THE TEACHING METHOD
How Tarot Academy teaches.
Every one of the 78 cards connects to a moment you’ve already lived. Here is exactly how that works.
THE CORE METHOD
You’ve already experienced every one of these cards.
Every one of the 78 cards represents a moment you’ve already experienced: a memory, a moment, a feeling. Instead of memorizing a card’s meaning, Tarot Academy tells you the story of the card and asks you to recall a moment in your life that carries the same energy.
Tarot is the story of life, and when taught this way the meanings become a physical and emotional experience recalled in your body.
This method connects you to your own intuition, because you’re drawing on something you actually lived instead of you’re trying to memorize. And it connects you to the people you read for: because when someone describes their situation, you have your own lived equivalent to draw on, not a list of keywords to recite back.
“You have lived the experience of every single one of the tarot cards. This is a story about life and the human experience.”
— Patrick, in Tarot Academy
NO EASY ANSWERS
Tarot Academy won’t let a card be simple.
That foundation of lived experience doesn’t mean the cards are simple.
Depending on what a specific card calls for, I fold in psychology, history, and Jungian theory to explain the core message of the moment. Nothing gets reduced to a keyword here, and the “difficult” cards get the most care of all.
“The thief card,” and why that’s dangerous.
Calling this “the thief card” and stopping there is genuinely dangerous: a reading like that can convince someone their partner is cheating, based on nothing. I teach it as what it actually is: a psychological defense, the cost of hiding who you are, sometimes self-protection and sometimes self-deception.
The sunken cost fallacy, named directly.
This card is a textbook cognitive bias: I’ve invested so much already that I can’t possibly change course now. That’s not mysticism. That’s a real psychological pattern with a name, and naming it is what actually helps someone recognize it in their own life.
A card most people get wrong, and why.
She’s written off as cold or callous, a reputation rooted in misogyny: the idea that a woman shouldn’t speak that directly. I teach her as what she is, someone who values honesty because she’s lived enough to know its worth, and then turn it back on the reader: discomfort with her usually says more about your own relationship to the truth than it does about her.
WHAT I WISH SOMEONE TOLD ME
Years of experience, distilled.
I’ve read for more than a thousand people from all over the world, and believe me when I say: I have seen it all.
This part of the course doesn’t just teach the mechanics of a reading: it hands you what years of client work has taught me, so you don’t have to learn it the hard way.
How to determine and maintain your boundaries.
How to keep going in a reading when your mind takes over.
How to safeguard your policies and ethics.
How to maintain direct communication as a kindness to yourself and others.
How to protect your spiritual and mental energy.
How to navigate sticky situations with disappointed or boundary-pushing clients.
All of this and more.
THE TAROT MANIFESTO
Creating your internal compass.
Somewhere in your practice, you’ll be asked something you weren’t prepared for: a question about death, about someone else’s life, about something you don’t feel qualified to touch.
I have you write a tarot manifesto before that happens, so the moment doesn’t catch you without a foundation.
It’s not a marketing document and it’s never meant to be published. It’s your own internal compass, the answers to questions like:
What kind of reader am I, and what kind of reader am I not?
What will I read on, and what will I never touch?
What do I believe tarot can actually do, honestly?
How do I handle a question that catches me off guard?
It’ll change as you grow, and it’s supposed to.
But having it written down before you need it is the difference between reacting in the moment and already knowing where you stand.
“Boundaries are not walls. They are the conditions under which you can perform your best.”
— Patrick, in Tarot Academy
STILLNESS, NOT PERFORMANCE
No one is rushing the process.
When you read for someone else, there’s a pull toward performance: filling every second of silence, sounding certain even when you’re not. I teach the opposite.
Silence can be your friend.
Tarot is a conversation, and a pause is sometimes exactly what a reading needs.
The same patience applies to difficult material. If a card brings up real grief, I don’t rush past it toward something more comfortable.
And if that grief shows up again after you thought you’d moved through it, that’s not a setback. That’s always okay. It’s the actual shape of how people heal.
The same patience applies to you: not just the people you read for.
Fear of getting it wrong is a normal part of starting, not a sign you’re not ready. I’d rather you try things and sometimes fail than wait to arrive fully formed.
THIS IS YOUR PRACTICE
Your intuition is the key.
Throughout the course, I repeat the same phrase: this is your practice.
The goal is for you to a real, trusting connection to your own intuition and your own extrasensory perception. Chances are, you’re already sensing quite a lot, you just need to trust it.
Emphasizing your values and your intuition is why no one finishes this course sounding like a copy of anyone else.
No one can read like you, no one can speak like you, no one is making the connections you’re going to make. I want you to find whatever actually feels right for you, because that’s the only version of this practice that lasts.
“You don’t have to sound like me. I want you to sound like you.”
— Patrick, in Tarot Academy
TWO YEARS IN THE MAKING