These are two tarot spreads for thinking about work and choices: a five-card career spread, and a six-card spread for a decision between two paths, where you can name the two options. The cards are drawn at random from all 78 in your browser, and each one is read from its guide on this site.
How it works
Choose a spread. The cards are drawn without repeats, each of the 78 equally likely in each place, and laid in order.
Career, five cards
- Where you stand. Your work as it is now.
- What supports you. A strength, habit or person you can lean on.
- What holds you back. A pattern, doubt or circumstance that slows you down.
- What to build. A skill or quality worth putting effort into.
- A next step. One practical step to consider.
A choice between two paths, six cards
- The heart of the choice. What the decision is really about for you.
- Option A: what it offers.
- Option A: what it asks of you.
- Option B: what it offers.
- Option B: what it asks of you.
- What to keep in mind whichever way you go.
These layouts were written for this site. Tarot spreads are not fixed by tradition: A. E. Waite himself gives three different methods in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), and readers have made many more since. For the best known traditional layout, see the Celtic Cross.
Reading the result
Each card is shown in its place with its keywords and its meaning, upright or reversed, from our guide, with a link to the full guide. Read the career spread as a short story, from where you are to one step you might take. For the choice spread, compare the two pairs, what each path offers and what it asks, and notice which card you argue with or feel relieved by. That reaction often says more than any single meaning.
Where traditions differ
Readers differ on reversed cards: some read them as a blocked or inward form of the upright meaning, others never use them. The box for reversed cards starts unticked. Some readers also draw a significator first, or pull one more card for advice; these spreads do neither.
What it does not do
It does not decide for you, and it does not know what will happen in a job or a business. For decisions about money, contracts, health or the law, please speak to a qualified person. The options and question you type are only shown back to you and stay in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
↳ Are these traditional tarot spreads?
No. The two layouts were written for this site, which is common practice: tarot spreads are not fixed by tradition, and Waite himself published several methods. The Celtic Cross is the best known traditional one.
↳ How should I ask about my career?
Open questions work best, such as "what do I need to understand about my work this year?" rather than "will I get the job?" The cards are prompts for your own thinking, not a forecast.
↳ How does the two-path spread help with a decision?
It sets the two options side by side, with one card for what each offers and one for what each asks of you, and two cards about you. Seeing them together can make your own priorities clearer.
↳ What if the cards seem to favour neither option?
That is a useful answer too. It may mean the choice matters less than how you go about it, or that you need more information before deciding.
↳ Can I draw again if I do not like the cards?
You can, but drawing until you get the answer you hoped for defeats the purpose. If the first cards surprise you, that may be the useful part.