Connecting to Your Past Lives With the Tarot - My Method

Tarot Spreads
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Been experimenting with this for a while and figured I’d share since a few people asked about it in the other thread.

Quick background. I got interested in this after meeting some people with past-life memories. One guy at a party told me he remembered being a black woman giving birth in a cotton field. Another person I know has these dreams about living in a cold village where he had bad teeth and got killed over food. There was also that news story about the kid who seemed to remember being a WWII pilot.

Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, tarot has some interesting connections to the concept. The Fool card is numbered zero (endless cycle), carries a pack (past memories?), and the Major Arcana itself is a cycle that starts over after The World.

The Reading Method

Takes about an hour. You need to be undisturbed. Yes, that means switching your phone off.

First, pull the Fool card and meditate on it.

Hold it, stare at it until your eyes get tired, then close them and visualize the card playing backwards like a movie. Watch the Fool walk backwards until they disappear from view. Let the image fade.

Then shuffle and lay out 8 cards:

Card 1
Card 2  
Card 3
Card 4 X Card 5
Card 6
Card 7
Card 8

The positions:

  1. Gender in that life (not always what the card shows literally).
  2. Family situation .
  3. Your personality/identity.
    4-5. Some major event (two forces colliding).
  4. How you handled it.
  5. What you learned.
  6. How it affects you now.

After that reading, shuffle and pull 3 more cards:

  • How to honor that past self.
  • How to use what you learned.
  • What to focus on in this life.

My Warning

Don’t do this reading casually. Past lives aren’t always pleasant… there’s often a good reason memories are buried. You might not get the lifetime you’re hoping to see. And you probably weren’t anyone famous.

The number of clients who expected to be Napoleon or Ceaser is astounding. Maybe the cards are trying to teach them some humility.

I keep a journal of these readings. If you’re stuck on what a card means, you can pull extra cards for clarification.

Even if you think reincarnation is nonsense, you can treat this like dream interpretation. What does the “story” tell you about your current life?

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I gave this a shot during a rough patch but couldn’t get anything from it. Too much going on in my head I guess. The cards were just confusing and didn’t help at all. Now I try to chill out first with some mindfulness stuff before doing a reading. seems to work better when I’m not so stressed

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The 3 of Swords came up in position 6 yesterday and I swear I felt actual chest pain. Makes me wonder if there’s something to the whole past life trauma thing. I’ve been writing down the physical stuff that happens with different cards - got vertigo with the Hanged Man, cold hands with Death, and this weird feeling of being watched with the 9 of Swords. Don’t know why some cards affect me physically and others don’t. Kind of freaks me out honestly.

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tried this last week - definitely need to ground yourself first.

I was exhausted afterwards and it took me a while to feel normal again. these days I burn sage beforehand and keep black tourmaline nearby. I’ve also gotten more specific with my intentions, usually adding something like ‘only what serves my highest good’ when I start. one thing I noticed is the energy can linger afterwards if you don’t close things properly. now I always thank the cards and picture closing a door to wrap up the session. seems to help

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Yeah, ancestors are important in past life readings in various cultures.

Tarot can help connect with family spirits in these traditions. I’ve read about African divination practices where they naturally include ancestral communication. Could be worth exploring if you want to add more depth to your tarot work. Makes the sessions feel more connected to something bigger than just the cards themselves.

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The mirror technique for accessing past life memories through tarot feels like that scene in Doctor Strange where he sees all the different timelines at once - when you lay out cards in opposing positions and read them as reflections of each other, the past life details emerge so much clearer.

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Did this spread last week and noticed something. The cards probably aren’t just showing random past lives, they’re showing the ones with stuff you haven’t resolved yet. Makes sense when you think about position 8 being focused on present-day impact.

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I’ve been doing the other past life spread and it’s uncovered a lot for me. There’s so much my past lives could teach me this time around.

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When I started doing these past life readings regularly, I kept getting water imagery in the cards. Oceans, rivers, rain - always something with water. Our lives flow like rivers maybe?

Or perhaps my lives always seem to involve water and the oceans.

Each reading seems to reveal another piece of memory from previous journeys. The tarot shows we’re not blank slates. We’re continuing longer stories where past experiences still ripple through who we are today.

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Switched from my plain deck to one with realistic faces for past life stuff. The Seven of Swords went from being just another card to feeling like an actual memory - that warrior energy was intense.

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Pulling a significator for yourself before a past life spread like this can create interesting connections.

I’ve been trying to deal with perfectionism that’s really been holding me back. When I picked Queen of Pentacles, the reading pointed to a past life as someone who pushed others way too hard. Kind of made sense, actually. Now I use two significators instead of one. One for my current self, another for who I might become. Still experimenting with it.

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Clarifying who’s who before shuffling is important. I did a past life reading for twins once and got them mixed up halfway through. Even old-timey card readers like Lenormand apparently wouldn’t touch their deck until they knew exactly who they were reading for.

Makes sense for a past life reading more than any others for sure.

I wonder if we can target a specific past life like drilling into a specific one or one of the more recent ones.