An Interesting Story in the East Anglian Daily Times

mystic mal

Isnt it a crying shame that folk are so close minded. Its ok for a born again Christian to shout out his message in the market place or suchlike but Tarot is shunned because people have been brought up to fear it as the devils work or sinister practise. I have had this problem in the past BUT its ok for me to do it in charity work where Im dressed up as Mystic Meg type thing and done as a kind of side show so why not on a stall selling relevant things? I expect they read their horoscope in the newspapers but fear what Joe Bloggs would say if they were seen having a reading.Tarot to me makes more sense than any religion.
 

gregory

Actually - while it is a bit daft about the proselytising thing - what they say in their stated policy is that on the market you only get to sell physical items you can carry away with you; if that is their policy and no-one else sells anything "non-portable", if you like, that is a different issue and fair enough.
 

Major Tom

gregory said:
what they say in their stated policy is that on the market you only get to sell physical items you can carry away with you
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There's nothing in the market regulations which are also available on the towns website about only being able to sell goods rather than services. It wasn't a stated policy until I applied for a market stall. There have been garden designers on the market. ;)
 

Nocturnal Lure

"Spiritual service"

I was interested in the term "spiritual service" because that term might be key here.

While Major Tom doesn't view his readings as such, some people do see it like that. Some people for instance, view Reiki as something purely practical or even scientific, while there are others that give it a more "other wordly" vallue... such is also the case with Tarot. Now it isn't about how the practisioner feels about it, but how the client, potential client or event orginisation feels about it. In this case the one responsible is the mayor, he feels that Tarot has something to do with spirituallity and wether you agree with that or not is not important.

There are many people who believe Tarot is more than just cardboard and pseudo psychology and if that is what you believe, then the next step would be admitting the "use" or in any case the excistence of external energies. Admitting to the excistense of those energies, wether spirits, angels or demons contradicts some excisting Religions. So, in black and white terms... the Tarot reader indicates there might be something other than God influencing our world, while there will be people visiting the market that believe God is the only power that influences the world. Thus, reading Tarot cards can be viewed as proselytising, in a same way for instance as a spiritual healing, a Scientology character profile or a medium channeling your grandmother.

If belief A is right, and belief B says A can't be (completely) true, then B is Proselytising...

Still any idiot can sell bibles and talk about them in a stall, which in this case should also be exclude from the market... as would anything that has to do with religion or spirituallity however remotely related like...

Budha statues, bibles, books containing any form of personal believes, jewelry containing any other imagery then the complete abstract, DVD's and CD's which might influence any view on religion, meat (pork is not allowed by Judaïsm and Islam, while cows are considered holy by Hindu), items that are red in colour, items that aren't red in colour...

You might be proselytising; Satanists, Wiccans, Asatruar, Sufi, Sikh, Jews, Scientologists, Jehova's whitnesses, Amish or even Jedi.

Catch my drift? Everything in a market can in some way be connected to faith, if it can be connected to one religion it automatically says another religion might be wrong... proselytising everywhere....
 

gregory

Even bibles are portable. :D

If the regulations for the market says you can only sell items that can actually be popped in your bag, those nasty aluminium Roman Catholic Virgin charms (I used to collect them in my brief religious phase) would presumably be OK, perhaps even eyes of newt and toes of frog etc., but - say - you could sell aspirins, but not a conventional medical consultation.
 

Debra

I wish you luck with this. When I was briefly living in that neck of the woods I wasn't overwhelmed by the common sense of the locals. On the other hand, a stall between a bookshop and a curry place sounds terrific--perhaps better than being next to the rutabagas and cabbages, eh?
 

Alta

Sell them a mint with every reading. The mint costs XX pounds and the reading is free.
 

Sulis

Marion said:
Sell them a mint with every reading. The mint costs XX pounds and the reading is free.
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What an excellent idea :)
Or you could sell them a recording of the Tarot reading })

Good luck with it Tom. I'm shocked at the narrow-mindedness, I'm also shocked that they've decided to label your readings as 'a spiritual service'.
 

gregory

Marion said:
Sell them a mint with every reading. The mint costs XX pounds and the reading is free.
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Good idea -that would likely work actually,. Our choir concerts have wine - BUT you can't sell it over here without a licence - so we hire out wine glasses and then you get to add the wine.... (Or we include it in the ticket prices !)
 
Missing Card Tarot readers and Psychics