Welcome to Gaia! ::

Oh, is the Hidden Path out now? How is it? I've had a look at the Well-Worn Path; I'm not sure I'd use them for divination, but they'd be interesting for meditations or teaching.

I prefer using spreads offered with a deck because sometimes they're keyed to the strengths of that particular deck. If they're not coming out well, you may need some more time to get to know the deck.

Past-present-future is a general reading that seems to work with a few decks, though, and if you're happy with that then keep going with it. I don't do spreads for oracle cards, I just do draws - usually three or five-card draws - and see how they all relate to one another, and interpret from there. I prefer Celtic Cross for tarot, but it depends how much effort I'd like to put into the reading.

I had two decks of Tarot at one point. I had dragon tarot, and then I had... shoot... I can't remember the name of it, but it was... *is looking around the house* OMG... it's the Thoth deck? I have a Thoth deck? How could I not know about this! I didn't even know who Thoth WAS when I bought it, I just wanted Aleister Crowley's deck.

Anywho... stare
Now that I let all the crazy out.

Mess around with the configurations that feel right to you. In fact, tarot cards are just a tool, so if you create a setup that is more personal and meaningful and answers the specific questions you want, then that may work best for you.

I sometimes found that things just weren't right, and I just couldn't do it at that time on that day that I was attempting. But then other times, for example, I ended up pulling the same 5 cards off the top of the deck 3 times! So make sure the time feels right, be confident, and make the whole process yours. No-one knows your mind quite like you do. I used to use tarot cards mostly to understand what challenge I had to conquer to open the next door of my personal development. That seemed to work without fail.

Similar to Sanguina-chan, I look at the cards and try to understand their relationship. I find that when I put them in one spot, and expect a certain type of answer, that things are rigid and inaccurate, but when I try to understand how each different card could affect the meaning of the other cards, one great big picture forms. Also, she makes a good point about the deck itself. Did you feel as though that deck reached out to you when you bought it?

Good luck, and thank you for inspiring me to discover this synchronicity between my new works and my old cards. I am incredibly greatful!

Something else that may help is, some people like to say a little prayer, or perform a little ceremony and invocation before reading Tarot, simply to express respect for the powers at work. Aleister Crowley was one of these people. Aside from showing respect, this may also help to clear your mind and prepare an emotive response.

Something that I found helped me too is how I picked the cards. If I just shuffled the cards and picked what was on top, that seldom worked for me. Instead, I had a special cloth that I kept my deck in (poor bugger got ripped at some point). Anywho, I would lay the cloth out, then I would spread all of the cards across the cloth face down, and I would receive whatever impressions I could to pick the cards that contained a message for me. This works fairly well. Sometimes I would try and see which card was vibrating for my hand the most, or sometimes I would hover my right hand above the cards to see which cards would flood me with emotion, since that is my stronger psychic sense.