File created: 2026-04-20
Beginner tarot practitioners should use the three-card spread until it becomes second-nature.
—Benebell Wen, Holistic Tarot
The three-card spread involves in drawing three cards to represent the past, present, and future; or mind, body, and spirit.
Wen begins by placing the present card down first, then the past, then the future. So it amounts to:
(2) (1) (3)
To be perfectly honest, this doesn’t make sense to me, so I proceed chronologically:
(1) (2) (3)
I’m not sure why I would start with the present since it’s the past that comes first.
Connecting the Cards
The simplest way to read the three-card spread is like a storyboard. I look from left-to-right, and try to imagine what story (or stories) the cards might tell.
However, there is a long list of assigning different meanings to each card based on what place it’s in, so I will collect those meanings here as something to keep in mind.
| (1) | (2) | (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Past | Present | Future |
| Mind | Body | Spirit |