Summum Bonum Tarot: Reading for the Highest Good

When I first wrote about Summum Bonum Tarot in 2022, I was already convinced that Tarot could be used for far more than predicting the future or satisfying our curiosity.

Even then, I was interested in how the cards could help us navigate life’s challenges with greater wisdom and purpose.

A lot has changed since then.

My studies have taken me more deeply into Christian mysticism, Hermetic philosophy, angelology and the Western Mystery Tradition. At the same time, my Christian faith has become increasingly central to how I understand the purpose of spiritual practice.

The cards haven’t changed, but my understanding of what I am doing with them has.

Today, Summum Bonum Tarot is the name I give to a contemplative approach to Tarot that is consciously oriented towards God as the Highest Good. Its purpose is not to gain power over the future but to receive the symbolic image presented by the card, contemplate what it illuminates and discern how we might respond in greater alignment with truth, love and Divine Wisdom.

This has become the philosophical foundation for how I read and write about Tarot on Angelorum.

What Does Summum Bonum Mean?

Summum Bonum is Latin for the Highest Good.

Within classical philosophy, the term refers to the ultimate good towards which human life is directed. Within my Christian understanding, the Highest Good is ultimately God.

That distinction matters.

The Highest Good is not necessarily the outcome we most desire. Nor is it whatever makes life easiest, removes discomfort or fulfils our immediate wishes.

Sometimes what we want and what is good align beautifully. Sometimes they don’t.

The spiritual life therefore involves learning to distinguish between the desires of the ego and that which draws us more deeply towards truth, love, wisdom, justice, mercy and right relationship.

This is where Tarot can become a tool for contemplation and discernment. The card presents an image that we attend to, noticing what it illuminates within ourselves or the situation before us. Then we ask what response might orient us more fully towards the Highest Good.

Why I No Longer Describe This Simply as Divination

For many years, I used the word divination quite comfortably to describe Tarot reading.

I increasingly find it too broad for what I practise.

Divination can encompass everything from fortune-telling and attempts to predict future events to spirit communication and the pursuit of hidden knowledge.

Those practices are not all doing the same thing.

My primary interest in Tarot is not obtaining information so that I can exert greater control over uncertain circumstances. I am much more interested in what happens when we receive an unexpected symbolic image and allow it to interrupt our usual way of seeing a situation.

That interruption creates space for contemplation.

Discernment comes next.

A card might expose an assumption. It might reveal where fear is shaping our interpretation of events. It might draw attention to a virtue we need to cultivate or a possibility we have overlooked.

The card does not make the decision for us.

It gives us something to contemplate while we make it.

That is why I increasingly describe what I do as contemplative Tarot, Tarot discernment or, more specifically, Summum Bonum Tarot.

What Is a Summum Bonum Reading?

A Summum Bonum Reading is a Tarot reading consciously oriented towards the Highest Good.

This doesn’t mean every question has to sound overtly spiritual.

We still have jobs, relationships, money problems, difficult decisions, family conflicts and all the wonderfully inconvenient complications of being human.

You can bring those things to the Tarot.

What changes is the orientation of the reading.

Rather than asking the cards to provide certainty about something we cannot control, we ask what can be understood, discerned or done from where we stand now.

The purpose isn’t to force every reading into a predetermined spiritual conclusion either.

Sometimes the wisest response is practical.

• Apply for the job.
• Have the difficult conversation.
• Establish the boundary.
• Rest.
• Wait.
• Walk away.
• Ask for help.

The Highest Good is lived in the circumstances of ordinary life.

The Question Changes the Reading

The way we formulate a Tarot question matters because it directs our attention.

Consider the difference between:

Will I get the job?

and:

How can I best prepare myself for the work I am called to do?

Or:

Will they come back?

compared with:

What is the wisest way for me to approach this relationship?

Instead of:

When will my problems end?

we might ask:

What can I do to move through this situation wisely?

And instead of:

What is going to happen?

we can ask:

What do I need to understand about the path I am currently on?

These questions do not make Tarot less practical.

They make the reading more actionable.

They move our attention away from trying to possess certainty about the future and towards the choices that are actually ours to make.

Tarot and Divine Providence

There is an unavoidable element of mystery in Tarot.

I shuffle the deck without knowing which card I am going to receive.

Then one image appears rather than another.

As a Christian, I believe in Divine Providence. I therefore have no need to imagine randomness as something existing outside God.

But neither do I need to declare that every card drawn is a direct message dictated by God.

The mystery can remain a mystery.

I can simply receive the image that appears and contemplate it.

A Tarot card can become spiritually fruitful in much the same way that an unexpected passage of Scripture, dream, conversation, work of art or encounter in nature can suddenly illuminate something we need to consider.

The important question is not necessarily:

Why did this particular card appear?

It is:

What good can come from attending carefully to what is before me?

Tarot as Mirror, Map and Companion

I still find three metaphors particularly helpful for understanding Tarot.

Tarot as Mirror

Tarot can reflect beliefs, desires, fears, patterns and blind spots that are difficult to see directly.

Sometimes we recognise ourselves immediately in a card.

At other times, the card irritates or puzzles us precisely because it contradicts the story we have been telling ourselves.

Both responses can be useful.

The mirror does not decide what we should do with what we see.

That requires discernment.

Tarot as Map

Tarot can also reveal trajectories.

Our choices have consequences. Habits create patterns. Relationships develop momentum. Circumstances move in particular directions.

A reading can sometimes show remarkably clearly where a situation appears to be heading.

But trajectory is not destiny.

A map shows the road we are travelling. It does not remove our ability to change direction.

This is why I remain cautious about absolute predictions and fixed timing. Human beings have free will. Circumstances change. Other people make choices. New possibilities emerge.

Tarot can help us recognise the road beneath our feet without pretending that the entire journey has already been decided.

Tarot as Companion

Finally, Tarot can accompany us.

It does not replace prayer.

Nor does it replace reason.

It most definitely does not replace conscience, responsibility or moral discernment.

And it certainly should not become an authority to which we surrender our freedom.

Instead, Tarot gives us a symbolic language through which we can contemplate our experiences and the choices before us.

The cards walk beside us.

They do not walk the path for us.

Testing What Arises

Not every interpretation that occurs to us during a reading should automatically be accepted.

Discernment requires testing.

This is where orientation towards the Summum Bonum becomes particularly important.

I can ask:

• Does this interpretation lead towards greater truth?
• Do these insights encourage love without abandoning necessary boundaries?
• Does the reading cultivate courage rather than fear?
• Is human dignity and freedom being preserved?
• Do the insights encourage responsibility?
• Is wishful thinking leading me on a merry dance?
• Am I trying to understand another person or control them?
• Am I seeking wisdom or reassurance?
• Does this interpretation make me more capable of choosing the good?

These questions prevent Tarot from becoming a machine for validating whatever the ego already wants.

Sometimes discernment confirms our desires.

Sometimes it challenges them.

The Great Work Begins Within

The Western Mystery Tradition speaks of the Great Work: the transformation of the human being in alignment with Divine order.

Christian mysticism describes that transformation differently, but the inward movement is familiar: the gradual surrender of the false self and the formation of a life increasingly centred upon God.

Tarot can participate in that work because its symbolism repeatedly confronts us with ourselves.

The Devil can reveal the chains we have accepted.

Temperance asks what needs to be brought into harmony.

The Hermit turns us towards wisdom rather than noise.

Justice confronts us with truth and consequence.

Death asks what must be relinquished.

The Tower reveals what can no longer stand.

None of these cards performs the Great Work for us.

They provide images through which aspects of that work can become visible.

The transformation itself happens through the choices we make.

Love as the Measure

For me, the deepest test of Summum Bonum Tarot is love.

Not sentimentality.

Not giving ourselves or somebody else the answer we would prefer to hear.

Christianity makes an extraordinary claim: God is Love.

If God is the Highest Good, then love cannot merely be one pleasant consideration among many. It becomes fundamental to how we understand what good ultimately means.

Sometimes love consoles.

Other times love confronts.

Sometimes love forgives.

Other times love establishes a boundary.

Sometimes love requires sacrifice and sometimes love tells us that the thing we desperately want is not actually good for us.

A Summum Bonum Reading therefore does not ask merely:

What outcome would make me happiest?

It asks:

What response allows me to participate most truthfully and lovingly in this situation?

Summum Bonum Tarot and Prediction

None of this requires pretending that Tarot never appears to anticipate future developments.

I’ve read Tarot for far too long to make that claim.

Cards can indicate likely outcomes. They can reveal trajectories and show where present circumstances appear to be leading.

But I distinguish between possibility and inevitability.

If a reading shows a difficult trajectory, that information should ideally increase our capacity to respond rather than make us afraid of what supposedly must happen.

Likewise, a favourable outcome should not encourage complacency.

The future remains alive.

So when Tarot appears to look ahead, the useful question becomes:

What does knowing this possibility ask of me now?

Prediction becomes subordinate to discernment rather than the purpose of the reading.

Summum Bonum Tarot Is Not About Spiritual Perfection

There is a danger whenever we start talking about the Highest Good that everything becomes unbearably lofty.

Sometimes you just need to know how to deal with Brenda from Accounts.

Summum Bonum Tarot does not require every reading to become a mystical ascent through the celestial spheres. 😂

It means remembering the orientation beneath the question.

What would honesty look like here?

Where do I need courage?

Where is my blind spot?

What is mine to do?

What is not mine to control?

Where is love asking for a boundary rather than another concession?

What would greater wisdom look like in this completely ordinary mess?

The Great Work happens there too.

An Illuminated Way of Reading Tarot

Summum Bonum Tarot is not a new Tarot system with special cards, fixed spreads or a separate set of meanings.

It is an orientation.

The same Tarot deck can be used and the traditional symbolism remains available.

The same Major and Minor Arcana still speak about love, conflict, loss, desire, work, creativity, suffering, transformation and joy.

What changes is the purpose we bring to the encounter.

The card provides the image.

Contemplation receives it.

Discernment tests what arises.

The Highest Good provides the direction.

If you’d like to experiment with this approach, my companion article, 10 Summum Bonum Tarot Questions, shows how ordinary Tarot questions can be reframed without losing their practical relevance.

You can also read The Angelorum Tarot Philosophy for the wider philosophy that now shapes how I approach Tarot throughout this site.

My relationship with Tarot continues to evolve.

I expect it always will.

But the question at the heart of my practice has become increasingly simple:

In light of what I have seen, how can I orient myself more fully towards the Highest Good?

For me, that is what it means to practise Summum Bonum Tarot.