The cards are an analogical tool. Their language is closer to “as if” than it is to “yes” or “no”. What you see in the cards is always an analogy of something the person is experiencing, or may be experiencing, in real life.
I see the cards as metaphors, this is, as something that stands for something else; but when I start a reading I don’t know what is that they are representing, or what is the metaphor for.
In order to know, I have to SEE the cards literally. So, the Magician becomes a young man of certain visual characteristics, whose relationship with the literal figures in other cards creates a metaphor. That metaphor hopes to represent, by analogy, the sitters experiences.
Now, here is the thing. If I were to describe a dream I had to you, I would have to describe the dream just as I remember it: “A man was chasing me...” I would describe it literally. Chances are that some if the dream’s actions of details would resonate at a literal level. So, a very natural thing we would do is to define if that man does exists in reality, if I know his name, and if in fact I have felt the man chasing me in one or another way. We would only explore its metaphorical value (this is, the idea of that man being other thing than that specific man) IF we find no literal connection between the dream and my life.
Tarot is no different to dream imagery. So, the first thing I will do when the cards are on the table is to describe what I see, literally; for it is possible that the cards may have literal resonance on the sitter. After this first step, we will see how that literal description becomes metaphor for something else, but only if at a literal level has no resonance for the person I am reading the cards for.
I hope this makes sense.