Stone Riley's Magic Mirror Tarot Set

About Doing Readings

Here below you'll find the information and suggestions from the brief instruction cards that are included in both the Simple Tarot and Spirit Hill Tarot decks.    If you are interested in more, you can find much more in the Quick Start Guide, a booklet that comes with the combined Magic Mirror Tarot Set.  You can see a facsimile of it here:   Quick Start Guide   If you'd like to try a reading right now, try the Flashcard Show elsewhere on this site.

Please note:
Your experience in having serious conversations with people about life’s difficulties will be far more useful than any prior experience or training with Tarot.

• Sit beside the client at a table.  Turn all the cards face up and briefly glance at them in a quite informal way.  Explain that the pictures all speak of human life.  Tarot was developed by many people over many years as a tool to help us sort out our confusions.
• Turn the cards face down and mix them up.  Ask the client to help with this.  Still face down, spread them neatly across to left and right.
• Ask the client to bring to mind some important aspect of their situation, something for which they would like a helpful piece of advice, or a hint of how to see things.  Emphasize that it does not need to be an “earth shaking” issue, but just needs to be something for which they genuinely could use a bit of wise impartial observation.  Suggest that they can close their eyes.
• Tell them that when the issue is extremely vivid in their mind, as vivid and real as it can be, they should reach out and pick a card.  When they do so, have them turn it over and look at it.  Study this card with them and discuss what it might mean.  If necessary as an aid to the conversation, invite them to explain what the issue was.
• Proceed as needed with more cards, on the same or other issues.  Feel free to pinpoint the details of an issue or request clarification.
• When otherwise finished, you may want to make a final inquiry: "Please tell us what else we should know." Then when all is finished, express gratitude for what was learned, close the deck respectfully and put it away.

Further Study
There are many books, good and bad, about Tarot but I strongly recommend that you study the deck itself.  At the start of each week choose a few cards to carry with you.  Watch for things represented on the cards to appear in your life.  Indeed, the essence is this: Learn to read the pictures real life presents to us.

Miscellaneous Notes
The simple style of reading that I teach (outlined here) is based on Dr. Carl Jung’s foreword in the Wilhelm/Baines Bollingen version of I Ching.  The artworks in this deck were made mostly by myself, although some in collaboration with Zoe Salmon.