A Certain Mature Age To Read At?

Although I stand by what I said in my earlier post, to fair and completely honest, I feel I should make the distinction between practicing Tarot for one's own benefit, and actually reading for others. A young reader may be as good, or better, than any experienced one, but I would be lying if I said the twenty years that have passed since I began have not made my readings better for reasons unrelated to Tarot.

Life experience does matter when giving advice of any kind, and when I began, when I was 13, I really didn't have any "wisdom" to impart, life experience to draw from, or the empathy that comes from going through... well, life. This isn't to say that young people shouldn't learn, but that I think that what your friend said about life experiences is true. Not to disparage, of course, the posters who are reading at a young age.

I think I agree about the life experience issue. That can come at a price too though. I would be very wary of giving any advice - unless I knew very clearly what the desired outcome of the sitter was because it is all too easy (and we are unconscious of it) of putting our own spin on things - especially about relationships . So if I know that A wants to stay with B whatever the situation, I will advise accordingly otherwise won't advise at all, just read the cards straight.

Oh, of course, I didn't mean that we were the ones giving the advice, I'm sorry if I didn't explain myself properly.

I'm bad with money, for example, so I try not to do money readings, since my understanding of the topic is flawed. I can't muster empathy about it not because I don't want to, but because I don't have the proper tools. When I started out, I had even less of them, that's what I meant. We may not have experience with every single topic covered in readings, but we do gain that special empathy for reading with time and experience.

Another example, I may not have had my heart broken in exactly the same way as my (hypothetical) querent did, but I know more about general broken hearts than I did when I was much younger.