Energy: definition

Energy is the quality of expression of an arcanum or a spread, perceived as active force, tension, impulse or symbolic climate. It describes how a card acts, more than what it represents.

The word should not be understood here vaguely or in an imprecise esoteric sense. It designates the way an arcanum acts, insists, opens, slows or transforms within the reading.

Speaking of energy makes it possible to move beyond a literal reading into a more living reading of the symbols: not only what the card says, but the movement and the tone it brings.

Each card has its own energy —expansive or contained, gentle or intense, rising or falling—, which is qualified by its position, its orientation and the neighbouring cards.

Reading the energy of a spread is grasping its general climate: whether tension or calm dominates, impulse or blockage, the opening or the closing of the whole.

Understood rigorously, the notion of energy is a tool for dynamic reading: it helps perceive tarot as a play of forces in motion and not as a gallery of fixed images.

That is why it is best to reserve the word for describing the movement of the symbols, and not use it as a catch-all that replaces analysis: well used, it refines the reading; poorly used, it makes it vague and imprecise.