A stained glass window with the Ancient Greek Aphorism, Know Thyself, inscribed on it.
I want to describe how I approach giving a Tarot reading. My approach is not unique to me. I know of several people who use similar, if not identical methods for starting the ‘reading’ process. This post is concerned only with fortune telling or divining a future for a client and does not reflect how I think about the Tarot outside of this purpose. I do not suggest that this is the approach to take when studying the cards; the decks; histories; occult, or any other uses that are separate from actually using the cards simply for telling somebody else’s fortune.
There are many different methods available to people who want to become Tarot Readers and I’ve wasted my time with most of them. It wasn’t until I stopped trying to fit my readings around somebody else’s approach that I began to notice something very strange. I actually read the cards better.
I know this may seem obvious: don’t use somebody else’s approach. However, it did change my ability to read the cards and I’m hoping, on some level, that what I say here will help with yours.
For instance, a good example to help explain what I am getting at can sometimes be seen in the entertainment business. A singer who emulates, in style and song, a more established performer usually finds that something’s missing from their performance. It’s not until they give up reproducing somebody else’s ’sound’ that their own unique music can shine through. This is the same for a Tarot reader: develop your own music.
There is an old saying that I always come back to, which is, “give in and you will succeed”.
Abandon immediately all that you have learnt about the Tarot. I mean that in all seriousness but, and I want to stress this point, only in the sense of reading for others.
Forget, as best you can, all the divinatory meanings you may have memorized. Forget all of the symbols you spent so long studying; forget the mechanics of a spread and simply approach them without bringing all this knowledge into a reading. Leave it at the door and collect it again when you leave.
The reason I suggest this is, on a philosophical level, is to avoid using a method that lies outside of the reading you’re currently ‘in’. To use the words of Andrew Clark – Interview on Tarot and Philosophy, “…deconstruction is not a method in either the classical or the contemporary sense: i.e., of adhering to rules that lie outside of the phenomena that one is analysing. For these ‘rules’ would then form the bias of one’s own perspective. Rather, if there is a rule of deconstructive reading, it is that one must form a critique of what one is reading via the textual resources that lie inside the pages of the book that one is reading. That is, at all times one must be attentive to the words and the language that is used”
The Tarot, among other things, can be thought of as a book or rather many books, starting and ending with each reading. As such, one must understand this book via the cards and ordering of the cards that lie within each reading.
Where does this leave us then if we are not reliant upon some outside methodology when reading the cards? Good question.
We can’t really put aside, in the manner I suggest, all of our knowledge. It’s only natural, when conducting a reading to recall, partially, what you know. For example, when reading for a client and you happen to see the Hierophant reversed; a key phrase may enter your mind, such as …clients’ workplace is undergoing a restructuring process.
However, that example key phrase above would have surfaced during a Tarot reading for a unique person; using a unique combination of cards and under unique circumstances and it is under these conditions that you read. There is no outside methodology guiding how this reading will go. The client will ask unique questions, in a unique way and you will interpret those questions and the combination of cards in such a way that, faced with similar conditions, the original key phrase for the Hierophant does not re-surface. Rather, a unique meaning to the circumstance may come to your attention, i.e. a financial advisor.
This may all seem rather abstract, but it is these abstractions that actually guide us during any reading. It is my view, or certainly this was something that I had to learn, that there is no rule book with fortune telling. There is no master text or method by which to guide you. Nor should there be. Think about it this way- the Tarot will teach you, if you listen; and you can only listen if you are reading from ‘within’ the circumstances that the reading takes place.
This post was really intended to illustrate a mind-set when entering into a ‘reading’. It is important that each one of you develop your own. However, I’ve tried to write this in such a way as to be general enough to allow for each persons unique creativity and inspiration. In fact, it is for the very reasons of inspiration that I use it. Inspiration does not lie outside of that which it seeks to inspire. Listen to the Tarot, it’s you’re best mentor.
