How to Read Tarot as a Sacred Text
Or, the ritual that will completely elevate your tarot readings - if you're ready to go there!
The first afternoon of my spring break, I returned home from the library with an impressive stack of books which contained The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices by Casper ter Kuile (that’s an affiliate link to help support independent bookstores, by the way).
In this book, author and Harvard Divinity School Fellow Casper ter Kuile explores how we can find meaning, purpose, and connection in everyday rituals, especially now that so many of us no longer seek these things within traditionally religious spaces and communities. Despite that trend, humans still long for a sense of the sacred to nurture our souls, and this book goes into various secular and even mundane ways we can incorporate ritual practices like prayer, a sabbath, and forming congregations into our lives.
And, to probably nobody’s surprise, the way that sparked the interest of this literature professor the most was the ritual of sacred reading, or lectio divina.
As I read about this sacred reading practice, I quickly realized that it could be applied to tarot as well. Really naturally and beautifully in fact.
In this week’s newsletter, I’ll lay out the steps of lectio divina, or reading sacred texts, and show you exactly how to incorporate this beautiful ritual into your existing tarot practice to elevate and transform your tarot readings.
Let’s dive in!
First, what exactly is lectio divina?
Lectio divina is Latin for sacred reading, and it refers to a monastic or religious process for engaging deeply with scripture and other sacred texts. But as ter Kuile argues in The Power of Ritual, “Unbundling religious rituals can…be a helpful tool for infusing meaning into our everyday practices.”
So, how does lectio divina work exactly?
Ter Kuile adapts the four-stage reading process (because there are variations) developed by the Carthusian monk Guigo II in the twelfth century. Instead of aiming to read as much of the Bible as they could in any given setting, “Guigo instructed his students to choose just a sliver of text to chew on” with this lectio divina process.
Ready? Here are the four steps of this sacred reading ritual, as set forth in The Power of Ritual:
What’s literally happening in the narrative? Where are we in the story?
What allegorical images, stories, songs, or metaphors show up for you?
What experiences have you had in your own life that come to mind?
What action are you being called to take?
As I’m sure you may have noticed a lot of us bookworms - especially in a classroom or really good book club setting - are already implementing one or more of these steps in our existing reading practices and book chats. (Participants in our Heal the Witch Wound Tarot Book Club, am I right?)
But it was really exciting to see that this process has been used by monks, as Guigo metaphorically put it, to climb up a spiritual ladder through scripture study and get closer to God. No wonder we love reading so much and get so much out of it. We’re not just nerds, friends! It’s a sacred, mystical, and potentially transformative process!
As ter Kuile explains:
Reading is inherently about more than mechanistically decoding symbols on a page. It’s about interpreting characters and the situations they find themselves in. It’s about making meaning of the world around us. Reading changes us. We discover who we might become by the things we read—expanding our imagination with every new book we encounter.
Okay, but can you really do this with non-religious texts?
You might be wondering if the ritual of lectio divina is applicable (or perhaps even appropriate?) for non-religious texts.
To the latter I say, if you’re thinking “Blasphemy! This is blasphemy!” you are probably reading the wrong newsletter and that’s all there is to that.
But as for the applicability, ter Kuile along with atheist chaplain Vanessa Zoltan started the award-winning podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text doing exactly this! Prior to that, Zoltan led a sacred reading group for Jane Eyre. So yes, it works with all sorts of texts.
In fact, in addition to choosing a literary classic, ter Kuile offers many other suggestions for lectio divina fodder:
obscure favorites
children’s books
poetry
a book in the language you were raised in
songs
even art!
Art, you say? You mean like, oh, I don’t know, tarot cards!?
Reading tarot as a sacred text
I can’t think of a more complex, rich, and potentially sacred visual text than the tarot. How many of us already stay with a single tarot card for days, perhaps even weeks, meditating upon its symbols and story in a way that nourishes our soul and inspires us to take meaningful action?
So, I gave it a try.
I started incorporating the four stages of lectio divina into my personal tarot readings. Below are the results. I’ll walk you through each stage of this sacred reading ritual to give you an idea of how approaching a tarot reading in this ritualistic way can elevate and transform your relationship with your cards.