Worst tarot advice received?

It wasn't advice or anything, but one of the local lads who pops over from time to time had a go at me about my cards, saying that his mother had informed him that anybody who uses tarot cards is consorting with the devil, and that they are inviting evil spirits into their life to use against others...

I pointed out that it's a pile of cards with pretty pictures on (it was the Llewellyn deck), and that if what she's saying has any truth, it'll be because the person WANTS to do that, rather than the cards are causing it, which is what he was convinced about. He went quiet and prodded them a couple of times when he thought nobody was looking.

I never paid any attention to it, but "throw away all the books"

When I'm interested in a subject I like to read everything I can lay my hands on about a subject. Then take what I want and leave the rest.

That using tarot was opening a portal to the Devil. Given me by the guy installing my computer.

Alta said:

That using tarot was opening a portal to the Devil. Given me by the guy installing my computer.

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I remember that one Alta!

"Throw away all the books."

That sooooooo made me feel inadequate that I couldn't somehow intuit everything from the pictures without any guidance whatsoever. Thank goodness for Mary Greer and Barnes and Noble's web-facilitated Joan Bunning course, I say.

greatdane said:

What's the single worst bit of advice you've ever received regarding reading tarot or oracles? Did you know instantly it was bad advice or realize it after it didn't work?

GD

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I can't think of anything as a reader, but I *do* remember some *spectacularly* bad advice as a client! I'm a lesbian, and do the stereotyped short-hair-no-makeup-androgynous-clothes thing (after all, it pays to advertise!). A reader, a bit surprised that I wasn't wearing a wedding-ring in my forties, told me that the cards said there was a perfect man out there for me somewhere, I just had to make an effort to get out more to meet him.

(I was in a comfortable relationship with a woman at the time).

What great posts, thanks!

Love reading these. Hard to beat Gregory's and Nisaba's worst cases!

I hope you all keep posting, because these are brilliant.

GD

I agree, 'throw away all the books' is the worst advice I ever got. It's like telling someone who wants to learn how to improv jazz trumpet to just buy a trumpet and book a gig for the same night. No need to learn how to play the thing, or know anything about music at all. Hmph.

jackdaw* said:

Oh Lord, almost all of it.

The silk and wood, the never letting someone else touch your cards, the never buy one for yourself, the centring, grounding, cleansing, smudging ... all that old foolishness. I have been told it all at different points and I disregard it all.

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Honestly, I agree with this completely. Really any sort of thing that you "need" to do in order to read the cards is something I find as lame and unnecessary.

I do believe that relativism is sometimes taken to an unhealthy and nonconstructive level within the tarot community but at the same time, as long as one knows how to understand their own psyche, how is there a "right way"?

Toss or burn the LWB. Disregard maybe, but why throw it away when it might come in handy one day....you just never know!