Maria Alviz Hernando, the author and director of the World Association has a system for Tarot she calls a tableau. Tableau puts the cards into a square or rectangle and then in addition to the standard meanings of the cards, utilizes techniques to uncover additional layers of meaning. Tableau presents the cards as if they are one mural to read together. It’s an artistic, right side of the brain technique. People who are visual, metaphorical, and have an intuitive understanding of symbols can spot the visual connections between cards and will love these techniques. Readings with Rider Waite cards are photographed in black and white and then the author illustrates the techniques by applying them to actual readings she has done for clients.
The book opens with techniques called reading in layers. The idea is to see relationships between cards based on their location within this spread, the 4 elements appearing in the various cards, analyzing numbers that appear especially when one number appears multiple times, looking for meaning in the colors in the cards, observing the body language of the figures, even looking at whether the figures in the cards are facing each other or away.
After introducing these basics, she introduces the 9-card tableau and how to look at power dynamics, how to pick a card to represent a querent, how to amplify a spread by doing 5 cards in 5 rows for more information on a complex topic, and how to read a tableau with just major arcana cards and houses.
The last section addresses issues that professional readers or more experienced readers encounter when giving a reading to someone else. In this section, she offers advice for what querents really want to know and how to frame a question for the best result. She discusses how the context of a reading changes the meaning of cards. For instance, the same cards have a different meaning when applied to a question of a relationship versus career and finance.
As a reader who is not a professional, just self-taught, my first thought is that I don’t actually think that this book is as easy for beginners as she wants it to be. The writing is good and the book is interesting but Tarot isn’t that easy. A reader has to learn 78 cards before being able to really start to play with techniques. If you still look at the booklet when you lay a spread, then adding all of the information in this book into the reading might feel overwhelming. If you’re new to Tarot, the first section of the book is where I would start as the suggestions she makes here can be used for any style of Tarot reading. I would probably hold off on progressing further into the book until you really feel comfortable with the cards, know their meaning, and want to go deeper.
The tableau is going to work best for people who have some reading experience. There’s an intuitive quality to the technique that makes looking at the cards together, more like reading meaning into a fine art mural. I always appreciate that Tarot comes with booklets giving words to describe the imagery and mood, bringing together left and right hemispheres of the brain. To me Tarot seems like a bridge between the verbal and the visual parts of the brain. The tableau method is going to call to readers who are visual and can interpret cards like the art form they are and not by rote memory of meaning. This comes naturally to some people, and will require stretching past old habits for others.
Newer Tarot readers will also benefit from the ample example readings in the book that perfectly illustrate how a good Tarot reading is done. Alviz Hernando excels at describing Tarot readings and showing how much can be read with cards. Even experienced readers will find these descriptions of readings for clients interesting. My main criticism is this technique is not that easy to pick up. Intermediate to advanced readers probably have the skills and knowledge to make the best use of the Tableau readings. Reading Tarot Tableau allows you to watch a master Tarot reader work, and this is worthwhile and possibly inspiring. So newer readers may benefit but reading Alvia Hernando makes Tarot reading look easier than it is, much like a master guitarist can make playing look easy. I feel that the tableau method requires a good bit of upfront investment to learn and memorize techniques. So don’t be surprised if it all makes sense when Alviz Hernando tells it but doesn’t turn out the same when you try it.
I did one 9 card spread on a contractor I was having problems with who was not finishing his work. I found that every card of a woman was either looking away, or upside down and in the opposite direction of all the male cards. In the row of the future, I saw a wand card where the man was behind the wands such that he appeared to almost be in a jail. A background check found the man has multiple drunk driving arrests. A traditional read of the Tarot booklet would have missed the opposition occurring between the cards that never faced each other and were even upside down to each other, representing not only not seeing eye to eye but a total avoidance of contact. Additionally, the visual association of the wands in a row appearing like a jail would also not be the straight reading of that card but they were appropriate for this situation.
The 9-card spread is probably the most useful one. I found the 5x5 card spread was just too much. The art of reading is understanding when to apply a technique or read every card and when to spot the story from the clues that are staring you in the face. Alviz Hernandez says that the 5x5 is not the right option for simple questions. It’s also not the right spread if you don’t already feel fluent in Tarot. The Major Arcana Tableau using houses also struck me as very hard to learn. Maybe more advanced readers will have no problem but for me it was akin to when my friend who loves astrology makes my eyes glaze over talking about planets in houses. Keep your level of skill in mind and work with the technique level that makes sense for you now.
Tarot Tableau Revolution is an enjoyable read and offers a glimpse into how an excellent Tarot reader interprets and divines answers. This approach to Tarot could be transformative for those willing to invest the time to learn them well.
~review by: Elsie Smyte
Author: Maria Alviz Hernando
Weiser Books, 2025
198 pages, $18.95
