Your first tarot reading — step by step

MingAI Tarot is a guided ritual, not a one-click draw. You ask the question, shuffle the deck, cut, and pick — every interaction folds entropy into the seed that draws your cards, so the casting is reproducible and genuinely shaped by your hand. Total time: 1–2 minutes.

1. Ask the cards

Open Tarot → + New Reading. The first screen asks for two things: your question and your spread. Open-ended questions read best — "What do I need to know about…" beats yes/no every time. Pick a spread: Past · Present · Future (3 cards), Situation · Action · Outcome (3 cards), or Celtic Cross (10 cards).

The question gets saved with the reading. Days later, when you reopen this cast, the AI still knows what you were trying to answer.

2. Shuffle the deck

Drag across the deck to shuffle. Each gesture adds entropy — direction, speed, and how many times you sweep — to the seed that will draw your cards. Take as long as you'd like. There's no "right" number of shuffles, only what feels settled.

3. Cut the deck

Tap where you'd like to cut. The cut depth is added to the seed alongside the shuffle entropy — so the same question shuffled and cut differently draws different cards.

4. Pick your cards

Tap the cards you want, one at a time. The number of cards depends on the spread you picked. Pick order matters — the first card you choose becomes position 1 of the spread, the second is position 2, and so on. After your last pick, the cards auto-flip and the seed is sealed.

5. Manifest

A short breath between picking and reading. The casting moment is recorded, the seed is hashed, and the spread is laid out — this brief pause is the technique's "manifestation" beat. Many readers find a moment of stillness here helps the reading land.

6. Read the cards

Your spread is now laid out face-up, each card labelled with its position, name, and orientation (upright = emerald pill, reversed = amber pill). Tap any card to see its meaning. The footer offers two onward moves: Ask About This Reading (opens the AI chat with the reading attached as context) and View All (back to your tarot library).

What costs what

• Casting a reading — the question, shuffle, cut, pick, and reveal — is free with the tarot add-on. Cast as many as you want.
• AI consultation about a reading (Ask MingAI from the read screen) spends 1 astrology credit per message. Tarot does not have its own credit pool; messages draw from the same astrology credit balance that powers natal-chart consultations.

What's next

• Casting on top of an astrology consultation? Open the AI chat from your natal chart, then tap Attach → Tarot and pick a recent reading. MingAI will read the cards alongside your birth chart.
• Looking for symbol meanings without spending a credit? Each card on the read screen has a glyph + name; tapping it shows upright and reversed keywords from the reading library — no AI call needed.