6-Week Wonders

ResilientWench

We have a phenomenon in the dance world called "6-Week Wonders", where someone who has taken dance for 1 session (often 6 weeks) starts giving dance classes and calls him/herself a "teacher". This, to the chagrin of many instructors who have studied years before evening considering teaching or performing.

I understand that reading is a highly intuitive practice and some may possess a high level of comprehension of the cards that may enable him or her to give readings relatively early on in their experiences with the cards, and charge for it. Just as there are some exceptionally gifted dancers who can start teaching and performing after a very short amount of time, compared to others.

I wondered if there was such a thing in the world of professional* tarot readers and your attitudes toward this?

(*Charging for readings.)

Thanks for your thoughts!
 

Mojo Twin 2

Interesting question

I've been doing tarot for a long time (Thoth), but more geared towards esoteric study rather than reading. It's just in the last few years that I've turned to RWS clones and started actually reading.

I do readings for friends but I don't charge. I just do them for practice. Perhaps it's my humility or perhaps my insecurity, but I just can't imagine me charging for a Tarot reading. I hope someday (soon) to have the confidence to actually ask for a couple of skins in exchange for reading. Guess I just need to put a prayer on wings and see what happens.
 

nisaba

ResilientWench said:
I wondered if there was such a thing in the world of professional* tarot readers and your attitudes toward this?
Such a thing as ... ?

The six week wonder? Yes. Regrettably, you occasionally even see them here, people who suddenly surface, only want to talk to "professionals" and not to everyone, who generally have fairly rigid ideas about card meanings (it takes years to learn flexibility-with-accuracy!), sometimes have a spread they've designed themselves or a different take on pip cards or something, and think they're so brilliant they can't understand why us crusty old hands won't immediately dump all our bad habits to use their new brilliant system.

Or a system of damage-control? Not really, this is where it gets problematic. We have associations, societies and guilds (I'm a member of the Tarot Guild of Australia) and some of us (me for one) have laminated Codes of Ethics that we display at all times when we're reading, but unlike other vocational areas, in Australia at least, the Vocational Education System does not recognise Tarot as an accredited course, so there are not standards of education, no key competencies, no essential components of assessment, no practical or theoretical requirements, no assessment process. Literally a person can buy their first deck on a Monday and charge as much money as they like to do a reading on that Tuesday.

This is PRECISELY why I'm studying within the Vocational Education and Training system: I fully intend to work as a trainer and assessor, develop the professional contacts - then lobby for some kind of training and assessment to be mandatory before people can read for money. This does NOT mean they have to memorise rote-meanings, and it does NOT mean that people like me who have been reading forever in a way that maybe isn't outlined in a recognised published book will suddenly find themselves barred: there will, as in the other occupations, be an RPL and RCC pathway to assessment (recognition of Prior Learning/Recognition of Current Competencies) All the stakeholders will have a say in organising the training package (what materials should be taught and assessed, what abilities need to be demonstrated to what level), and stakeholders will include professional bodies, "industry" and actual practitioners.

Nobody panic. This is going to take decades. But it's about bloody time there were some basic, perhaps even very basic standards for professionals.
 

ResilientWench

Interesting, Nisaba.

The same exists in the dance world in which I am heavily involved: a lack of standardization and accreditation which may indicate some level of competency. Similarly, there are schools and certification programs, some better than others, some which turn out better artists than others.

I think most people have the best intentions of maintaining integrity and credibility in this (and any other) field but the 6-Week Wonders kind of wreck that for those who do work hard.

I am at a very beginning stage of my tarot education and have no intentions of hanging up a shingle tomorrow (nor in the foreseeable future) and wanted to hear from more experienced readers about this. I am happy and willing to admit my many inadequacies and lack of knowledge here. ;0)
 

nisaba

Look - I'm quite happy for you to hang up a shingle tomorrow (even today) if you are one of those people for whom it just flows naturally from day one. But I *would* like you to do a series of readings for a panel of knowledgeable assessors over time to see whether your first one wasn't a lucky fluke. I'm a great believer in RPL and RCC - I *do* like standards. In all industries.

I was a bit shocked

a) When I first rocked up to a new age shop that I ended up having a decade-long association with, and they let me start doing readings there without even asking me to do one for them, and

b)when I went in on my day off to find a reader I'd never seen before sitting in "my" corner. I went to introduce myself between clients: she had a mint-condition Rider-Waite deck on the table, and was reading, apparently for the first time, the LWB. And if anybody had asked for a reading, they would have been charged full price. <sigh>
 

HearthCricket

I know exactly what you are saying and I am rather fed up with someone who recently did this. She never owned or looked at a tarot deck until two months ago. She finally decided to buy one and because she is friends with a local store owner, she was hired to do tarot readings. So, why does this make me angry?

1. She still knows nothing about tarot and makes up her own meanings, entirely. I am still a firm believer in following a traditional system to some extent and then tapping into your intuition for a reading. But this takes time and a lot of practice. It doesn't happen overnight.

2. This makes other tarot readers look bad, because customers are already complaining about her readings and that she "runs out of things to say" or blanks out during a reading. Hopefully this will urge the owner to take her off future schedules, at least until she has some background and knowledge on tarot. They did just have a fair and though she was available for readings, no one went to her.

3. She is taking up time that better readers were depending on having to take their cliental and now they can only read once or twice in a period of 2-3 months because too many people are vying for the 1 night the store is open.

I have been reading tarot for 34 years. The first several years don't count, IMO, because I was just a young teen. I started professionally at 18 and even at that point, kept it limited. I am taking more customers now, but don't plan to really jump in with both feet, fully, for a few more years, in which I plan to do extensive studying in both tarot and other methods of divination. Like anything else in life, if you are going to be good at it, it takes time, practice and patience. Even a singer with a beautiful voice has to train that voice so their vocal chords are not hurt in performance. Even the most poised ballerina has to work up to pointe and must audition for a spot.
 

nisaba

Yeah ... this is a problem. I agree with the bulk of what you said.
 

Baroli

OOOOKkkkk, I was gonna post earlier, but held back. I am glad I did. I started when I was 16, I was inspired by watching an Actress portraying a Gypsy on an afternoon soap opera. I thought that was the coolest damn thing I had ever seen. Sooooooo, I bought 2 decks 1 Swiss I whatever and a RWS. Threw the Swiss to the dogs and concentrated on the RWS. Had I think Mark Eden which to me was an overgrown LWB and tried,........really tried to memorize traditional archetypal meanings. No dice!! made on sense to me. And I tried for 2 years!! Sooooo, I started making up meanings. I just looked at the cards, and basically told stories. You know what?? It worked! From 1 cards pulls to 3 cards to make a past-present-future story, to 5 cards,.....you get the idea.

Fast forward to age 18. Sitting in a student union, with my deck just shuffling and staring people I knew down. I would pull cards and tell stories with them. They were stories about their lives and then we would talk about the stories. Not about OOOh you're so good!! But what can you to make this situation better or whatever the case may be. We usually came up with solutions.

No, I didn't have any formal Tarot training, didn't study a book. Just made the stories up using as a muse the deck of Tarot. Been doing that since well since age 18 and I am almost 56.

You see, it is all about intent. You can't take aim on how a person learns. I personally like to see the newly professional. I don't know, maybe it's the teacher in me. They can learn while they earn. Afterall, if the sitter isn't satisfied they don't have to pay do they.

PS. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, my readings then as they do now resonate with the people who sit down in front of me and ask, "I need to know something,.........."
 

Gypsyspell

Hi, It seems every type of work imaginable has become an easily accessible profession these days. I have trained in a disability field and sometimes i also think the education system itself is at fault as you can be following very set teaching criteria and the one best able to reguritate information is who successfully passes courses.- Now life is not so rigid and experiences vary considerably. I value far more the life experience than the qualification!
When i see a reader i always ask how long they have been reading for.
 

HearthCricket

Baroli said:
OOOOKkkkk, I was gonna post earlier, but held back. I am glad I did. I started when I was 16, I was inspired by watching an Actress portraying a Gypsy on an afternoon soap opera. I thought that was the coolest damn thing I had ever seen. Sooooooo, I bought 2 decks 1 Swiss I whatever and a RWS. Threw the Swiss to the dogs and concentrated on the RWS. Had I think Mark Eden which to me was an overgrown LWB and tried,........really tried to memorize traditional archetypal meanings. No dice!! made on sense to me. And I tried for 2 years!! Sooooo, I started making up meanings. I just looked at the cards, and basically told stories. You know what?? It worked! From 1 cards pulls to 3 cards to make a past-present-future story, to 5 cards,.....you get the idea.

Fast forward to age 18. Sitting in a student union, with my deck just shuffling and staring people I knew down. I would pull cards and tell stories with them. They were stories about their lives and then we would talk about the stories. Not about OOOh you're so good!! But what can you to make this situation better or whatever the case may be. We usually came up with solutions.

No, I didn't have any formal Tarot training, didn't study a book. Just made the stories up using as a muse the deck of Tarot. Been doing that since well since age 18 and I am almost 56.

You see, it is all about intent. You can't take aim on how a person learns. I personally like to see the newly professional. I don't know, maybe it's the teacher in me. They can learn while they earn. Afterall, if the sitter isn't satisfied they don't have to pay do they.

PS. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, my readings then as they do now resonate with the people who sit down in front of me and ask, "I need to know something,.........."

Ah, but you still went through a process. You still spent two years of reading and trying to learn it in a traditional way. You learned gradually what a spread is, how to tap into your intuition, and obviously you have a gift to add a lot of psychology to your readings. You didn't jump in and start reading professionally, at a New Age store, 6 weeks after you picked up your first tarot deck! As for the payment, yes, at this store you pay before you get your reading and cannot get a refund, so the customers are NOT happy. Therefore, inexperience and lack of knowledge affects all involved; reader, customer, owner of store and the other readers who do have good reputations as excellent readers with experience and talent under their belts. Every reader has to start somewhere, when it comes to reading for someone else, but be careful at what cost to others!