One card gives you a subject. Three give you a shape, and a shape is where reading starts, because now the cards have to be reconciled with each other.

Four ways to assign the positions

• Past, present, future. The classic. Best where the situation has a history that is still pushing on it.
• Situation, obstacle, advice. The most practical version and the one to learn on, because it ends with something you can do on Tuesday.
• What helps, what hinders, what you are missing. For a decision you have already half made.
• Option A, option B, what neither accounts for. For a real fork. The third card does most of the work.

Pick the set before you draw. Deciding what a position means after you have seen the card is how a reading turns into a pep talk.

Two passes

First pass: take each card in its position and say what it means there, out loud or on paper. Do not try to make them agree yet. Contradictions at this stage are data.

Second pass: put the three together and find the story that holds all of them. Beginners skip this and wonder why nothing clicks. The middle card is usually the hinge. When a three-card spread refuses to come together, nine times out of ten the middle one has been read too kindly or too harshly.

When they will not fit

Sometimes three cards genuinely refuse to make one story. Before blaming the deck, look at the question again.

Cards that contradict each other usually mean the question contained two questions. Split it, and read them separately.