How do you read tarot cards? TikTok star Madam Adam walks SYFY WIRE through the basics

Lazlo Bane once sang, "That deck of tarot cards won't get you very far." Well, Madam Adam, who posts "30-second flash readings" on Instagram and TikTok daily, would beg to differ. The professional tarot reader, clairvoyant, and self-identified witch hopped on a Zoom call with SYFY WIRE's Jackie Jennings to discuss how a person can divine meaning from a deck of cards and why it can be used to soothe anxiety over life's never-ending bucket of unknowns.

"A lot of people seem to need this," Madam Adam said. "They seem to respond well to tarot, especially in the time that we’re in right now when not all of the answers are so linear. It’s really cool that it’s become a kind of system of therapy for the collective on Instagram and TikTok."

But what is tarot? According to Madam Adam, "it's the psychology that everything means something." However, if you're looking to get into tarot, you should consider a few different factors.

The first is intention: ask yourself why you want to start consulting the cards. Is it for guidance? Is it to channel your own spirituality? "I have a lot of clients that are branching out into their own spiritual endeavors and they're like, 'I'm thinking about this.' And I crack that egg and we talk about why and if it's something you want to utilize to channel your gifts. And that's great."

Once you have that figured out, choose a deck "that speaks to you," explained Madam Adam. Their personal preference is Rider–Waite–Smith, one of the most common tarot decks available on the market. "Get a deck and start messing with it. See what the images say to you. Before you start learning anything, you need to develop connection."

A deck doesn't need to be gifted to you, but it can't hurt to have a little more meaning behind your cards. For example, Madam Adam uses a deck gifted to them by their husband. "It's got some history and some love and some weight to it."

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Madam Adam also explained that tarot is starting to become more mainstream as a direct result of the global health crisis.

"It's not a coincidence either that the pandemic, COVID, plague is happening all at once," he continued. "We are having to isolate and look inward and knowing, 'Wow, I can't control sh** out there. Nothing! All I can control is me and my well-being and how I respond to the things that I can't control.' We all went inward and a lot of us had to break ... Ultimately, this isolation period in our current culture in society, we are forced to look inward and see that we really don't have as much control as we thought we do ... So many therapists I know are getting into tarot. It's just a thing that I think we need as a society right now. I'm calling it a 'spiritual renaissance.'"