AUTHOR’S NOTE: It’s been said that the tarot can be tasked with answering any question, but in my own predictive work it has proven to be better for some inquiries than for others. This compilation offers an overview of my experience in reading the cards since I returned to active practice in 2011. The categories were derived primarily from my spread-development activity and the practical insights gained from “live” testing of the spreads, both on myself and others. I’ve presented them in descending order of applicability, value and effectiveness.

Situational Awareness and Development: This one tops my list because it represents the fundamental premise behind divination, which is to identify tendencies, trends, possibilities or – in the best sense – likely results that may attend future circumstances. It is the classic “fortune-telling” scenario.

Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, Conflict-Resolution and Crisis Management: This aggregate category goes hand-in-hand with situational awareness and envisions what might be done about the matter in question at various levels of urgency.

General Life-Reading (including “Daily Readings”): This group looks at “Who am I right now, what are my opportunities and challenges, and who can I become in the foreseeable future?”

Relationship Dynamics: Here I’m talking about the interactive experience of human contact, not the psychic guessing-game of “who-likes-whom.” In other words, it’s situational and not purely speculative, eying new romance at one end of the spectrum and divorce at the other, with platonic relations as a separate branch of analysis addressing non-romantic circumstances.

Health-and-Happiness Topics: This category covers all situations that are tied to hopes and fears about personal well-being, particularly chances for success or threats of failure that are often presented to the diviner as “What must I do to obtain (or avoid) this outcome?” (Also see the “Diagnostic Questions” entry below.)

“Starting Over” (i.e. relocation, repositioning and other lifestyle-altering considerations): These concerns often take the form of “I want to do something different with my life but I don’t know where to begin” or, more pointedly, “How can I improve my status?” The open-ended nature frequently makes them difficult to answer constructively; a better way to put it would be “What would happen if I . . . ?”

Work and Career Opportunities; Related Educational Pursuits; Business Development and Management: Job-hunting and college/course selection are most often the gist of these readings; business-related questions are less common.

Sociopolitical, Collective, Geophysical and Other Shared Events (Elections, international conflicts, sporting contests, natural disasters, etc.): I have had some success with election results, societal analyses and sporting-event forecasts, but it is sporadic.

Investigative Efforts (especially finding lost items and missing people): Horary astrology is far better for this, with the Lenormand cards being my alternate choice. Tarot by itself is a little too impressionistic and “atmospheric” to be reliable when we are after hard facts, but it has worked well in combination with horary predictions.

Psychological Self-Analysis and Self-Improvement: Although many readers consider this approach to be the pinnacle of achievement in tarot application (some to the exclusion of all else), it tallies a distant second to natal astrology in my own practice when it comes to psychological profiling.

It often feels like we are trying to shoehorn Jungian concepts into the narrative when most seekers are more interested in practical affairs. I like to say “They already know who they are, they just want to hear what is going to happen.” But self-reading is another matter, and it can become a case of diminishing returns for effort expended if we keep at it too long. (I went the “navel-gazing” route for decades before the well finally ran dry and I returned to astrology for metaphysical self-examination.)

Yes-or-No Answers: It can be done successfully if the question is worded properly.

Diagnostic Medical, Financial and Legal Questions: Ditto regarding question formulation in a way that will fend off malpractice liability if we get the prediction wrong. We don’t necessarily have to avoid answering such queries but we must carefully finesse them. It may be advisable to simply dodge these topics altogether and direct the sitter to a professional in the field.

Mind-Reading: This is the realm of “What does Joe or Mary think/feel about me?” I believe such questions are a waste of time since the subject is a moving target that can change from day-to-day or even moment-to-moment. If we really must entertain the matter, it’s preferable to ask what the individual might do the next time we decide to engage, either before or during the encounter.

We could of course point the querent at a psychic diviner and bow out, but in my own practice – because I don’t want to know the specific question in advance – I will base my observations strictly on the testimony in the cards and let the sitter figure out how they apply. This accomplishes two things: it actively involves the client in telling the story and it removes any initial bias I may feel toward the subject due to past experience. The client-reader dialogue will then fill in the details to the extent necessary.