Has something like this ever happened to you?

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 08 May 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Vraiment	08 May 2005
A strange thing happened last summer when I visited my best friend, Adam, for the weekend. We were down at the boardwalk and noticed a sign for Tarot Readings, and since he'd been wanting a reading for a while (mostly so that he could see a proper layout and see what all is done), we decided to investigate. There were two readers in a back room that, much to my delight, was filled with a delightful incense (he says that I like incense more than he because I am an air sign *shrug*). We stood there for a while between the two readers' booths and I spoke and asked him what he felt about the two. The words out of his mouth transcribed exactly the thoughts in my head. From the reader on the left, we felt a strong energy that didn't feel quite right for some reason. From the reader on the right, we felt less of an energy, but it was one that felt somehow more ...I'm having problems finding the proper word... true/lighthearted. Adam decided to go with the reader on the left. She gave him a reading that at the time didn't seem to make much sense. (It was, if I recall correctly, a spread where she kept pulling three different cards over and over until time ran out.) She said some things about coming into money, about drinking beer, about playing an instrument, about having a business that would do well. I sat on the side and watched - at some points, certain combinations of cards that he would draw (in sets of three) would absolutely attract my attention, but at that point in time, I hadn't even started learning the cards to know what they actually meant. I walked out of the back room with my mind racing and feeling absolutely strange. I went outside and stood there, looking at the ocean, and finally calmed. Why, though, did she say so many things that applied to neither Adam nor any of his friends? And why had we such a strong feeling about her? Or was it a strong feeling about the cards and not the reader? I couldn't settle these things in my mind. However, the first of the questions was eventually answered by my brain when I came to an amazing conclusion -- all of the things she mentioned that didn't make sense to Adam actually did make sense for him...but for Dorian, a character he role-plays. Having just elaborated to me all the details of his last role-playing session, and with his mind excited about going back there in the weekend to come, who "he" was perhaps was not clearly defined. Could his character have come through in the reading? And then I have the question, is it possible that the reason we felt a strong but not quite "right" feeling about the reader on the left was because she'd be dead on accurate and able to do a reading, but something wasn't right in that she wasn't able to distinguish my Adam's real persona from his character's? Any thoughts or feedback welcome. ^_^

HudsonGray	08 May 2005
Some people can 'live' their characters so strong that they're a second person to them. Writers have the same problem, they're their characters while the story is being written, the characters are being lived & breathed. When that's the case, it's not strange that a reader may have picked up on the alternate instead of the original. It wouldn't make for a very useful reading, but then again he should have been giving her some feedback too, to pull the reading back on target. Too bad you didn't write down what the cards were that were coming up. It would be interesting trying to piece things together.

Emeraldgirl	09 May 2005
Wow that's a really interesting occurance. As HudsonGray said character and role playing can become a part of someone to the point where they are living in character most of the time and I can imagine that this would affect the reading. I have a friend who is an actress who has the same sort of problem (I have never rad for her) but she finds it really hard to come out of character after she's been learning lines and performing.

Vraiment	09 May 2005
Yeah, I thought it was pretty weird, too. I suppose my friend was just too passionate about his character. He had said things like "I don't drink beer; really no one I know does," or "No one I know his own business," but she just said that he'd figure it out in time. That's why my brain ran overtime until I thought it through. It is a shame I didn't write down the cards, but I felt like my taking out the paper and pencil that were in my bag would have been rude. Or maybe like I was undermining her "authority" as the reader. I'm not sure if that's necessarily the case, but it's how I recall feeling at the time.

Thirteen	09 May 2005
Though the role-playing character *isn't* him, it is him on a fanasy level. A person who can't drink beer, for example, might certainly wish they could swagger into a bar and guzzle down tankards of brew and get roaring drunk. This is his alter-ego, Batman to his Bruce Wayne. And even if he can't play the part in reality, it is still *him* on some level. But let's remember also the first part of this story. Adam chose the one on the left--the more powerful energy but "wrong." He didn't pick the lighter but truer energy on the right. You might well say that this alter-ego, the role-playing character, was the one who wanted the reading. Perhaps he didn't take tarot readings quite seriously. Perhaps they're more a part of his role-playing world of magic and tankards of beer, than the "real" world. Or perhaps, somewhere inside, he didn't want to hear about the "real" world from that other reader; the role-playing future was of more interest, and certainly less likely to push sensitive, real-world buttons. A person that deeply into role-playing might want to escape from the "real" world even in a tarot reading. An accurate, real-world tarot reading, where the reader tells you truths you thought no one knew, and sees where you are, and warns you of where you're going can be pretty scary. The reader on the left wasn't going to scare him even if she was accurate about his alter-ego. It's all fantasy, right? He picked the one who would give him the reading he wanted; the future of the alter-ego who doesn't suffer real consequences...who can drink the beer with no hang-over so long as he doesn't role the dice too badly. I think he sensed that the reader on the right would bother him, would be too real. The reader on the left got him out of having to face that.

Imagemaker	09 May 2005
Fascinating insight, Thirteen! For those of us who are writers and role players, I wonder how many of our own readings come up for the fantasy character and confuse us.

Vraiment	09 May 2005
Thirteen, you might have hit him right on the nose with that one. My goodness, I never even thought of it that way. I'm astounded. (And gosh, don't I wish I'd come up with the theory myself! Haha!) But it sounds so right, what with my relatively close knowledge of his personality. I don't think it's so much the conjecture about not taking it seriously, but I do believe it might be that his "alter-ego" of sorts was a mask to keep him from possibly hearing the truth. He uses his character so much like that all the time that it all really clicks. Always with the "Well, Dorian this" and "Dorian would do that" and "Of course I have as much dexterity as Dorian" ... not quite as much anymore, mind you, but especially so last year at the time. My most sincere thanks for helping to shed more light on the situation, Thirteen. ^_^

The Has something like this ever happened to you? thread was originally posted on 08 May 2005 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.