How to Conduct a Tarot Reading for Someone Who Can’t Be Present

Giving distance tarot readings is an excellent way to get more clients and share your tarot skills with people. If you’re new to tarot reading or haven’t done distance readings, there are a few things that you need to know about the process.

To do a tarot reading for someone who isn’t present, you need to have a clear conversation with the querent and determine what their intention is, what kind of spread they want, and make sure you take pictures of the card if they’re not joining you via video call.

Reading tarot can be exceptionally insightful, even from far away. For more information about giving distance readings, keep scrolling, and check out these easy-to-follow tips.

Have a Clear Conversation With the Querent

Before you offer a distance reading to someone, you first need to have a very clear conversation with them. A conversation is one of the most important parts of reading tarot for someone. Though it is preferable to have a querent in person while you perform the reading so you can get a sense of their intentions and energy, there is also an advantage to being able to read for people who are not local.

There are multiple ways that people can reach out to you for tarot readings. If you are someone who’s only just begun reading the cards, then you’re likely just going to be performing distance readings for your friends who aren’t present. However, if you are a professional reader and have a client looking to reach you by email or phone, you will have a different perspective on distance readings.

How Did They Reach You?

Before you figure out your distance reading format, you must first identify how the client reached you. If you’re working with someone you know personally and casually, it will be easy to communicate via text message or other messengers. You might have been talking with them in person, which makes communication lines easy and smooth.

However, if you are working as a professional reader, you have many different avenues through which people can reach you. If you work at parties or other events, clients may have found you in person and connected there.

They may have located you there if you have social media or a website. There is a more professional relationship with clients, so text or messengers may not be the best way.

If on Phone/Video Call

If you’re reading for someone with whom you have connected over the phone or through a video call, you will have an easier time determining someone’s needs for their reading than you would through text messages, messenger, or email. This is because, through voice calls, you can read someone’s tone and inflection, while on video, you can also see their facial expressions.

If you’re reading for someone over the phone, you first have to ask them about their intentions for the reading. Determine what spurred them to reach out to a tarot reader.

What kind of reading do they want—something for love, career, spirituality, or something else completely? And, if your client does not know you personally, how did they hear about you?

Getting the answers to all these questions is essential before you begin reading. While it is possible to read without knowing the person and what they’re about, it’s much easier to make links between the person and their cards if you understand some of what’s happening in their head and their heart.

If via Email/Text Message

If you’re communicating via email or text message, you have to work through the difficulty of not seeing someone’s face or hearing their tone of voice. Still, it’s easier to say what you mean over email or text because you can pick and choose your words slowly.

If you’re a professional reader choosing to only communicate with your client over email, then make sure to have a set of questions ready to send to your potential querent. You might like to refer back to the questions mentioned in the previous paragraph and keep them on hand for email-based readings.

Choosing the right avenue of communication for your reading is essential. Be clear with your clients about which formats you like to read with. It’s okay if you don’t like talking on the phone or only want to do text-based readings for people.

It’s your business; you can run it, however you’d like. There are options!

Choose an Intention

The next step in the process of reading for someone distantly is to pick an intention. The intention is essential to your tarot reading because it helps propel the result. The intention for your tarot reading is the question or request you read around, and it’s crucial to pick the right words.

It’s important not to be too vague; for example, don’t just ask what will happen in the future. Instead, you should choose a more reasonable amount of time for your reading or pick an area of your life that you want to hone in on.

At the same time, you also don’t want to be too specific in your readings, either. It won’t be beneficial to ask the cards a question requiring a particular date, time, or location. Questions like “where will my child be born?” or “what time should I plan our wedding for?” won’t be effective. Remember—the cards can only tell you and your querent so much.

When you’re approached for a distance tarot reading, don’t just use the first question that your client poses. That question is likely to be a bit rough—they’re probably emotional about the question and might want to slant it in a way that gives them the desired result. Your responsibility as a tarot reader is to try to get them the most accurate result possible, not just to make them happy.

Work with your client to get the best middle-ground question possible. You’ll likely have to help them, so don’t hesitate to make suggestions. It’s essential to get this part of the reading right because you won’t have the person there with you physically to help you focus on the intention—it’s just going to be you and the cards.

Choose a Spread

Once you’ve determined the best intention for your client and their specific distance reading, you should decide which style of spread they want. This will depend greatly on their needs. This also depends on how much you charge for readings and the time you have on your hands.

If your querent is looking for just a little information, you won’t need too many cards. However, if they’re looking for information about a big life change, you’re better off going with a more intricate spread. The fact that the reading is given at a distance, the amount of cards doesn’t matter. You can choose whatever you feel works best for the client.

Three-Card

Even though they might seem small, three-card readings hold much power. You can pick from several different “themes within the three-card dynamic.” You might like to choose a past, present, and future spread or a mind, body, and soul spread. Another way to read with three cards is to see them as a complete image. Once you have drawn and flipped the three cards, you’ll understand.

If you feel that whatever three cards you pull aren’t enough to get the complete answer to your querent, then you can add on cards. Sometimes it’s helpful in a three-card spread to pull a “do” card, a “don’t” card, and a “hidden knowledge” card.

If you’re pulling a “do” card, use it to represent something the querent should do in this circumstance. If you’re pulling a “don’t” card, let that represent some behavior or action to avoid. The “hidden knowledge” card should be drawn from the bottom of the deck and is a great way to give the querent a deeper understanding of the hidden forces at work in their situation.

Five-Card

If your querent has a simple question but wants to dive deep into the issue, you should opt for a five-card spread. Much like the three-card spread, it offers a moderately simple answer to a question. However, with the addition of two extra cards, you can expand on the information the cards want to give you and your querent.

There are several options for readings that involve five cards. The first helpful option for your clients when they have a question of moderate importance is to spread the five cards out in a single line. You might think of this spread as a way to see the past, present, future, internal, and external factors at play, or you can use this as a way to get a five-part image of an answer or result.

If your querent is inquiring about a relationship with someone else, then your best bet as a reader would be to offer them a five-card spread in the fashion of Kim Krans’ relationship spread as outlined in her Wild Unknown Tarot Guidebook.

Kim Krans suggests using a spread of five cards as follows:

• One card to represent yourself.
• Another to describe the other person.
• A third is to represent your issue or baggage.
• A fourth represents the other person’s baggage.
• A fifth card is placed over the four others to represent the uniting force between you and the other person.

As Krans outlines in her handbook, this spread is excellent for unraveling romantic relationship issues but can also be easily used for work relationships, friendships, and family relationships. Using five cards gives you a helpful look at what’s happening deeper under the surface of what you feel is causing a specific issue.

Celtic Cross

If your client is looking for a deep, significant reading that covers all the details of a certain issue or even just a turning point in their life, then you should give them a tarot reading with the Celtic Cross spread. The Celtic Cross is an old-school tarot spread that’s been used for decades to examine the most intricate details of issues. This spread is a great way to cover all your bases and dive deep.

The Celtic Cross, as mentioned on the Biddy Tarot website, is an in-depth reading with ten cards representing different facets of a point in time or a certain circumstance. The first card represents the present moment and current events, while the second card (that crosses over the first) represents something that’s challenging the querent.

The third and fourth cards (to the left and right of the first card) represent the past and the future, much like a three-card spread would. The fifth and sixth cards represent the “crown” and the “ground” of an issue, meaning that they are the qualities that uplift the querent and can either root them or drag them down.

According to Biddy Tarot, the seventh card represents a piece of advice that the tarot wants to offer your querent, with the eighth card being the external factors at play in the circumstance or point in time that you’re reading for. The ninth card represents hopes and fears that play into the intention, while the tenth is the situation’s outcome.

Shuffle and Pick the Cards, or Have the Querent Select Them

Once you have determined what kind of spread you will use for your client, it’s time to shuffle the cards. It doesn’t matter what shuffling style you use—it just matters that the cards get rearranged randomly. You can dramatically shuffle them if you’re giving the person a reading via video, but if you’re not good with shuffling, you can mix them up however you like.

When you’re doing the shuffling, it’s essential to keep the intention in mind. This is why tarot readers are so specific about their choice—it has to be something you can focus on when reading for someone. It’s the point of reference for your reading, and by shuffling the cards while concentrating intensely, you can be sure that the cards will give you a clear answer.

Depending on how you communicate with your querent, you have a couple of options for letting them pick the cards. If you’re communicating with your client over the phone or via text or email, then there’s no way you can have them pick the cards out themselves.

In this case, you should pick them yourself. You have a couple of different options. The first option is to cut the deck and spread them out in a few fan shapes and choose using your intuition. You can also pick cards from the top of the deck.

If your client is on a video call with you and they can see you clearly, they can pick the cards from a fan shape if it’s wide enough, but this is very difficult, so you should pick them yourself. Getting caught up in the tarot’s complications is easy, so adding another difficulty to the process won’t help at all.

Take Clear Photos if the Querent Is Not on a Video

If you’re communicating with your querent over a video call, they can see the cards for themselves. This is helpful, especially if your client has never seen a tarot deck or used a deck with detailed imagery that you want to show off. If you’re on a video call, aim your camera at your deck so they can get a good look at it.

If you’re working with a client who is either over the phone or is only communicating with you via text or email, then you should take a high-quality picture of the cards. If you’re working with a three or five-card spread, you can get away with just taking one photo, but if you’re working with the Celtic Cross, take a few different photos. Use a nice camera if you can—otherwise, use your phone.

Final Thoughts

Giving distance tarot readings is a way to offer tarot readings to people who are not present in the exact location. To do a distance reading, it is essential to have a clear conversation with the person seeking the reading (the querent) to determine their intentions and what type of spread they want.

It is also helpful to see the querent’s facial expressions and hear their tone of voice through a phone or video call, but reading through email or text messages is still possible. When giving a distance reading, it is essential to choose the right deck and spread, take pictures of the cards if the querent is not present via video call, and communicate clearly with the querent about the reading process and the meanings of the cards.