Sherlock Holmes Explores the Mystery of the Tarot

November 1, 2026

A good detective and a good tarot reader have more in common than either profession usually admits. Both start with what is actually there, rather than what ought to be there. Both notice what is missing, not just what is present. Both resist the first plausible story, because the first plausible story is often the one that was planted, or the one you wanted to believe. The Sherlock Holmes tarot deck, in which Holmes, Adler, and Watson uncover the mysteries of the tarot, is a deck that invites you to read in that spirit: as an investigation, not a performance.

Its story material follows a figure researching the symbolism and history of the cards, their origins in ancient Egypt and Renaissance Europe, and their use in divination and spiritual guidance, visiting the British Museum under the guise of a scholar to examine rare books, and discovering a dark secret connected to an occult manuscript. That is a story about research, and research is a good model for reading: patient, evidence-based, and willing to follow a thread further than is comfortable.

Observation before interpretation

Holmes's first lesson, for a reader, is observation before interpretation. Before you say what a card means, say what is on it. What figures, objects, colours, and directions do you actually see? What is in the foreground and what is in the background? What is conspicuously absent? A reader who skips observation and jumps to interpretation is like a detective who decides who did it before examining the room. The conclusion may feel satisfying, but it will not be earned, and it will often be wrong.

With this deck, observation has an extra layer, because the cards are populated by a world you may already know: Holmes, Adler, Watson, and the London of secrets around them. Notice who is present in a card's imagery as you understand it, and who is not. Notice whether the image feels like a scene of deduction, a scene of danger, or a scene of quiet study. Those observations are not yet interpretations, but they are the evidence from which an interpretation can honestly be built.

Write your observations down before you interpret. That written record is your case file, and it does two things. It keeps you honest, because you cannot later pretend you noticed something you did not, and it gives you something to return to when the reading's first impression fades. A reading that lives only in your head will be rewritten by your memory within a day. A reading written down stays as it was, and can be checked.

The Chariot, and what a single card can teach

That is a traditional reading of the Chariot, and it is worth lingering on, because it shows how a card's meaning is not a mood but a set of capacities. Control is not the same as willpower, and willpower is not the same as triumph. Control is holding the reins steady. Willpower is the force that keeps you holding them when you are tired. Triumph is what happens, sometimes, when both have been held long enough.

Ask, when a card like the Chariot appears, which of its capacities is actually present in your situation, and which is missing. Are you in control but out of willpower, holding steady on empty? Do you have willpower in abundance but no control, driving hard in no clear direction? Or is triumph being claimed prematurely, before the work that earns it has been done? Those are different readings, and they lead to different actions. A card's meaning is not a label to stick on a situation. It is a set of questions to ask about it.

That way of reading, capacity by capacity, is the detective's way applied to tarot. It does not ask what a card is in the abstract. It asks what it is doing in this situation, in this position, for this question. And it accepts that the answer may be partial. A card may show control without triumph, or willpower without control, and that partial answer is often the truest one, because real situations are partial too.

History as a reading tool

Whatever you make of the Egypt claim historically, the instinct behind it is sound: a card means more when you know something of where it came from and how its meaning has changed. The tarot is not a timeless set of symbols dropped from the sky. It is a thing with a history, and its meanings have been argued over, revised, and reimagined for centuries.

You do not need to become a historian to read well, but a little history helps in a practical way. When you know that a card's meaning has changed over time, you are less likely to treat any single meaning as absolute, and more likely to ask which meaning fits this situation. When you know that different traditions read the same card differently, you are less likely to panic when a card seems to contradict itself, and more likely to look for the reading that fits the evidence of your own life.

In reading terms, going to the source means going back to the card itself, and to your own notes, rather than to someone else's summary of what the card must mean. Summaries have their place, but a reading built only on summaries is a reading built on hearsay. A reading built on what you actually saw, in the card and in your life, is evidence, and evidence is what a detective, and a reader, should trust.

Secrets, and the difference between a secret and a mystery

A Holmes deck is naturally a deck about secrets, and it is worth distinguishing two kinds. A mystery is something you do not yet understand, but could understand with more evidence and clearer thinking. A secret is something someone is keeping from you, or you are keeping from yourself. Tarot readings often involve both, and confusing them leads to bad readings.

If a reading shows you a mystery, the right response is investigation: gather more evidence, ask a clearer question, look again. If a reading shows you a secret, the right response is different: ask who is keeping it, why, and what it would cost to speak it plainly. A secret kept from yourself is often the more important one, because it is the one you have the power to end, simply by naming it honestly in your journal, even if you never speak it aloud to anyone else.

A question about work may hide a question about a relationship. A question about a relationship may hide a question about yourself. A good reading peels one layer at a time, without pretending the first layer was the whole matter. That patience, that willingness to peel, is the detective's gift to the reader.

Reading for others in a detective spirit

If you read for others with this deck, the detective spirit is a courtesy as much as a method. A detective does not tell a client what they want to hear. A detective reports what was found, distinguishes evidence from guesswork, and says plainly where the evidence runs out. Do the same in a reading. Say what the cards show, say what you infer from that, and say where inference ends and guesswork begins. That honesty is what makes a reading trustworthy, and trust is worth more than comfort.

It also means asking the querent questions, rather than performing certainty. What do they recognise in this card? What does this image remind them of? What have they not yet told you about the situation? A reading is an investigation carried out together, not a verdict handed down. The querent knows their life better than you do, and their recognition is evidence too. A reader who ignores that evidence is not being authoritative. They are being careless.

Finally, keep the case file. Note the question, the cards, your observations, and the querent's responses, as far as they are willing to have them noted. Over time, those files teach you more than any book about how this deck speaks in practice, and they protect you against the most common reader's error: remembering only the readings that seemed impressive, and forgetting the ones that taught you something quieter and more useful.

Who this deck is for

This deck is for the reader who likes to investigate, who enjoys noticing what others miss, and who wants a tarot practice built on observation, evidence, and patience. It is for the reader drawn to Holmes, Adler, and Watson as companions in that investigation, and to a London of secrets as the landscape in which it takes place. It is for the reader who would rather have a precise, partial answer than a grand, vague one.

It is not for the reader who wants the cards to do the thinking, or for the reader who wants every reading to end in a dramatic revelation. Real detection, like real reading, is mostly patient work, and its revelations, when they come, are usually quiet: a detail noticed at last, a connection seen clearly, a story that no longer fits the evidence. For the reader who values that kind of quiet revelation, this deck has a long and satisfying life in it.

The first plausible story, and how to resist it

The most common error in detective work, and in tarot reading, is falling in love with the first plausible story. A card appears, a story suggests itself, it feels right, and from then on every other card is read to fit it. The reading feels coherent, but its coherence comes from the story, not from the evidence. A detective learns to resist that pull by holding the first story lightly, and by actively looking for evidence against it as well as for it. A reader should do the same.

In practice, that means asking, after your first interpretation of a spread: what else could these cards mean, and what evidence would support that other reading? If you cannot find any other reading, that may mean your first reading is strong, or it may mean you have stopped looking. Look again, at the card you paid least attention to, because the neglected card is often the one that does not fit the first story, and the card that does not fit is often the most important one. A reading that survives that challenge, that still holds together after you have tried to break it, is a reading you can trust. A reading that collapses at the first challenge was never as solid as it felt, and it is better to know that in the reading than to discover it later, in life.