The Tradition
The working parts of a reading.
A tarot reading has three moving pieces — a deck of seventy-eight images, a spread that gives those images positions to speak from, and a vocabulary for what an image means when it lands upside down. None of them are mystical. All of them are inherited.
Seventy-eight images
The Deck
78 cards
Twenty-two majors trace a soul's journey. Fifty-six minors map the texture of an ordinary day. Each card here carries imagery from Rider–Waite–Smith, Thoth, and Marseille — and the words of those who taught the world to read them.
Browse the deck →
Position is meaning
Spreads
27 spreads
A spread is a grammar. It tells the cards where to stand and what to mean from that position. Pick the smallest spread that fits the question — three cards usually beat ten.
See the spreads →
Four ways to be upside-down
Reversal modes
Greer's taxonomy
Mary K. Greer gave reversed cards back their nuance. Opposite, excessive, blocked, underdeveloped — four readings instead of one vague ‘negative.’ Querent picks the mode that fits the question.
Read the modes →
Why bother with all this
Tarot rewards literacy. Most apps don't expect any.
The cards have been in print for over five hundred years. Waite, Crowley, Pollack, Greer, Gray, Nichols, DuQuette, Place, Snow — generations of readers wrote what they thought each one meant. Their books are still in print because the disagreements are still useful.
We built Querent on those books. Every card surfaces who said what about it, where they aligned, and where they didn't. The reading you get isn't somebody's opinion — it's the tradition handed forward, plainly, with citations.