I had to break these up for my reply, some of them are too good to be lumped together. I realize you're being sarcastic in spots, but I mostly played it straight.
1. The idea that we should choose the cards instead of the querent. "I don't want people getting their stank mojo on my cards." But didn't they get their mojo in your aura? Didn't it get in the air, the chair, the table, the doorknob, the tip jar?
I never understood this. I think it's imperative for the querent to handle the cards as a way to instill "ownership" in the reading and its outcome. This is what smudging and similar "purification" methods are for, if you think it necessary.
2. 6 of Cups in the future position of a romance reading -- "Sorry, it's over because that card means the past." Really? So your future is to be stuck in the past -- um, okay, so what's the special card for the future? What's the card for being stuck in the present?
I'll take Crowley over Waite any day on this one: "well-being, harmony of natural forces without effort or strain, ease, satisfaction." Elsewhere (probably a vestige of his Golden Dawn days), he decribes it as the "commencement" (but not the fulfillment) of "steady increase, gain and pleasure." In other words, everything to do with balanced expression of the Number 6 going forward, and nothing implying the past.
3. Lovers in a romance reading -- "You'll have to make a choice." Um, really? Lovers isn't all the romantic, erotic, sexy things? It's not all those "quiet storm" songs of longing on the radio, it's just a stupid boring choice? So what does the Goddess of Love do all day? Paperwork?
Personally, I've never seen anything particulary "sexy" about this card; it seems way too "calculating" for that. I lean toward the ideas of inspiration, insight, perhaps realization. A decision might be in the offing, but it's not necessarily imminent. Truthfully, though, I can almost hear the man in the TdM version saying "I really want this one here, but I'm probably better off with that one over there." His head is getting in the way of his heart.
4. In Your Readings, sometimes we "mike drop" a negative reading, followed by "Sorry." It seems very presumptuous, like "I nailed it, your future sux, deal with it, haterz." Where's the humility?
Not just the humility, but the compassion. Kicking someone while they're down, I call it.
5. The cards speak on exactly one level, and it's limited to the question. Really? Two things can't go on at the same time? I know we have to focus, but Tarot can't change the topic?
Since I typically don't ask what the question is in advance, I rely on the cards to
find the correct topic at the right level, not just change it when necessary. The querent and I zero in on it during our dialogue.
6. Temperance means balance. OMG, how many balance cards are we going to have?! What happened to alchemy?
I've struggled mightily with Temperance over the years. I've finally come to see it as modulating between Fire (impulse) and Water (reflection): what I've been calling "the fine Art of Right Action (neither too much force nor too little) when a discriminating finesse is called for."
