can some people become too dependent on Tarot cards

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 13 Sep 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

lili	13 Sep 2003
I have a friend that I'm afraid is depending too much in tarot readings it seems that she have to have a reading for any little thing that arises, she will always have a motive to have a reading done. I would like to tell her about her dependency on readings because i think that she is not aware of it, but I don't know how without hurting her feelings.

lillith	13 Sep 2003
Dear lili, maybe you need to fiind out your friends deeper motivations for that. Is she unhappy in a relationship or does she have troubles in her job? Maybe you can help her that way and just offer your friendship to consult problems? Just an advice. Lillith

Umbrae	13 Sep 2003
Yup, folks can get too dependant. It is easy to become too dependent upon Oracular devices, to use them for every little thing that arises. They may show you what you want to see, rather then what you are looking for. Zorya once said, “If we are too attached to a perceived outcome, we may miss opportunities, or what is truly meant for us”.

HudsonGray	13 Sep 2003
The Outer Limits tv show had an episode like that, the lady was so hooked that in 3 days she wouldn't even go in to work until she'd conned the guy doing the readings at the coffee shop to tell her what the day was going to be like. She ended up being late on the 4th morning & he'd left, chased after him down the street & called out his name just as he was crossing, he turned & was hit by a car. Did she use her cell phone to call for help? No, she just screamed at him to tell her what he 'saw' before he died... Grim, yeah, but shows someone who certainly gave up their own power over their life to hear someone else take control for everything for them. Not a good thing, I'm sure!

Diana	13 Sep 2003
It's not the readings that are a problem here. It is her fear. She is fearful and needs constant reassurance. She needs to learn not to fear life constantly and to trust that she is being cared for. She needs to know that she is a child of the Universe, and that her guides never leave her side. The Tarot cards help her escape from her fear. In time, the Tarot will probably bring her peace, because they allow her to connect to the Universe and perhaps slowly she will feel more confident in herself. Tarot can be the best therapy sometimes.

Macavity	13 Sep 2003
An interesting theory (due to Hajo Banzhaf) is that reading (for oneself anyway?) tends to be a self-limiting dependency. The more "frantically" you do it, the less rewarding the readings become. Perhaps a case for teaching her to read for herself... to become aware of these limitations? ;) Macavity

zorya	13 Sep 2003
i agree with diana, because i see the cards as a tool to help me communicate with my spirit guides and to give me access to universal knowledge, i feel that using them often, brings me closer to these things. on the other hand, it can become a problem if a person cannot make a decision or move without them. there is a difference between not wanting to make a decision without them and not being able to make one without them. if a person is asking the same basic questions over and over, because they don't like the outcome or don't want to make the changes the cards suggest, then there is a problem.

Scorpion	13 Sep 2003
Hi, Lili! I know someone like this who became so dependent on readings by mediums that she wouldn't take any sort of decision without one - right down to when she was looking to buy a house she would take the particulars along to the medium and get their opinion. It didn't matter whether she liked the house or not - in some cases I think she went to the medium before the viewing! I think several people have commented on it, but I believe it's down to your friend's own insecurity and need for reassurance and it's this that needs to be tackled. What you didn't say was whether you're the reader involved. If you are, you could possibly try to wean her off by saying something like "You only had one last week. I don't feel it's constructive to constantly ask the cards for answers and you haven't really allowed enough time inbetween. Why don't we do another one in a few days' time?".

HudsonGray	13 Sep 2003
If it's insecurity, how about one specific reading about HOW she needs to shape & grow, where her strengths are, and how she should begin it, then NO more readings till 2 months down the line - this will give her time to actually change her life during that time & a reading covering the changes & what still needs to be focused on is in order at the end of that time. If she hasn't done the work and it hasn't been touched, then no more readings. Cold turkey. They're currently not helping her move forward at all & only offer a crutch for her at this point in her life that she'll have a hard time winning free of.

full deck	13 Sep 2003
Focusing on the discrete events that make up our daily lives ends up in confusion. Tarot is more often focused upon the processes by which things happen. We have an opportunity to participate in these processes, if given awareness of them instead of having a fatalistic fixation upon a myriad of singular events. Like I posted about time and statistical sampling: Quote: Another question relating to time in a reading involves sampling. When I would do a statistical analysis of, say, a piece of music, graphed out by bars (bars + tempo indicating the total time of the piece); if I were to measure the density of notes played, I could sample from each bar, every 4 bars or every 8 bars. The sample size directly influenced the visual graph of the music's form; a sample cell size that was too small would result in a more erratic shape in a graph ( # of note attacks over passage of musical time), that had no real value as a representation of structure, whereas a sample cell size that was too large would produce a graph that was too vague in shape to show what was really happening during the unfolding of the music within its timespace. As an analogy, If we did daily readings -- all relating to events for each day -- would these readings really show a developing trend, would they really be very useful? I suspect that daily readings and their relationship to time are not useful in that it predisposes one to rely heavily upon reading and far less upon using one's own common sense and wisdom in making daily decisions and does not adequately take into account the process-oriented nature of one's subjective experience of time that occurs in larger periods of measurement. Perhaps it's is a bit like thinking of Max Planck's "quanta" as discreet particles (small time periods) instead of " quantum waves" (larger periods of time). Likewise, like the physicist that asks "are 'quanta' particles or do they occur in 'waves'?", we could consider "Is it more effective to focus on specific, time-oriented events as opposed to reading for the trend of a time-period and the processes it represents"?. A reading that focuses more upon trends that occur within a longer span of time is probably more helpful, giving one a more accurate view of events that occur out of our personal (subjective) experience of time. Other than that, perhaps a calendar is more useful for determining time-related events. Another way of talking about the quote above would be how a Jazz musician plays. They don't focus on one note at a time, rather they try to think about phrases and the direction therein. I personally rather enjoy reading what others have to say about Tarot and things in the forum as opposed to trying to find out if an anvil is going to drop down on my head sometime. :-)

mondk	14 Sep 2003
Along my journey I have discovered that needy or codependent querents often extend their issues to the cards and come to rely solely on the cards' revelations to guide their lives. These people have core issues which I feel are better dealt with through professional counseling or psychotherapy. Once they come to terms with or deal with their issues, then a reading every say, 6 months, I feel is best. I had one querent about a year ago who relied so heavily on the cards that I refused to read for her again unless she got some help. She would request that I shuffle and deal until she heard what she wanted to hear. That is not a good querent in my opinion. Hope this makes sense...just my opinion. Blessings, Michelle

lili	16 Sep 2003
What you didn't say was whether you're the reader involved. If you are, you could possibly try to wean her off by saying something like "You only had one last week. I don't feel it's constructive to constantly ask the cards for answers and you haven't really allowed enough time inbetween. Why don't we do another one in a few days' time?". [/b][/quote] Yes I'm the reader, she wants me to give her a reading for anything.

anjocoxo	17 Sep 2003
Those are the kind of people I usually don't like to read to. I'll give you an example: I have a colleague, at work, who usually goes to a tarot reader, asking for readings (he's also a medium, I think, but I'm not sure). A while ago, the man told her she was going to have an accident.... she thought about that every single day, until one day she accidently hitted her car against a wall. It wasn't even "hit", because it was a very, very small thing, the car only had a small scratch... you can guess what was the first thing she said: "The man was right!". I believe than in her subconscious she did that "on purpose", because the man told her it was going to happen, you know what I mean? I have several friends at work to whom I read. Only once I said no, because the person was asking the same freaking question every day... I told her what Robin Wood said on her interview: people who ask the same question every day are like those people who open their fridge every day, hoping for something new.... but if THEY don't put new things inside, things will never be different. Hope I made some sense Anjo I have never read to that colleague at work, I think she's too sensitive.

lawguy51	17 Sep 2003
I think there is a cautionary tale in this for all of us. I do a 3 card draw for myself about 4 days out of 7. I look at them and go, hmmm, right...I'll look out for that today. But to constantly go to the oracle well, you become like the drug dealer who's hooked on his own stuff. When you need the cards for every trivial detail in your life, then I agree with Diana, it's fear, insecurity, an inability to trust your own karmic judgement. You know, I just remembered something from this summer that kind of creeped me out. When I attended the Toronto Tarot Symposium, there came a point where the person at the lecturn told us to all take out our cards and shuffle then select one. I looked around the room and saw all of these people with their decks, shuffling away, many of them professional readers and authors, and it did look like a kind of communal addictive activity. It had a sense of desperation to it, but I'm sure I was just projecting. Bottom line, everything in moderation, including excess. LG51

MeeWah	18 Sep 2003
Over-reliance on the cards is as over-reliance on anything. It becomes a crutch & life ceases to be spontaneous. Balance is the key. The opportunities to exercise & to develop the innate discernment is possessed by each person. I have refused to read for a private client who began demanding readings a few times during the week; even expected me to drop whatever I was doing to tend to her. The last readings for her indicated she was not only consulting other readers, but was stuck in a rut. Dinna understand that a reading is of no use if not used or applied in a practical fashion. Eventually, she came to understand this & to empower the self with insight from the cards. I would like to teach her to use the cards, but she is not interested.

lili	18 Sep 2003
Yes I agree with you MeeWah, this person will leave message after message on my answering machine trying to get me to give her a reading for anything. once she wanted to know who was going to win the football game in which her son was playing and if her doughter was going to make it for cheerleader. I just told her that I don't do those kind of readings, I thought that she will never ask me for a reading again after that, but I was wrong. she still continue asking me to read for her. She is a long time friend and I don't want her to be mad at me but will have to tell her that i'm not doing this kind of readings

Scorpion	18 Sep 2003
Lili You say she's a "long term friend", in which case she ought to be able to handle you being perfectly honest with her. At the moment it sounds like she's using your abilities to deal with her fears and insecurities rather than deal with them herself. I take it that, as a friend, you don't charge anything for your services? After around a year's absence, I am about to ease myself back into personal one-to-one readings by giving a few free sessions to workmates I am friendly with, but there is one person I do not intend to read for - she is just the way your friend sounds (except this is not a friend of mine - she wants to be) and I know I'd spend all my time shaking her off. This one is definitely a "psychic/energy vampire" (see previous threads on the subject!). So my "guinea pigs" know that if anybody asks they are to make it sound as if I am VERY expensive - the one thing I know she will not do is pay! I hope you can extricate yourself from this one without losing your friendship, but I don't think you'd be doing her any favours by giving in to her demands.

The can some people become too dependent on Tarot cards thread was originally posted on 13 Sep 2003 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.