Third party readings...do you do them?

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 25 Apr 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

yve	25 Apr 2004
I was just wondering on what members views were on doing 3 party readings. Say for example a querant comes in and wants a reading done for someone else from their past, not even someone they are presently close to. Eg. Does he still love me and think about me? I just can't seem to draw any energy on an unknown person and do a reading on their behalf....Is it possible? How do you handle such requests? Perhaps it can be done, and i'm just not intuned enough to do it? Perhaps it take more than tarot to do this....

eastarot	25 Apr 2004
Earlier I would say "No. not possible, dont want to invade their privacy" But now over time I have come to understand it depends on the context and the question and I make it clear to the querent is about THEM, and what THEY need to know with respect to this person. If its someone from their past for instance, then what lesson is there that the querent hasnt learnt. (Usually letting go, forgiveness are issues that crop up) Recently a client came to me in tears, her mom had shut herself out from the world, and was behaving oddly. She came to me for a reading about what was going on. In these matters, its not so much the cards as much as an objective shoulder...and advice that perhaps her mom needs to see a doctor, and its time for her to take charge and parent her parent. Third party readings do depend for me on the question and the bond. A last example was a concerned mom who had recently left an abusive husband and was worried about her son, who was in a boarding school and was being bullied. She needed to hear everything would be ok for her child. I did pull out cards for her son and they were positive. And then of course there are those clients who want me to pry into their competitiors minds with my cards, or tell them who the contract will go to, or whether their sister in law will get their mother in laws to change the will in their favour. Those kind of questions and people get a cool stare and polite decline. Hope I havent glazed your eyes:) blessings

Marion	25 Apr 2004
I do them, but I want to feel pretty sure that I understand where the querant was coming from on the matter.

hedgecub	26 Apr 2004
I will do them, but like eastarot, I would first make sure that the reason warrants an invasion of someone else's privacy. Nevermind that I'm not nearly good enough to get any sort of accuracy with a third party reading. ;)

yve	26 Apr 2004
I agree too, I think context/intentions are important...definately will make me think before I just agree to any and every request... After I posted the initial, I turned down a request just because of context/intent...the querant wanted a reading on a long lost love to see if truly loved his wife( that he was married to), or if he loved her still (in fact she was now married to someone else!)...in this case I told her that the cards just couldn't give me any information about what is going through her ex's mind....but if she wanted a reading on her and what is happening in her life or what the future may hold, that I would be happy to oblige.

closrapexa	26 Apr 2004
There have been other threads about this subject, and I'll say here what I said there: Third party readings are to a certain degree misnamed. Tarot cannot spy on people, as its all about energies and presences. When I do a third party reading, For example a relationship spread, what it tells me is the querent's place in the life of his/her prtner or whatever. If some one wants to know about some one they haven't seen in years, then the cards can tell them if they have a place in that person's life, or not.

yve	27 Apr 2004
Yes closrapexa, that is what I meant to say, but didn't complete my sentence properly...In regards to the querant's role/place in life with or without the other person, but to give a reading only for a stranger that she hadn't seen in years (to read her ex's mind), wasn't appropriate....

closrapexa	27 Apr 2004
True, it would be inapropriate, and whats more, the reading would probably be doomed from the start to be unspecific or downright false. It would be heavily biased and affected by her feelings and, sadly, illusions. Edited to add: Strange to say, I too, had to turn down a reading for some one who wanted to know what her next boyfriend would be like. But then for the sake of experimentation, I did a relationship spread, and I saw that I wasn't seeing anything, only what she was looking for in a man. Something like a profile done in those online dating sites!! So I had to close the reading...

The Third party readings...do you do them? thread was originally posted on 25 Apr 2004 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.