AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m not proposing that there are “scientific” answers to these questions but, humans being the insatiably curious and highly critical creatures that we are, I tend to think in those terms.

“What is the best deck to use? What is the best spread?” I hear these questions all the time from beginners who have yet to settle into their own groove with the tarot. In the first case, I usually say that I can relate to any deck as long as it isn’t “too cute, too dumb, or too crude,” such that my metaphysical values and artistic sensibilities are offended. For me, a deck must stay reasonably close to the borders of traditional imagery and symbolism to be effective for divination, so I tend to steer clear of what has become known as the “New Tarot,” much of which strikes me as poorly-digested “oracle fodder.” I currently have around 80 tarot decks (“How many do you own?” is another common question from neophytes) but use only half-a-dozen or so with any regularity; I’ve discovered what suits me for various topics and types of inquiry, and don’t wander too far afield. It really is a process of trial-and-error (and, of course, money), so nobody can tell you what is likely to work best for you. Technically, though, for public readings you need only one deck that you know inside-and-out.

Nonetheless, I generally recommend beginning with either of the two major deck types: the classic Waite-Smith tarot or a close “clone” (the Golden Art Nouveau is a good one) and the Thoth tarot or one of its stylistic offspring like the Tabula Mundi Colores Arcus. Most would suggest staying away from the Thoth as being too esoterically dense for the uninitiated, but it’s the one I started with in 1972, almost forty years before I encountered the RWS deck, and I’ve never regretted tackling the steep learning curve. I’ve called it the “gold standard” and the “300-pound gorilla” of tarot decks. That leaves the Tarot de Marseille and older Italian decks, but since there is no extensive body of historical literature charting a course through their intricacies, they aren’t the best options for the novice who has little or no prior experience (although I’m sure many European readers would disagree).

When it comes to spreads, outside of the venerable Celtic Cross* and the “tirage en croix” (French Cross), I typically create my own and I will frequently offer them in response to the above question. There seems to be an aversion to the Celtic Cross among modern readers of the “instant gratification” mindset who can’t be bothered with mastering its complexity, but it really is the “Swiss Army knife” (aka “universal multi-tool”) of tarot spreads that is ideal for general readings. I heartily recommend learning the ropes before dismissing it as antiquated. However, for answering specific questions the five-card line offers plenty of detail for almost any predictive scenario, and it has responded well to every deck I’ve used with it. I know that many advise sticking with the three-card line, and that is perfectly adequate for exploring card interaction when in learning mode, but in my estimation it is too narrow in storytelling scope for anything other than the “daily draw.” (I will be posting another essay on that subject shortly.)

This brings me to the “no spread is a good spread” crowd, those who adamantly deny the benefit of positional spreads (and who, not surprisingly, are the same people who refute the value of “book-learning” and champion the wholly intuitive reading method). I’ve dabbled in this approach, but as a relentless spread creator – I now have over 300 in my inventory – I find that such an open-ended technique fails to provide even the barest minimum level of structure that I believe is critical to any topic-specific interpretation. “No-spread” throws are interesting to experiment with, but trying to decipher them in a professional setting (that is, reading for paying clients “on the clock”) with any kind of promptness and precision I’ve found to be a losing proposition. Having a coherent architecture for my narrative definitely speeds things up and lets me cut right to the chase.

All of this comes down to personal preference, and experienced diviners can offer only anecdotal advice about what has performed well for them. Such input should be taken “under advisement” but never treated as gospel. If it furnishes hints about generally-accepted practices that motivate the inquirer to try them out, it will have accomplished its purpose. But those who don’t want to hear about standards and guidelines should probably stick with oracle decks, where “anything goes.”

*Just a brief word about the CC. I wouldn’t bother with Waite’s awkward original design. In her 1960 book The Tarot Revealed, Eden Gray came up with a much more logical version. She replaced the “Sign of the Cross” structure of the six-card “Cross”with a clockwise flow from the bottom and split the “Hopes and Fears” position in two by eliminating the second “Querent” card (“Himself”) and relocating “Fears” to the seventh spot. In his more recent Tarot Beyond the Basics, Anthony Louis mainly followed Gray’s model but he changed the fifth position (“What May Happen”) to “the Present,” something I had already done back in the 1980s to complete the temporal cycle. As many modern readers have done, I also got rid of the underlying “Significator” card in most cases since it is redundant to the “live” significator sitting across the table from me (in other words, it adds nothing to the narrative that the Querent can’t tell me directly). Finally, in line with the old idea that the “Cross” portion is about development of the matter (the “Question”) over time and the “Staff” section is about the Querent’s reaction to those events, leading to a final outcome, I have made sure that all of the psychological aspects of the reading are covered in the “Staff” cards.