Deck doesn't like sitter?

Hi all,

This evening I did some readings for my landlord. She chose the New Orleans Voodoo Tarot from an array of decks; she likes the deck. HOWEVER...I did a New Years' spread for her (12 cards) and two smaller spreads for career and love life...and most of the cards (across the spreads) turned up reversed. I did a reading for her a month or so ago, again with the NOVT, and those cards turned up reversed too. She did shuffle thoroughly and cut the deck for each reading.

While she may like the NOVT, I don't think it particularly likes her. In fact, I got a vibe that it didn't...but the cards were already drawn.

Has this ever happened to any of you? How do you handle it? Should we gently "encourage" querents to use another deck?

(this applies to those who only read with one or two decks as well...what if the querent doesn't like the deck?).

I hope I'm making sense.

Thx!

T.

Lordy the exact same thing happened to me and I wish I would have picked up the spread and used a different deck...every single card was reversed.
But I just plodded on through the reading...it was for a woman who was asking about the future of her two grown-up daughters and the cards had hardly a good thing to say..she was getting more and more disgusted with me...and I really don't like to leave a client without any good news...but those two kids were a messed up twosome.
She knew it too, I think that's why she was asking, hoping for some light at the end of the parenting tunnel.

I don't know I feel funny about picking up a spread and starting again with a different deck..I'm kind of fatalistic about the first draw...I always feel no matter what, or no matter how hard it might be for me to give the message in a compasionate way...that the first draw is really the most accurate.
And I almost always learn something from it...but yes, I felt like the cards didn't like her...almost like they were saying..."it's right in front of your nose stupid...why are you even asking, you know you messed them up."
She picked the deck too...it was the Morgan Greer...she liked the stars on the back.
The Morgan Greer with those big, bold, bright pictures all upside down...yikes it was a sight.

T., I don't think a deck can be personified like that...I would wonder, instead, if the same thing would have happened had you thrown cards from any other deck?

If reversals represent blockages, mightn't it be more likely that either the sitter OR the reader is experiencing a block for some reason? (How do you really feel about your landlady and/or reading for her? Maybe some part of her is trying to block your reading, regardless of what she says to you outwardly. Maybe she is simply in that much of a negative/blocked state right now!!!)

But you guys are the ones bringing the energy to the reading. Not the deck used.

In my opinion.

My first reading with my new Legacy deck, all the cards were reversed, all negative. I decided to read all the cards as if they were upright, it worked out. But it bothered me, so I did another reading with the same sitter that same night and it happened again. Perhaps it was me, it was a new deck, maybe I was too excited, expecting too much. Since then the cards have been wonderful to work with. I will do another reading with that same sitter this week, I will be sure to use the same deck. This time I am going to read the reversals with her not matter how the cards lay.

Funny this thread appears tonight. I did a reading today for a client regarding a family member. I threw 10 cards, (meant to do 9, but the 10th popped on out too), and all but 2 cards were reversed. the two that were not reversed were not the greatest of cards upright either, so....

I read for this client fairly regularly, and quite often on this same topic--this same family member of hers. I am not sure if it's the cards do not like this woman we read about, or if it is because I know this particular family member of hers and do not care for her myself. I've always just took it as the energy I bring into the reading when this client tells me her question and it has to do with this particular person.

I've read with different decks on her, and it seems to happen alot, or I get cards that don't make any sense what so ever with the issue at hand--if it has anything to do with this particular person. I do not think it's the cards so much as it is me and the energy I am bringing with it. and, quite honestly, I think I can pretty much answer my clients questions regarding this woman without the cards anyway--she's so predictable and such a mess.

You know, as for the deck not liking the sitter, in one way I know what you mean and in another, not so sure.

I always think that reading for people is like a conversation...that They can't hear me having with....Tarot. So, in my mind I'm sort of acting as a translator...for what...just the deck, the cards...no. Not the actual cards...the cards are like the phone....the physical phone. Now, the connection...if all the cards came reversed for me, I'd do another draw. Mostly, because I don't read reversals. I look for the places in the reading where the energy is blocked or looks stuck....probably the same places where reversal readers see the reversed or inverted cards.

Who is on the other end of the line, on the other side of the cards? Perhaps that is another thread....but I always think the Divine, their higher selves or their Guides, angels, dare I say it....daemons. And why would they not like the person in the chair. They might be exasperated with the person...they might be feeling like that person needs a smack, but I don't usually think of the reading as not liking my sitter. Sometimes the message is just...difficult. IMHO.

I pray into the reading, asking to connect with the divine source/energy wisdom that the person sitting across from me most needs to hear from. And that the information be the highest and best good needed for them/all involved in the issue at that moment.

Just recently I had a tough reading at the bookstore where I read sometimes. What was happening was very interesting. She was asking a question about a student of hers. And she was very supportive and loving and wanted the best for the student. This sitter thought I just didn't get it...she wanted me tell her, in definitive terms, the outcome of a conversation with a parent. She had done lots of hard work trying to accomplish something for the student, and the parent was poised in a place that could undo the work. She wanted me to tell her if it would all unravel or not.

What I could see was the complications and places where things could derail...it was a complicated situation. I could see she was asking the wrong question. But it was the ONLY question she would ask. I actually told her to end the call and call my boss and get her money back. But she wouldn't...she just kept on begging me to tell her...and I had to go into a second deck and throw a new set of cards, because all I kept getting was entanglements, and back story. She kept saying, yes I know all this, yes I know...what will the mother say...what will the mother say...what will the mother do....infuriating.

I tried to suggest to her that she let this go, no matter the outcome. But she could not hear me...so we ended our call.

Now, the deck was talking. I told her what I saw. I told her I had to go to another deck...she wanted to hear a certain answer....and until I said a certain answer she wouldn't let me go.

Did the deck not like her? I don't think that was at issue. I think there are times when people have to live through their lives without divinatory (is that a word?) assistance! Can you believe I'm saying that??? Truly, there are many times in professional situations when the cards seem to not want to answer...where I feel like Tarot is hedging...not really answering and skirting the issue. Like a fast busy signal, to get back to my phone analogy.

Now I don't think this has to do with liking or disliking the person...I think it has to do with a person's learning or contract with the Universe. What they came in to live through and learn on the Path. And when this happens in a reading, I feel like we are dancing around a place in the life of the sitter where they are really doing their soul's work....and they just have to move through the fire and get to the other side and see where they come out and how they come out.

celticnoodle said:

I read for this client fairly regularly, and quite often on this same topic--this same family member of hers. I am not sure if it's the cards do not like this woman we read about, or if it is because I know this particular family member of hers and do not care for her myself. I've always just took it as the energy I bring into the reading when this client tells me her question and it has to do with this particular person.

I've read with different decks on her, and it seems to happen alot, or I get cards that don't make any sense what so ever with the issue at hand--if it has anything to do with this particular person. I do not think it's the cards so much as it is me and the energy I am bringing with it. and, quite honestly, I think I can pretty much answer my clients questions regarding this woman without the cards anyway--she's so predictable and such a mess.

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See I think that part of her life's lesson is tied up with that family member. So the cards won't give you the info because either you aren't asking the right qeustion, or they just don't want to reveal it to her yet, because she has something to figure out on her own, she has to have the aha! moment before the cards can really deliver her a good message.

Especially when it seems obvious to you then that has been for me the hallmark of what I'm talking about. When something is that obvious, as it was for me with this teacher the other night, the sitter can't see it and won't see it...so Tarot doesn't even try to waste time giving them anything. Because it falls on deaf ears. They can't hear what you have to say, not until a certain point, not until they see for themselves something that makes them go...wow why didn't I see that before. Now the mind can accept something beautiful from the cards.

Does that make sense?

Satori said:

...if all the cards came reversed for me, I'd do another draw. Mostly, because I don't read reversals.

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How would you explain this to the querent. I can imagine throwing a bunch of cards, seeing them all upside down and then saying, "Ooops! Let's try again!" and getting a very, very strange look from the sitter...

Not that I haven't wanted to do that before.

I had one client who kept ordering readings from me trying to get the "right" answer. The cards kept popping up all reversed each time (I do mostly 7 card spreads and I had one that was entirely reversed!). and I kept trying to calmly and politely explain to her that she wasn't going to get the answer *she* wanted -- just the answer that the universe was trying to give her. Lo and behold the next day there'd be money in my paypal from her again. Eventually I had to cut her off and refuse to read for her because I couldn't help her anymore. We *both* had poisoned the energy between us because of the tension. I don't think it was the cards that didn't like her, and I hope she doesn't think that *I* didn't like her (I actually could really feel her pain and empathized a great deal) -- I think it was our attitudes on both sides.

My goal for every reading is to empower my sitter and when I can't do that -- for whatever reason, it's really difficult for me to deal with as well. I think that's what the cards were ultimately telling me with all the blockages/reversals.

Satori said:

See I think that part of her life's lesson is tied up with that family member. So the cards won't give you the info because either you aren't asking the right qeustion, or they just don't want to reveal it to her yet, because she has something to figure out on her own, she has to have the aha! moment before the cards can really deliver her a good message.

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yes, this is true, I think. it's what I think too, with this particular client and this particular family member of hers as well.

Especially when it seems obvious to you then that has been for me the hallmark of what I'm talking about. When something is that obvious, as it was for me with this teacher the other night, the sitter can't see it and won't see it...so Tarot doesn't even try to waste time giving them anything. Because it falls on deaf ears. They can't hear what you have to say, not until a certain point, not until they see for themselves something that makes them go...wow why didn't I see that before. Now the mind can accept something beautiful from the cards.

Does that make sense?

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perfect sense! I have tried to tell this client this very thing. however, generally what she asks the cards then are questions like "What is she up to now where I am concerned?". Sometimes the cards are quite accurate with telling her--other times & most times - they just are confusing. So, what I've taken to do when the cards are confusing and making no sense is tell my client that if she is up to something yet again, then she just hasn't figured out what to do yet--and so there really is nothing to worry about with her. I also try to tell this client that if she doesn't like this person, there is no reason why she needs to go to all the family affairs with this person. they are both adults--and if she really wants to avoid family confrontations, but not willing to confront the lady face to face, she should avoid being with her so much.

you can't pick your family like you do your friends, unfortunately. And, it seems we all have that one family member, (sometimes more) that drives everyone absolutely crazy! sometimes when two family members can't get along, it's usually better to avoid contact with each other.

tarotmama said:

How would you explain this to the querent. I can imagine throwing a bunch of cards, seeing them all upside down and then saying, "Ooops! Let's try again!" and getting a very, very strange look from the sitter...

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Yeah, I know. I'd really probably just turn them around. Why waste the throw. I have done that. Turned any reversal around...when I'm in control of the reading, I'm in control of the reading, not the sitter. It is Their reading we are doing, but the rules of engagement come from me.