Direction or Empowerment?

I'm curious whether your clients (or freebie sitters, if non-professional) expect concrete advice and direction out of your readings, or whether they're satisfied with the empowerment that comes from being given useful insights and expanded awareness regarding their questions.

I interpret cards in a spread as showing a range of possibilities and surrounding influences as opposed to absolutes. I don't give advice or try to offer prescriptive solutions, I intend to empower querents with knowledge of underlying, perhaps hidden, conditions so they can make their own choices. I only read face-to-face, so I make sure at the end of a reading that all layers of meaning have been explored and that the querent comprehends his or her options. My measure of success is that the querent walks away with fresh insights, and I stick with a reading until that happens.

What has your experience been in this area?

I think most sitters want the direction that comes from the cards, because they feel it comes from beyond. But I tend to mix that in with some guidance. Like if someone is having problems with a relationship or their resume, I offer advice that I would give anyone. ie. I recently did a reading for someone who the cards said needed help with their resume. I used to write and edit resumes, so I gave them some advice on how to best place keywords in their resume as well as the advice from the cards that their resume was not so hot at the moment.

I try to stick with the message the cards have for the sitter and I give them the meanings insofar as they apply to what the querent wants to know. I don't try to give all the layers of meaning because they don't all apply to the question. I try to stay away from giving them advice unless it's found in the cards. I'm not a trained counselor so it isn't my place to be giving advice to them. It might turn out to be the wrong advice.

I've many customers that come to me for exact directions from the cards. No matter how many times I tell them the cards cannot tell them exactly what to do in a situation, they just don't seem to hear and still expect it. these clients exasperate me.

I have one woman who would come to me like clockwork about once every 3 mos. to get a reading on her ex boyfriend, whom she can't seem to move on from. I tell her what the cards say, give her a shoulder to cry on, do my best to console her, (as he flits from one new gf to another--but he has the right to do so) and she cannot understand why the cards cannot give her a magical formula to get him back for good. Truth is, I think this man does still 'like' her but her neediness is just a bit too much for him and I think this is why he keeps his distance from her. sad. She takes notes from all my readings, as I do encourage my readers to do, and 2yrs. later my last reading for her had said something different from what the previous readings stated. She was not pleased! I tried to explain that the cards only show what 'may' be not what definitely would be. also things change as time moves on. I have not seen nor heard from her since that time.

Another client, comes to me now and again, also about his ex girlfriend. He gives me the creeps really- and he is as needy as the woman above. (hmmm...perhaps I should introduce them??? ) he can at times get rather vocal with me, where I will have to tell him, "sorry. times up. you'll have to go now." once he told me, "I'll buy another 30 minute reading!" "Nope. I've got another client that reserved this space and should be here soon."

I have not seen him in awhile and I hope I won't again too. he's a very nervous type too. just something is off with him. He always asks me the same question. "Ask the cards what I should do in regards to ***". Again, no matter how many times I tell clients that the cards can only offer some guidance and that we have to decide for ourselves, they chose sometimes not to listen to that.

Grizabella said:

I try to stick with the message the cards have for the sitter and I give them the meanings insofar as they apply to what the querent wants to know. I don't try to give all the layers of meaning because they don't all apply to the question. I try to stay away from giving them advice unless it's found in the cards. I'm not a trained counselor so it isn't my place to be giving advice to them. It might turn out to be the wrong advice.

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I should have clarified. I explore the layers of meaning until I find a level that "clicks" with the querent, and then we pursue that path in the reading I'm one that uses the method practiced by Crowley, Waite and my original role-model, Eden Gray: I don't ask the querent to reveal the specific question at the start, and let the cards home in on it in their own way, with "mid-course corrections" from the querent. Obviously, in an on-line reading this doesn't work, but in person I like the initial ambiguity that slowly clarifies as the reading progresses. There have been numerous cases where the reading offers far more than what was originally asked of the cards, as long as the querent is willing to go with it. Most do.

I usually do blind readings too, because I find that the less I know, the clearer the cards read.

Someone may be asking what they should do in a work situation, and I may see a card or two which speaks to a child, or another situation, only to find out that this is what is actually getting in the way of their working.

But I do read the cards precisely and tell the Q exactly what they say, which is sometimes very specific, and other times more indirect. I feel it is interfering with the reading, if I interject my personal feelings as to what they should and should not be told.

Though I also go by the energy in the cards, and intuition...for example, sometimes the 8 of Swords may be telling the Q to not act, to stay quiet...and sometimes it may be showing that the situation is holding them back, or in a holding pattern. If it is saying to the Q, to not act, then I feel it is my obligation as a reader, to tell them. It is a specific, but it is their cards I am reading, and I cannot interfere with their energetic state.

Puisun Kanna said:

But I do read the cards precisely and tell the Q exactly what they say, which is sometimes very specific, and other times more indirect. I feel it is interfering with the reading, if I interject my personal feelings as to what they should and should not be told.

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I also think this is the best practice. But sometimes the "indirect" expression requires some very circuitous narrative story-telling before the querent finally goes "Aha!" and relates the card to the question. In those cases its not a question of wanting to tell them, it's one of being able to coax relevant meaning out of the card. I find Trump cards notorious for this (due to their transcendent nature), and court cards not far behind. I suppose mastering these exigencies is how we earn our reputations.

I've done "blind" readings aplenty, but it always makes me feel like I'm one of those TV psychics who is groping around for what it is I'm supposed to say that will most impress my subject with how psychic I am. You know the ones. He's getting a message from the afterlife for someone----"I'm getting a name that starts with an M---anyone recognize that?" and then someone says "Me, I do. Marty" so he turns his attention to this one. "I sense that this is a man. Did you lose your husband recently? (Well, of course, if he's getting messages from the afterlife, then the party is dead so that's not particularly psychic.) "No? Does Marty have a brother or friend he was especially close to?" (Yeppers, most people do have a brother they feel close to and if not, then a male friend.) "This person I'm getting has a message for Marty" (oh a message for Marty since Marty still lives)-----you get the gist of it. When you don't have a question or background and you're feeling around for what the message is for the sitter that's how it feels to me. I'd far rather have a specific question and if they give some background, it's even better.

Besides that, if a sitter is paying in cash or kind, then knowing the question and maybe some background cuts to the chase and saves them having to pay for time when I'm just flying blind trying to find the right topic. This, as I see it, gives them the best value for their money. They aren't sitting there seeing the time they've paid for evaporating while I try to find what it is they most need to know.

There are two ways to view this and both are usually stones in the slingshot of the skeptic. "Well, you fish around till you find what the sitter wants" for the blind reader and "well, you got too much information from the sitter beforehand" for those like me who do it the other way.

There's plenty of room for all readers to do their readings the way they prefer to and I don't like making judgments about those who don't do it the way I do. Any time you see me say something like I said in the first paragraph---that it feels like I'm doing what the TV psychics do and just finding what works----I'm not talking about those who prefer to blind read. I'm just saying what doing that method makes me feel like, so please don't take me wrong. We should all do what we're best at and keep our focus on the sitter and giving them a good reading, not on ourselves. If you're doing your level best to give a sitter the best reading you can, then that's all that counts.

I don't think Waite and Crowley were pro Tarot readers, were they? Their purpose with Tarot was different than that of the person who gives sitters readings the way a lot of us do. They were more proficient than professional.

Well, I myself do not find blind reading to leave me fishing around for the answer It should be right there in the cards. It can become a longer reading like you say however.

I offer the choice of reading styles to the Q when they come to me for a reading. Some are looking for a specific answer, and need it quickly, so I will do very pointed readings. For a specific question.

I do not ask for any background, just the question. Though if their question is vague, and they are looking for specifics, I may help them reword the question, or break it down with them, if there is actually more than one questions in it.

But I think there are differing views on what is the most for their money. I do not time my readings, and am sure a reading is complete. I primarily do online readings at this point though, with open email conversation with the Q.

You are SO right on the skeptic thing! I cannot really be bothered with debunkers. They can convince themselves somewhere else.

Crowley had great influence over the developing tarot, as one with images, and even how the cards fall. There are two major cards in the decks we all use now, that were originally in other positions. Which does effect things very much in the numerology aspect.
You can see in the Cipher Manuscripts
http://www.hermeticgoldendawn.org/kuntz-ciphermanuscript.html

There are many conversation notes about the tarot, and it clearly shows the new card placements, along with specifically why they would not want the general public to know the correct placements.
Yes, Crowley was an adept and professional tarot reader, in his mannerisms. I was not there, so I have no idea if he was paid (if that is what you mean by professional), but he did know more about the tarot than many others.
I may not agree with much that he did, but he was very well studied, and very good at what he did.

There's plenty of room for all readers to do their readings the way they prefer to and I don't like making judgments about those who don't do it the way I do. Any time you see me say something like I said in the first paragraph---that it feels like I'm doing what the TV psychics do and just finding what works----I'm not talking about those who prefer to blind read. I'm just saying what doing that method makes me feel like, so please don't take me wrong. We should all do what we're best at and keep our focus on the sitter and giving them a good reading, not on ourselves. If you're doing your level best to give a sitter the best reading you can, then that's all that counts.

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I hear you there, if we did not each have our own styles, the world of Tarot would be pretty dull! It is nice to talk about and share the different ways we do things, and how it makes us feel though

Grizabella said:

I don't think Waite and Crowley were pro Tarot readers, were they? Their purpose with Tarot was different than that of the person who gives sitters readings the way a lot of us do. They were more proficient than professional.

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They were not pro readers to my knowledge, and I believe they were even reluctant to acknowledge divination as a legitimate use of the cards, but it was part of the core of the Golden Dawn knowledge, so they both must have felt compelled to weigh in on it. Certainly in Crowley's instructions the intent was for the reading to be "blind" ("Tell the querent why he has come.") I couldn't find anything similar in the Pictorial Key, so my source on Waite may have been wrong. Eden Gray included that approach in her books published in the 1960s.