Tarot Sanctum
Contents

The iPhone app

Readings

A reading has four stages: pick a spread, ask a question, reveal the cards one at a time, then read the interpretation. Nothing in that sequence costs tokens on any plan.

This is the longest screen in the app and the one with the most gestures, so it is worth knowing what responds to what.

Choosing a spread

The Reading tab lists all 44 spreads across 8 themes: Classic & General, Decision-Making, Love & Relationships, Career & Money, Self & Spiritual, Time & Cycles, Astrological, Situational. Each row shows a diagram of the layout so you can recognise a spread by its shape.

Screenshot pendingThe spread picker, showing locked and unlocked spreads.
The spread picker, showing locked and unlocked spreads.
  • Spread rowButton

    One row per spread, showing a small diagram of the layout, its name, a one-line description and the number of cards. Tapping it opens the setup screen.

  • Padlock badgeRead-only

    On a spread your plan does not include, with the plan name that unlocks it. Tapping the row opens the website rather than the spread.

How many spreads each plan opens

PlanSpreads
Free4 of 44
Seeker21 of 44
Oracle44 of 44
Professional44 of 44

Every spread, its positions and what each position means are listed in the spread reference.

Laying a reading yourself

Build your own, at the top of the Reading tab, skips the draw. You name each position, choose which of the 78 cards sits in it and which way up, and write what you make of it — up to ten positions, which is as many as a reading film can hold. It opens face up: there is nothing to turn over when you chose the cards yourself.

What you write is the reading, and it saves to the journal, shares and films like any other. Building one is free on every plan and does not use your daily reading allowance — nothing is generated. Expand my reading does use the cloud, so it needs an Oracle or Professional plan; it elaborates your reading of each card rather than replacing it, and your own words stay on the screen underneath.

Asking a question

Screenshot pendingThe setup screen before a reading.
The setup screen before a reading.
  • QuestionText field

    What you want to ask. Grows to five lines as you type. Entirely optional — a blank question draws the cards on their own terms.

    LimitsOptional
  • BeginButton

    Shuffles and starts the reading.

    CostFree on every plan
  • Privacy badgeRead-only

    States whether this reading will be written on your device or online, before you commit to it.

  • CloseButton

    Abandons the setup and returns to the spread list.

If a question touches something genuinely distressing, the app does not draw cards. It shows a screen of real support resources instead — phone, text and web links you can tap. That check runs entirely on your device and nothing about it is recorded or sent anywhere.

The shuffle wait

After a lot of readings in one day, a short countdown appears before the cards are dealt. It exists to keep a reading feeling like an occasion rather than a slot machine, and it resets every day.

Readings so far todayWait
1–13None
14–2010 seconds
21–2720 seconds
28–3430 seconds
35 and beyond5 minutes

The Professional plan never waits, at any count. The Free plan never sees this at all — it is limited to one reading a day instead.

Revealing the cards

The cards arrive face down in the spread's own layout. You turn them one at a time, in order, and a counter under the spread tracks how far through you are.

Screenshot pendingA Celtic Cross part-way through being revealed.
A Celtic Cross part-way through being revealed.
  • Tap a face-down cardGesture

    Reveals it. Cards are revealed in the spread's own order — the next one is the only one that responds.

  • Tap a revealed cardGesture

    Brings it forward on its own, with its position name and meaning.

  • Spread / PositionsSegmented control

    Two small buttons switching between the visual layout and a plain list of positions. Both share the same reveal state, so you can start in one and finish in the other. Multi-card spreads only.

  • Pinch to zoomGesture

    Enlarges the spread once every card is revealed. Up to four times, or six on spreads of five cards or more. Card captions stay the same size as you zoom.

  • Two-finger dragGesture

    Pans a zoomed spread. One-finger taps still select cards, so panning never fights with revealing.

  • Expand / collapseButton

    Grows the spread area to fill the screen, or returns it. Useful on the ten-card layouts.

  • Scatter (hand icon)Button

    Opens a physical table where the cards fall under real gravity — tilt the phone to move them, drag to fling one. Purely for play.

  • InterpretButton

    Appears once every card is revealed. Writes the interpretation of the whole spread.

    CostFree on every plan
  • RetryButton

    Shown if the interpretation fails. Nothing is lost — the same cards are re-interpreted.

  • New readingButton

    Ends this reading and returns to the spread picker.

A reading cannot be dismissed by swiping the sheet away — only by Close or the back chevron. That is deliberate: half-revealed spreads were being lost to stray gestures.

Follow-up questions

Once the interpretation has been written, the Oracle and Professional plans can ask further questions about it. The answer is written against the cards you actually drew, not as a fresh reading.

  • Follow-up questionText fieldOracle and up

    Asks something further about the reading, answered in the context of the cards already on the table. Grows to three lines.

  • SendButton

    Submits the follow-up. Greyed out while the box is empty.

    Limits2 per readingCostFree
  • Remaining counterRead-only

    How many follow-ups you have left on this reading.

Two per reading, on both plans. On the plans without them, an upgrade row appears in the same place instead.

Turning a reading into a video

The film icon in the toolbar at the bottom of a finished reading builds a narrated vertical video from the cards you drew. It is the same feature, with the same options, as on the website.

Screenshot pendingThe reading video sheet with the animation dials open.
The reading video sheet with the animation dials open.
  • QualityButton

    Standard, Master or Masterpiece — the per-second rate.

    Cost10 / 20 / 40 tokens per second at 1080p
  • LengthButton

    8, 16, 32, 64 seconds. The two longest appear only on readings with more than one card.

  • ResolutionButton

    1080p or 720p. Hidden on Masterpiece, which is 1080p only.

  • AnimationSheet

    A collapsed section holding the ten dials that shape how the film moves.

    LimitsTen sliders, 0–9 each
  • Reset to defaultsButton

    Returns all ten dials to their starting values. Greyed out when nothing has been changed.

  • Creative directionText field

    An optional note about how the film should look or feel. It takes priority over everything else when the film is written.

    LimitsUp to 2,000 characters
  • GenerateButtonSign-in required

    Starts the render, with the exact token cost on the button.

    CostQuality rate × length; charged on success only
  • ShareButton

    Shares the finished film. It is saved to the reading automatically — there is no save button because there is nothing to press.

  • DoneButton

    Closes the sheet. Safe to press mid-render: the video is attached to the reading in your Journal when it finishes.

  1. Pick a quality and a length; the cost appears on the generate button.
  2. Optionally open Animation and set the ten dials — see video controls.
  3. Optionally write a line of creative direction.
  4. Press generate. You can close the sheet and carry on — the finished video attaches itself to the reading in your Journal.
Rendering takes a few minutes and occasionally fails, usually because the video model's content filter refused a prompt derived from the artwork. When that happens you are told explicitly that you were not charged, and retrying often works — the filter is not deterministic.

Common problems

“One reading per day”

The Free plan's daily limit. Every paid plan removes it.

The reading is shallower than usual

On Oracle or Professional this means it fell back to the on-device engine — usually a weak connection, sometimes online readings being switched off in Settings.

A card will not turn over

Cards reveal in order. The one waiting for you is the next in the sequence, not the one you tapped.

Pinch to zoom does nothing

Zoom only becomes available once every card in the spread has been revealed.

There is no video button

It only appears when you are signed in.