign that the question touches something important: talking to someone is better than drawing again and again until you get a reassuring answer.

Drawing the cards yourself works well for a question of the day or a need for perspective. A consultation brings something else: a trained person who knows all 78 cards, chooses the spread suited to your question, links the arcana to each other and to your story, and asks the questions that are missing. They can put a worrying card in context and spot what you do not see, precisely because they are looking from the outside.

It helps when the question is emotionally charged, when several readings give answers you cannot connect, or when you are preparing a decision and want an outside view.

On Guidanza, you choose your reader from the tarot reader directory, after reading their profile and the reviews left by other clients. Consultations take place by phone, by chat or, with readers who offer it, as a written question. To see how a session unfolds, the page on tarot consultations describes the practice.