Tarot for Manifestation
Did you know you can use tarot for manifestation? In this post, learn how tarot cards are much more than a fortune-telling game. They are a tool for deep personal exploration, and they can help you manifest your intentions with greater clarity and speed.
Check out more info from our expert guest writer, Renee here.
In pop culture, tarot cards are often used by mystical fortune tellers or con artists to portend mortal peril or a spicy affair or something equally ridiculous. This is partly why tarot cards are often feared and misunderstood. Even today, the surface-level interpretations of some cards merely signify important events in a typical life. This seriously underestimates the depths to which tarot cards can help you know yourself.
While there may be some people who are gifted with psychic abilities who use the tarot as a way to communicate with spirits or predict the future, there is a much simpler way to use the power of this divination tool.
Anyone can access the archetypal energy represented in the 78 different cards of a tarot deck. Each card represents ideas, emotions, and experiences present across cultures and generations. With a combination of intuition and study, anybody can gain insight from the tarot to aid in their manifestation practice.
Manifestation is simply bringing something into your reality. Most of us are doing this subconsciously all the time. Intentional manifestation using the law of attraction can help us to create a life we want rather than settling for the life we have. There are a whole host of personal tools, tricks, and techniques that can aid in this process.
So how can tarot cards help you create the life you desire?
How to begin using your tarot cards for manifestation
Each card in the tarot deck tells a story. Even before you may be skilled enough to give yourself a proper reading, you can begin to work with the energy of specific cards. Here are a few super simple ways to begin using your cards.
- Simply placing a card on your altar or in a place where you’ll see it often can activate your mind and keep you focused on your intention.
- Or you can carry the card with you to keep the energy present at all times, just like you might put a crystal in your pocket.
- You can also hold a specific card during meditation and call in the energy that the card represents. Set the intention of embodying that energy during your meditation.
- You could also use the card as a journaling prompt. Imagine yourself in the card and write about how things would be different if you manifested the energy in the card. The best way is whatever feels most powerful to you.
Major Arcana and Minor Arcana Cards
Before you can select a card to work with, you may want to know a bit about its traditional meaning. Of course, you can choose your cards completely intuitively. If you see an image in a card that inspires you, that is going to be a powerful tool no matter what other people claim the card means. It’s what you believe the card means to you that matters.
However, if you want to work with the more traditional meanings, it’s important to know a bit about the structure of a tarot deck.
There are two sets of cards within the deck. Probably the most well-known are the major arcana cards. There are 22 cards in this series ranging from The Fool at zero to the World at 21. Each of these cards represents a life’s journey and the broad, overarching themes or energies that might run through an individual life experience. These are big-picture cards and can be very powerful for long-term manifestations.
The minor arcana is made up of four suits, just like regular playing cards, but the suits are represented by wands, cups, swords, and pentacles or coins. These suits represent the elements of fire, water, air, and earth respectively. There are 10 numbered cards in each suit, sometimes called pip cards.
Then each suit also has four court cards represented by the page, the knight, the queen, and the king. These cards can sometimes represent other people in your life.
The minor arcana tends to focus more on day-to-day life rather than the broad themes of the major arcana. Each one has an important lesson or reflection and a story all its own. Minor arcana cards can be more helpful for short-term goals.
Major Tarot Cards for Manifestation
In the major arcana, there are a few cards that are ideal for manifestation. Any card may help with specific ideas, but these cards are great for most types of intentions. And because the major arcana works around larger life themes, these are cards you may want to keep on your altar over an extended period. They’re not necessarily going to manifest overnight.
The Magician –
This major arcana card is excellent for general manifestation. In the classic art by Pamela Coleman Smith, the Magician has one hand pointing to the sky and the other to the Earth, symbolizing the connection between the spiritual and material realms.
On the table in front of him are all his tools for manifestation and the creative process. Each one represents the four suits of the tarot deck and the four elements.
You’ll also see an infinity sign above his head. The Magician has infinite powers of manifestation and all the tools he needs to bring his intentions into his reality. He just has to use them. Use this card to remind you of your own infinite power and your access to Universal energy.
The Empress –
This is a card of nurturing, fertility, and abundance. In old-school fortune telling, this is often known as the pregnancy card, but fertility energy can be about so much more than just procreation.
You can call on the Empress whenever you want to be more prolific in any type of creation, be that art, wealth, joy or anything else that makes life worth living.
The Empress will help you move gently toward abundance without pushing or striving. She is the divine mother, so if you want abundance without all the hustle, this is the card for you.
The World –
The final card in the major arcana, The World represents achievement and culmination. If you want to focus on finally accomplishing a big goal, this card is ideal.
Think graduation, retirement, or any type of success that lies at the end of a long journey. You’ve made it, and now it’s time to celebrate.
This card is also great for embodiment work as it will help you to envision yourself as the person who already has everything you desire. In most versions of this card, you’ll see a circle. This reminds you that life is not a linear path but a spiral. Every ending is a new beginning. You’ve made it this far, and you can start fresh and go farther if you want to.
Minor Tarot Cards for Manifestation
Minor arcana cards are perfect for a boost of a certain type of energy on a given day. Maybe you have an interview or you’re pitching a new client and you want a boost of confidence, or maybe you just need to feel really abundant or self-assured. Whatever mood you’re wanting to incorporate, there’s likely a minor arcana card for that.
Aces-
The aces of all four suits are great for starting new projects. Ace energy is pure potential, offering you possibility. It’s up to you what you do with that potential, but the ace reminds you that it’s there for the taking.
- Ace of wands – This card offers potential in the realm of inspiration, spiritual connection, motivation, and action. It represents fire energy, the spark of excitement around a new project or belief.
- Ace of Cups – This card is overflowing with positive emotions. It’s reminding you that you can choose to feel good anytime you want. It represents the element of water, so you can envision your positive vibes overflowing and spilling into other areas of your life.
- Ace of Swords – This card is that bolt of lightning, the aha moment of a new idea. It could be a business proposition or a new way of seeing the world that opens up new possibilities. It represents the element of air, so it’s tied to logical thought and communication.
- Ace of Pentacles – This card is all about the physical world. It’s reminding you that material abundance is all around you and asking you what you want to do with it. It’s the seed of prosperity, but it’s up to you to grow that seed into something bigger. It represents earth energy, so it’s focused on things like money and tangible, physical abundance.
Cups-
9 of Cups – Commonly known as the wish card, it depicts a man sitting happily in front of nine golden cups. The cups represent our emotions, so he’s brought in a whole lot of what makes him happy. Call on this card when you want to bring an abundance of joy into your life in a powerful way.
10 of Cups – I like to refer to this as the big fat happy family card. It can represent whatever “family” means to you, but this card evokes joy and contentment. It’s that very relaxed and grateful vibe of being with the ones you love most and receiving their unconditional love in return.
Pentacles-
9 of Pentacles – In my personal practice, this is known as the Ina Garten card. This is especially powerful for women who want to manifest financial independence with a bit of luxury. This card is about enjoying the abundance you’ve created and graciously sharing it with others.
10 of Pentacles – This is all about creating a financial legacy for your family. It’s about building generational wealth and stability for your descendants. If you’re looking to manifest a rock solid foundation for you and your family, try working with this card.
What to ask your tarot cards
An important key to manifestation is to get crystal clear on what you want, and a good tarot reading can help you gain that all-important clarity.
With a combination of great questions that cut through the clutter of your mind and cards that reveal a different angle to approach a problem, you can feel a veil lifting in your subconscious mind as the cards help you uncover thoughts, beliefs, and desires that may have been hidden from your conscious awareness.
If you’re using your tarot cards for self-discovery rather than fortune telling, you’re going to get a better result if you’re asking open-ended questions. Save your yes or no questions for your pendulum. Tarot can go much deeper.
While you certainly can ask things like “When will my manifestation arrive?” and get some possible insight, the truth is that it will arrive in divine timing when you are in alignment with your desires. Do you really need the cards to tell you that? Instead consider asking things that will help you figure out your own journey to vibrational alignment and inspired action. I find this to be a much more empowering and practical approach.
Here are a few examples of different things to ask your tarot cards for a general manifestation reading:
- How will I know if I’m in alignment with my intention?
- Is my intention in alignment with my highest good?
- What energy or beliefs do I need to cultivate to manifest my intention?
- How will I know if I’m on the right path?
- What kind of energy does the version of me who has what I desire exude?
- What do I need to release in order to manifest my intention?
These questions focus your attention back to what you have control over, yourself. They’re about who you need to become in order to manifest your intention. They move the focus away from the how and the when and back to your vibrational and emotional state. Tarot cards don’t make things happen, but they can make you see yourself or your situation in a way that leads to you making more empowered choices for yourself.
You can choose to view tarot cards as a purely psychological tool that works completely at random. I think they’re still effective when used in that way. You may also choose to believe that cards are turning up for you for a reason. Whether it’s your higher self, your spirit guides, or the Universe drawing you to certain cards, you may believe that a card was meant for you. Your spiritual connection to the cards is yours to explore. They’re a useful tool either way.
And of course, there are many different methods of tarot reading. People shuffle the cards in a different way or lay them out differently. When people are just starting out, they often ask about the right way to handle the cards. I truly believe that the right way is what works best for you. Always listen to your intuition.
Using tarot for manifestation every day
If you find yourself very drawn to tarot cards, you may want to work them into a daily routine or ritual. This is a great way to learn the meanings of each card. A simple single card pull as part of your morning routine can be a helpful insight into your current state.
Even paying attention to how you react to the card above and beyond its actual meaning can give you clues on where you may need to focus. If you have strong feelings of resistance to the suit of cups, for example, it may mean that you need to tend to your emotional health. If the same card keeps turning up for you again and again, it’s a sign that a specific area of your life may need tending.
This doesn’t have to take up a lot of time. I like to shuffle my cards three times and pull one card each morning. I then leave that card on my altar all day as a reminder of its message. Then at night when I’m recording my day in my journal, I’ll take a few moments to reflect on the card I pulled and how that energy showed up in my life throughout the day. This intentional reflection allows me to ingest the lesson of the card.
Other Tarot Spreads You Can Use
To go deeper in using tarot for manifestation, you may want to use a few more cards to weave together a bigger picture of your next step. Simple three-card spreads can give you better insight into your query. Here are a few three-card tarot spreads for manifestation.
- Who do I need to be? What do I need to do? What do I need to have? (in order to manifest my desire)
- What can I learn from the past? What do I have in the present? How can I use these in the future to get closer to what I want?
- How do I need to focus my physical, mental, and emotional energy? (drawing one card for each type of energy)
A tarot spread for manifestation
The spread below is more in-depth to take you to the next level of self-discovery. It’s designed to give you clarity on what the Universe wants for you and how you can achieve that.
Pull a card for each question to see how they weave together.
- What does the universe want for me?
- How can I align myself with this intention?
- What do I need to attract?
- What is blocking me?
- How can I dissolve those blocks?
- How will I know when my manifestation has arrived?
If you’re new to using tarot cards, longer spreads may feel a bit overwhelming. This is where working with an experienced professional tarot reader can really help. They may be able to offer you a full explanation of the spread.
When I offer tarot readings for people, we talk through the cards together. I use my knowledge of the cards to guide the client to see themself in a new light. This is something any tarot reader should be able to offer you so that when you leave the reading, you feel empowered to move forward with a clearer purpose.
I hope you’ll dust off your tarot cards and start using them to manifest your dream life. Their guidance can be invaluable. It just takes a bit of practice and a willingness to look at things from a new perspective. And remember, they’re just cards with pictures on them. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just have a good time with your cards, and they’ll soon become a powerful tool for manifestation.
