To senior members questions about ethics and evil/negative?

zannamarie

bluelagune said:
So you would read into the negative if asked. Do you use regular tarot decks or more with darker images?

Every card has positive and negative aspects to it so there is the potential to read about "negative" with every card of every deck.

There is a reading circle where we only use what many would consider to be "dark" decks (The DDT reading circle). Just because a deck is considered "dark" doesn't mean the reading will be about negative energies. Dark does not equate with negative. Positive and negative are meanings you give to the card.

Intuiciana

It is a topic about using a guard card in the deck. Some people don't do that, I do. And it is only my decision that the High Priestess is such guard (for example you can use the Magician for such mission) But it doesn't mean that if only High Priestess is drawn I should cancell the reading - no. Only if this card is continously fall out when I do the reading - that is acharacteristic sign for me that I shouldn't do that or that I should ask different question ;-) That's all. However it is some kind of protection or pointer

bluelagune

I have not read for anyone evil yet. Well Ive read here for some that difficult to read like screaming over a brick wall but its ok.

However, I have met some nasty people in my life: azzzhls and some that just give you the feeling "something is really wrong inside this person". They seem nice and happy, well loved by all but there is just something off. I dont want to be rude but Im more conserned with how they will effect me in long run since readings are based on a connection and I dont want something to crawl into my life. If I can say that.

Clensing. I really need to start looking at that as I do pick up sandness to a point where it drags my personal experiences up and then I have to be sad or mole over the past hurt. Dont know why this happens but I guess its the bond that get formed over reading.

Also what combinations do you look at that makes you recomend to see a priest/rabi/mula etc?
What your lightbulb moment that sais this reading is just dark?

MaryHeather said:
I think that everyone, not just tarot readers, have had experiences with people with bad juju. There are people out in the world that... have few or no redeeming features as human beings. As to what causes them to be that way, I personally believe that I am not the person to judge why. Do I believe in demons/evil spirits? Yes. Do I have the knowledge to distinguish between someone being an a$$hole and someone being oppressed by a demon? No. That's totally above my pay grade.

Would I read for a person that fell into this category? As long as they were respectful to me, but I would take precautions. I would try to do the reading outside my home, if possible. I would schedule them towards the beginning of the day, when I'm a little more personally strong (for me, reading for strangers, like at fairs, is draining). I would use a separate deck for their reading, and basically quarantine that deck until it could be thoroughly cleansed (think deck inside a box, then that box inside another box with salt). I'd also take several minutes to cleanse/ground out any residual energy before doing a reading for another person, including myself.

So, as you probably guessed, I have done readings for people with extra-crappy energy. The best way for me to approach these types of clients is to remember that I'm just the messenger. I read what the cards tell me. If the cards focus on the negative, I do my best to convey that without judgement, and try not to panic them. I can (and have) recommended that a client talk to their priest/rabbi/clergyman or therapist.

I do believe in demons, psychic parasites, and the like. Again, as a messenger, I would let the cards drive where the reading goes. When someone seeks out a tarot reader, they have a fundamental question or conflict they are looking for insight on. This is where your personal instinct kicks in. If your gut says "don't go there", then don't.

bluelagune

Thank you. My idea of tarot and general fortune telling is very medical. One part of brain picks up info, one supresses it, one interpites what remains. Reading tarot pulls the information from the side that got supressed. I undertand the technical and medical but the more I read by feeling the more now I pay attention to things that do not add up.

Example: A person A meeting a person B who just gives you a juju feeling. Person A goes to a tarot reader and complains that they have a bad feeling about person B. However, the fortune teller is telling you to make friends with them instead and not on a one lever friendship but sais go buy them a coffe, so basically submit. Note these two peeple (B and fortuneteller) dont know each other. Im wondering, if I were the fortuneteller, suggest to accept something that person know is wrong for them or do I rely on the feeling that the energy that make advize this is not good? Do you have a feeling when its all for greater good but something is just fishy?

Grizabella said:
I've only ever refused to read for one person. She was a neighbor of mine and all my alarm bells were going off that I didn't want to do a reading for her and that I needed to distance myself from her. I was raising my two young grand-daughters at the time and that made me even more vigilant about the situation. It had nothing to do with evil spirits. Just my instinct that this was a person who would bring nothing but problems if I read for her or encouraged her in any way.

I don't believe in evil spirits. I do believe that if a person does believe in them, then they're going to see what they're looking for. I believe the Creator of the Universe is much more powerful than any evil spirits (if there are any) and that I have nothing to fear from them. Evil in people I can believe in but even so, I don't see that in most people. I believe in what Maya Angelou said better than I could say it. She said, "We're all doing the best we know how. When we know better, we do better." and that's just how I see other people. The Dalai Lama says he approaches everyone with a spirit of compassion, and that's pretty much the same thing I do, but he does it much better.

bluelagune

I was thinking of getting the XIII tarot but Iwas iffy on the level of good/bad I would read from it.

Ill take a look at the thread. Thank you.

zannamarie said:
Every card has positive and negative aspects to it so there is the potential to read about "negative" with every card of every deck.

There is a reading circle where we only use what many would consider to be "dark" decks (The DDT reading circle). Just because a deck is considered "dark" doesn't mean the reading will be about negative energies. Dark does not equate with negative. Positive and negative are meanings you give to the card.

bluelagune

Thank you. It sounds easy. I remember I had HP show up a few times for a reader but wasnt much paying attention. I will deffinately do from now on.

Intuiciana said:
It is a topic about using a guard card in the deck. Some people don't do that, I do. And it is only my decision that the High Priestess is such guard (for example you can use the Magician for such mission) But it doesn't mean that if only High Priestess is drawn I should cancell the reading - no. Only if this card is continously fall out when I do the reading - that is acharacteristic sign for me that I shouldn't do that or that I should ask different question ;-) That's all. However it is some kind of protection or pointer

MaryHeather

bluelagune said:
Also what combinations do you look at that makes you recomend to see a priest/rabi/mula etc?
What your lightbulb moment that sais this reading is just dark?

In both cases, disproportionate numbers of major arcana versus minor arcana, and their reversals.

Sometimes a spread will gloss over the question the client comes in with, and address something completely different. Hasn't happened often, but it has happened.

bluelagune

MaryHeather said:
In both cases, disproportionate numbers of major arcana versus minor arcana, and their reversals.

Sometimes a spread will gloss over the question the client comes in with, and address something completely different. Hasn't happened often, but it has happened.

First one, thanks. Ill pay attention to this too.

Second one, OMG I so had this happen to me... I was looking at cards and had no clue what to do. Thanks!!!!

Barleywine

I've only ever read for one person who distressed me. After the reading I loaned her my copy of Paul Foster Case's The Tarot - A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages since she seemed really interested. It came back with coffee-cup rings all over the dust cover. I never saw that coming!

Seriously, though, the possibility of psychic attack (or maybe just psychic contamination) by such patently "evil" people has been dealt with in the literature. I still have my copy of Dion Fortune's Psychic Self-Defence that I last read decades ago. Among the methods she describes to forestall such calamities are:

"The meditative method (which) consists of meditation upon abstract qualities, such as peace, harmony, protection and the love of God . . . its value lies in the harmonising effect it has upon the emotional state and its counteracting of harmful auto-suggestions."

". . . the invocative (method) consists in the invocation of external potencies and the employment of formal methods for the focusing of their force."

I seem to recall that Aleister Crowley alluded to the "three-fold law" of psychic retribution in Moonchild, but that's more retaliatory than preventive.

I use a very brief and silent protective invocation I learned from my Spiritualist medium cousin before every reading. I don't try to assess whether any sitter has an especially malign aura about them, I just recite my "spell" and move forward with the reading. In truth, though, I'm less concerned with the risk from chance encounters with tarot querents than I am with the people (usually posing as friends) who latch onto you and suck you dry of whatever support they're in need of - usually psychological, emotional or social; you become their go-to "crutch" and they can be hard to back off since guilt is one of their favorite tactics. Their behavior often isn't even conscious, it's a pathology. I call them "psychic vampires" and I'm always watchful for them.

bluelagune

Vampires ... omg I got like a ton of them. Like fly on honey. I cant seem to get rid of them either. Its like the more I respond the more they get attached.

Do you ever as cards how you can protect yorself from the so called friends. And if you ever taken the advice, how successfull were you at stoping them?

Barleywine said:
I've only ever read for one person who distressed me. After the reading I loaned her my copy of Paul Foster Case's The Tarot - A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages since she seemed really interested. It came back with coffee-cup rings all over the dust cover. I never saw that coming!

Seriously, though, the possibility of psychic attack (or maybe just psychic contamination) by such patently "evil" people has been dealt with in the literature. I still have my copy of Dion Fortune's Psychic Self-Defence that I last read decades ago. Among the methods she describes to forestall such calamities are:

"The meditative method (which) consists of meditation upon abstract qualities, such as peace, harmony, protection and the love of God . . . its value lies in the harmonising effect it has upon the emotional state and its counteracting of harmful auto-suggestions."

". . . the invocative (method) consists in the invocation of external potencies and the employment of formal methods for the focusing of their force."

I seem to recall that Aleister Crowley alluded to the "three-fold law" of psychic retribution in Moonchild, but that's more retaliatory than preventive.

I use a very brief and silent protective invocation I learned from my Spiritualist medium cousin before every reading. I don't try to assess whether any sitter has an especially malign aura about them, I just recite my "spell" and move forward with the reading. In truth, though, I'm less concerned with the risk from chance encounters with tarot querents than I am with the people (usually posing as friends) who latch onto you and suck you dry of whatever support they're in need of - usually psychological, emotional or social; you become their go-to "crutch" and they can be hard to back off since guilt is one of their favorite tactics. Their behavior often isn't even conscious, it's a pathology. I call them "psychic vampires" and I'm always watchful for them.