AUTHOR’S NOTE: In a recent post titled “Most Tarot Readings Stop Too Soon,” tarot author Paul Hughes-Barlow observed that, at its most basic, a tarot reading approximates a “lookup table:” Pull a card, look up the meaning, make the interpretation. He concluded by saying that “It works, but only in the same sense that a dictionary works. You can understand individual words without understanding poetry.” He proposed that there are four levels of systematic complexity beyond that point. Although I didn’t follow up on the rest, I get the gist of what he’s saying about the sterility of the simplistic reading.

Enrique Enriquez once noted that reading cards in combination should ideally inspire us to seek “visual poetry” among their singular designs and definitions. In that way we’re not doing what I describe as “Lego-block” divination by stacking up keywords but rather performing a gestalt overview that brings in the concept of pattern-recognition. While there are elements of memorization (or, more accurately, internalization) in this process, ultimately we create something unique from the interaction between the cards in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

This promotes narrative-building that is fluidly organic, which I consider to be the “Holy Grail” of tarot as a performance art. But we must pay close attention to the goal of the reading (whether it is being done for oneself or another person) lest our poetic improvisations wander too far off the page into philosophical pondering that is of little value to the pragmatic answers being sought. This is the main reason that I decided to back away from psychological and spiritual extrapolation from the cards, recognizing that “most querents already know who they are” (and hopefully what their private take on universal truth is), “they just want to hear what’s going to happen.”

The complications that can arise often transcend the seeker’s grasp of individual priorities by bringing in competing agendas driven by external circumstances or other people with a stake in the matter. This can blur the reader’s vision of a linear path to the outcome since “line-of-sight” is easily lost due to parallel trajectories and differing objectives. Extracting these insights from the cards in a spread relies heavily on the pattern recognition mentioned above. Certain cards will speak to the broader implications that this suggests and should not be allowed to disappear into the thicket of single-pointed interpretation.

There are many ways to link them and thereby generate a secondary tableau within the larger outlook that offers situational “counterpoint” as an auxiliary or alternate perspective. One of the most obvious is various shared qualities in the form of esoteric correspondences known as “dignities:” element, suit, number, polarity, rank, commonality of purpose. For example, numerous court cards could give cause to suspect that the querent will be up against stiff competition for whatever the forecast portends (as in a hiring scenario) or merely that there will be several meddlers in the sitter’s affairs, each with his or her own ax to grind. In a domestic setting, it could mean that family members have different views on the matter in question that must be accommodated.

One of my favorite ways to make this call is to view the array as a topographic map, in which prominent cards (often related by dignity) stand out in stark contrast as “peaks” to the unremarkable “valleys” signified by less-consequential cards. We may be able to spot them well enough but fail to integrate them into an overarching theme. Joining these pinnacles in a meaningful pattern can form the backbone of a compelling analysis that can be overlaid atop the prosaic anecdotes being told by the cards taken individually in sequence. This can lift the prediction beyond the realm of the querent’s everyday experiences and into one that is substantially more revelatory. It can also be read as a pivotal “back-story” to the mundane thrust of the main narrative. If this is not one of the “complex systems” envisioned by Hughes-Barlow, I would argue that it probably should be.