Struggling with reading style

[intuition897]

I find Tarot hard to explain to people who are curious or skeptical. I usually go the safe route and give them the more scientific explanation: that the cards themselves are just cardboard and it's the querent's subconscious that actually does all the heavy lifting, finding the message in the reading I give. That's why it always seems so accurate. It's not magic, it's psychology. I don't feel that that should really take away from how amazing it is as a tool. It's so complex and versatile, I can't imagine a psychologist not seeing the value in them for digging around in a patient's subconscious.

But that doesn't explain how, out of 78 cards, the same cards will come up three times in a row after shuffling between spreads. Or how, out of 78 cards, the card you were thinking would be ironic to pull is the very one that shows up...along with a handful of other cards that support its meaning. Short of God and His angels reaching down from the clouds to slap you across the head, you can't ask for a much clearer sign than that. It's not coincidence. I've told querents that using Tarot is sort of like praying, except a regular prayer is written with a quill and ink on parchment and sent via snail mail...and you wait for a response. Tarot readings are more like instant messaging. You ask a question, you get an immediate answer...because God's always online.

So I know this stuff. But still I fumble with my readings. I try to take advice from others about how to relate to querents, how to word things or explain them, how to begin and end a session... But it's hard. It doesn't feel natural. And I still find myself ungrounded and off-centre, caving in to the pressure a querent exerts with their expectations. They want the psychic miracle. I can't deliver that, and when I don't, I feel I have somehow failed them.

You know how I would love to read? I would love to read the way a doctor treats a patient. I want the symptoms, I want interaction, I want the feedback. I want to work WITH querents, not for them. This is their problem, not mine. The solutions must be theirs as well. I want to help them untangle their ball of yarn, and I think Tarot is a good tool to use to help with that, but I feel dishonest playing the role of a "fortuneteller".

Does anyone else struggle with this? How can I steer querents away from expecting the magical miracle of mind-reading and get them on board with a more practical, earthy exercise in problem-solving?

[Amanda_04]

I felt and thought many of the things you've just mentioned. Yet, I'm much more comfortable being the fortune-teller. I'm really getting burnt out on empathizing and sympathizing with my sitters, and the psychological mumbo-jumbo tarot seems to be these days is disappointing. It's like... no one wants to be the story-teller that provides entertainment for the kids anymore... there's always a psychological let-down lurking about (in my opinion). Like telling the kids about the story you're going to read and still explaining it more thoroughly on how to understand what's happening with it while you're reading it... you might as well supply them with a pillow and a blanket to take a nap while you do your reading. Because like kids, some people just really don't care about the mechanics of how or why tarot works -or even how or why *they* work for that matter- they want to be entertained. And that is just such a relief sometimes that they don't require all that extra effort from me. I used to waste those efforts on a lot of people who did not care. Now I try to consider what each person needs/wants on an individual basis before I decide how I'm going to approach a reading.

[Grizabella]

Originally Posted by Amanda_04

I felt and thought many of the things you've just mentioned. Yet, I'm much more comfortable being the fortune-teller. I'm really getting burnt out on empathizing and sympathizing with my sitters, and the psychological mumbo-jumbo tarot seems to be these days is disappointing. It's like... no one wants to be the story-teller that provides entertainment for the kids anymore... there's always a psychological let-down lurking about (in my opinion). Like telling the kids about the story you're going to read and still explaining it more thoroughly on how to understand what's happening with it while you're reading it... you might as well supply them with a pillow and a blanket to take a nap while you do your reading. Because like kids, some people just really don't care about the mechanics of how or why tarot works -or even how or why *they* work for that matter- they want to be entertained. And that is just such a relief sometimes that they don't require all that extra effort from me. I used to waste those efforts on a lot of people who did not care. Now I try to consider what each person needs/wants on an individual basis before I decide how I'm going to approach a reading.

Bless you, Amanda!

I'm really glad to see that things are getting turned back around to where old-time Tarot traditions really matter to readers again. I've been noticing that here recently.

I don't try to explain how Tarot works. It just does, that's all. If we knew how it worked, mankind would just find some way to screw it up anyway.

[Carla]

I agree, it's been my experience that sitters don't care how tarot works. Most of them have come to us because they already believe it works. They want answers. One of the difficulties of doing so many readings here at AT is that the 'teaching/learning' style we are expected to use here is not the style that paying customers want. They don't want me to teach them what the Hanged Man means, they just want to know if they'll still have a job by next month and what they can do for themselves in the meantime. Readings go over so much better if I leave out all the 'explanations' of how I arrived at something.

I, too, find myself turning away from the 'life coach' method of reading and have begun to lean more toward the 'fortunetelling' style. Which might go a long way to explaining why Lenormand is of great interest to me lately.

[trzes]

Originally Posted by intuition897

Does anyone else struggle with this? How can I steer querents away from expecting the magical miracle of mind-reading and get them on board with a more practical, earthy exercise in problem-solving?

Good question! This is why I still hesitate to start reading for other people again.

I do (after several discussion here on ATF) feel more and more comfortable leaving the question how tarot works unanswered. I suppose that most sitters, just like the readers have their own belief positions about it, and they won't change it anyway. So I would be quite happy to claim that I didn't know myself. That isn't even a lie, since I don't know anything with certainty, I only have belief positions. I also agree with Amanda_04 (if I understood her right) that it is not the "Meta" discussion but the real stuff that matters.

But the expectations are an issue indeed. People seem to hate uncertainty. They keep asking questions like "will my money really be safe with this investment?" Or: "Is it granted that I get a good return?" Or: "Is it certain that this medicine/treatment will help me?" And they don't like "No", "No" and "No" as answers. That's why the weather forecast has such a bad reputation, I would guess. Here the uncertainty is obvious. But the same holds for tarot: no tarot reading can release the sitters from the hardship of making their own decisions that might always turn out to be wrong. I, personally, will not read for anyone as long as there might be any doubt about this.

And my impression is that (regardless how tarot really works) a stress on divination/fortune telling would be more likely to raise this expection that one could hand over the responsibility for the future to the tarot and/or the reader. And a stress on psychology/intuition along with the common threapist blurb like "I am only moderating, it's you who does the actual work" might be better to keep the sitter involved and responsible for their own life, not relying on some kind of miracle.

I am just thinking. Other opinions?

[intuition897]

I think everyone must go through a kind of evolution in their maturity as readers. I'm still wearing my rose-coloured glasses, hoping to help the world save itself from itself. I struggle with the meaning of life, purpose, existential depression and the like. This leaves me feeling a bit like I'm standing in the middle of a field with no roads, no fences, no signs...nothing. Just big empty fields for as far as the eye can see in any given direction. And it leaves me asking myself (and any entity that cares to listen) what I have to offer, and to what end. How does Tarot fit into that life purpose? How can I utilize it to fulfill what I consider life's best endeavour: to be of service to others? What can I do to help others?

I guess I'm just looking for other opinions about how you all have incorporated Tarot into your lives and how you use it to further your life purpose.

[La Force]

I am not sure how you will take this, please don't take it the wrong way it is not intended that way, okay. This is to help you discover your own personal style that best suits you.

What really helped me figure out what my purpose was with tarot, was to first stop divining my future, and start to live it. Here is a little exercise I did for myself which truly helped me grasp the tarot and myself, in order to make this talent/skill/gift available to help others find and understand their lives. This is very simple, it's almost stupid, but hay it worked, it took me a month to clue in. it may only take you 1 week, your to have NO expectations, and Don't barter/make bargains with the universal spirits or yourself, as in well if you do or help me with I'll do or help, kinda thing,, you get the gist. okay here is the exercise.

2 cards only: daily at night, you will ask the card what was your day like, or what did you need to focus on that was most important in your day. or other

card 1 is your question
Card 2 is your answer

this is instead of your daily 3 card reading for the future daily events. What your doing is backward, you'll be reading about your daily past events, you'll gain more accuracy with the cards and what they really mean to you. That the key, now your living the tarot, so you will find that you'll go about your day more relax and events will happen as they fall, and you will then read about at night. You can personalize card 1 and card 2 to suit your needs.

ETA:
example you could make card 1 Majors and have card 2 minors (splitting the deck Majors only and minors only) or have as complete deck.

[intuition897]

LaForce, that is a fantastic suggestion! I'm not offended at all. What you have suggested is exactly what I am looking for I think. I need to be able to compare and contrast to understand things. When someone says "Fire vs. ice" I would come up with all kinds of observations, but there's no structure. No question. But if they said, "Fire is to ice as hot is to (fill in the blank)"...well now suddenly we have some context. By using the cards to interpret what is already known, by seeing how they react to something about which I already have formed some understanding, I can better understand their "personality" or the vocabulary.

Everyone thinks of asking the cards about their future, but we all think we know our past. We can probably learn so much more from our past than we can trying to catch a glimpse of the future. You can stand at the prow of a boat, trying to lean this way and that to get the boat to go where you want it to go to no avail, but if you stand at the back of your boat, surveying the vessel as a whole, you can see which way the entire boat is pointing. Your past, like your rudder, is always behind you, but it never fails to be the best thing with which to steer your vessel.

I don't do daily readings for myself. I usually only pull cards for something unusual. This is partly because I'm a very inconsistent person, but mostly because I find myself disillusioned with the cards lately. I keep asking of what value they are to me and my life, and am I crazy to believe in them? Did I mention that I'm a pretty skeptical person? I just like to be able to say what I believe with conviction, with both feet planted firmly on the truth.

[tarotbear]

I just read the damn cards.

They shuffle, I spread them out, I read 'em. Does it have to be MORE than that?

I don't have to explain or defend myself or the cards. I am not there to be anyone's doctor, lawyer, or Indian Chief. Whether one flew east, one flew west, and one flew over the cuckoo's nest is what the cards will tell me - if that is what wire, briar, and limber lock asked.

Everything else is an unnecessary complication.

[Tarot kid]

relate it to the internet: loads of people don't know how it works but use it as a very reliable source of information very much like tarot