Learning Tarot Spreads

by Joan Bunning

Each tarot reader has a unique style that they hone over time into the fine art of divining the future. In this essential guide to arranging cards into prophetic patterns, Joan Bunning has compiled a veritable encyclopedia of tarot spreads with great appeal for accomplished readers who want to explore further as well as novices with their very first deck. What sets Joan Bunning apart from every other writer on the subject of tarot is her ability to take a rather complicated esoteric system and break it down into manageable, clear, and easily learned parts. Chapters include spreads for relationships, family, love, money, health, work, and even specific time periods. Sample spreads are comprehensive, ranging from manycard "Gypsy" spreads to quick and easy "Three Card Draws." She also gives the reader reference charts, exercises and structured tarot lessons.

Genres: Tarot, Divination

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 24, 2007

Reviews

[daemyra, the realm's delight · Rating 4 out of 5]

This year, I've been interested in working with tarot cards in creative ways, which is why I picked up Joan Bunning's Learning Tarot Spreads. I've been reading tarot books that were more theory and while I enjoy that, I like to be given prompts or exercises to try.

This is a very slim book that is both commendable and sometimes boring in how it catalogues tarot spreads. This is designed like a workbook in a way as there are exercises to do after every "lesson", but the exercises weren't particularly calling to me. On the design of the book, I think the structure could have been better organized. I kept having to flip back and forth between the appendixes and lessons. I didn't immediately understand how the book was organized until I sat down with it for a few times. This isn't a bad thing, but if the publisher wants to put out introductory books, a consideration into the presentation of the lay-out helps a lot with this.

While reading that position or shape can alter the meaning of a tarot spread wasn’t a newsflash for me, the type of cataloguing I did enjoy was Bunning's identification of 8 subjects and 24 qualities that can be used in a tarot spread, something she came up with it after analyzing hundreds of spreads to find universal commonalities. (Qualities are the factors surrounding a subject.)

Perhaps too introductory for where I'm at, but also not the most accessible read for new beginners. It is factually true what Benning states, but I imagine if I was a new reader, I'd feel a little lost about her talking about positions and subjects, which is a bit more of a dry, if accurate explanation.

Many of the tarot shapes were also shapes that I had already worked with in my own practice, so I didn't feel creatively inspired, as I had hoped.

The back of the book calls this "an essential encyclopedia of tarot spreads", but there is no actual section dedicated to common tarot spreads. It would have been great to show the most common ones like Celtic Cross, and even common spreads by popular tarot figures. Note: Celtic Cross is mentioned but it’s not discussed with context or introduced with anything besides it’s a popular spread.

What comes to mind is Benebell Wen's Holistic Tarot. It's not just about tarot spreads, but its section on tarot spreads included common spreads as well as her own spreads; there's more Golden Dawn, Kabbalah influences involved. Bunning's tarot spreads is stripped of tarot tradition, and in a sense this can be erasure, and a loss. In another sense, it could help for folks to focus.

In the tarot communities that I am in, there is a love for creative tarot spreads that includes mixing decks together, and this type of creativity is rarely encouraged by teachers or the literature. Bunning also states larger spreads are unnecessary, and I've had my own tarot teachers adopt a dismissive attitude towards larger spreads. This is quite interesting because the most popular YouTube tarot channels (as far as I can tell) mix a ton of cards together.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome resource! All the tools you need to understand tarot spreads and to create your own.

[Delacey · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off this book has been in my tarot book collection for many years. Back when I first got this book I was eager to read and develop spreads that were personalized and specific to the issue. The first chapter was decent. Then the book got bogged down with wordy lessons, and was just confusing. I put it down and turned to my other spread book I'd purchased at the same time. What a world of difference. Needless to say I ignored Bunning's book until just recently, to see if it would give me ideas for my current project. Once again I was overwhelmed by the pretentious writing style, difficulties finding the specific information I was looking for, and down right confusing references. The only thing I thought was helpful in the book was the possible card layout shapes and the quick reference card definitions (which I hardly unique) overall there are better and more digestible books on Designing your own Tarot Spreads.

[Margaret-Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Learning Tarot Spreads is a very dry, almost clinical book.

There are diagrams of various spreads at the back of the book, but the explanations are at the front of the book and do not directly correspond to the spread diagrams.

This is a book more for someone who has a bit of experience with tarot readings and would like to get into the minutiae of readings for single and multiple persons. Not a book for beginners, which what I was looking for.

[Alice Chau-Ginguene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very comprehensive book on a very specific subject matter - Tarot Spread. A must read for anyone who is interested in tarot reading.

[Tami · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tarot spreads can be extremely versatile. In fact, there are many ways to tailor spreads to an individuals needs be they insight into a generalized question or very precise information about a particular question (or aspects of that query) within a chosen span of time. Despite this versatility though, most of us tend to have a couple of favourite spreads that we use no matter what our intention.

I am definitely amongst the majority of tarot card users. I have two spreads that I tend to use the most and because of this fact I often find myself frustrated when I would like a little more understanding of how a situation came to be, when I'd like more detail about a particular question, or when I could use a little more guidance.

That's why I really enjoyed working through Learning Tarot Spreads. This book doesn't just illustrate a bunch of new tarot spreads that I will try once and likely never use again. Instead, the author sets out to teach the reader how the shape, position, and relations of cards as individuals and as part of an entire spread react, interact, and compliment each other. Readers learn through trial and error while undertaking different exercises set out in the text. Once armed with this knowledge, the reader can easily make up his or her own tarot spreads in order to work with any query or purpose that they may choose. I really like the freedom or creating my own tarot spreads and the piece of mind that these spreads are properly balanced and suit my intention.

[Marcello Tarot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro decisamente _non_ per principianti e di non facile comprensione a una prima lettura; per meglio dire, a me era sembrato di capirlo, ma è solo studiandolo più e più volte che sono riuscito a farlo mio. Con ogni probabilità, il tutto è dovuto alla maniera in cui la Bunning presenta le informazioni; a me personalmente risulta ostica ma non si può certo dire che non conosca la sua materia! Il libro è stato infatti scritto dopo accurate ricerche sulle stese esistenti, dalle quali l’autrice ha tratto quella che lei chiama «stesa flessibile», che altro non è che una “cornice” per tutto quanto si possa chiedere alle carte. Di aiuto sono inoltre i vari esercizi presentati lezione dopo lezione.
Sia come sia, se c’è un libro che dà qualcosa di più ogni volta che lo si rilegge – e sempre ammesso di avere fatto pratica tra una rilettura e l’altra – è questo.