Who should pick the cards

[Tarot2015]

Hello,

While doing a reading, should the querent shuffle and pick the cards or should this be done completely by the reader.

If the querent is picking the card, then this is similar to a self reading with an expert interpreting the cards.

Do cards just pick the energies of the person picking the card or do they focus on showing the cards that are the factual to the situation.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks

 

[Apollonia]

Hello,

While doing a reading, should the querent shuffle and pick the cards or should this be done completely by the reader.

If the querent is picking the card, then this is similar to a self reading with an expert interpreting the cards.

Do cards just pick the energies of the person picking the card or do they focus on showing the cards that are the factual to the situation.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks

It doesn't matter. The cards that are supposed to come up will come up no matter who picks them. Suit yourself in this--but be consistent in how you do it, both for your own sanity and for returning querents, who tend to like consistency in the framework of how the cards are treated.

I have always shuffled and chosen the cards myself, but this is mostly because I can't stand watching someone who has never held a Tarot deck in their hands clumsily shuffle and then spend an eternity choosing the cards.

Having the querent choose the cards could only resemble a self reading if the cards are all face up, which is difficult for me to imagine as a general practice.

 

[Frater Benedict]

While doing a reading, should the querent shuffle and pick the cards or should this be done completely by the reader.

I agree with Apollonia: Choose one way, and be consistent.

I would, however, add this observation: Some spreads are traditionally expected to be preceeded by the client's shuffling, and some are traditionally expected to be preceeded by the diviner's shuffling. If you check your sources, you will find out which spreads are exclusively connected to one or another certain way of shuffling, and which spreads are neutral in this regard.

 

[Tarot2015]

Thank you Apollonia and Frater Benedict

 

[gregory]

I would also add that if you ever read on line, the choice is not there to be made (except virtually) - and such readings seem to work.

 

[LeFou]

Test it both ways, and see which way works better. Different readers read differently, so your experience may be opposite to others.

 

[IndigoViolet]

It reminded me a certain tarot trial with an ex-friend. Both of us are good Tarot shuffler. We can both do a through shuffle, (not that shuffle always matter), and pick a card or several cards on our own. (not that it matters too).

I was the one who do the shuffle mostly. That deck from memory was mine, and I did the picking in terms of how I would pick a card. I would assume that if energy exists, then that would be more of my energy, and much less on hers. But no matter who owns the tarot cards, I using hers, or she using mine, I see not a single difference no matter I count all of the above factors or not.

I would give an assumption that it was because what so we call "energy" is not what we think it is, needing a touch or.anything like a ritual or special methods to be trasmitted, although I am definitely *Not* denying such methods' integrity. I see it instead, that the mere presence and the interaction between two people is already an energy exchange. So it doesn't even matter at all who and what one did to the cards. If anything else exists, maybe we, say that two people for example, aren't alone...

And for that particular reading, I have not state who will do the reading, and I told her to read only after I picked the cards. At the end, it turned out the way that I was shocked too. I did almost all the pick and shuffle work, but the tarot placement and style was entirely hers instead, without leaving a single trace of my own reading style, and neither my energy mucked her test reading. It was entirely as if she was the only one there reading her own tarot.

 

[Yuri]

...

I would give an assumption that it was because what so we call "energy" is not what we think it is, needing a touch or.anything like a ritual or special methods to be trasmitted, although I am definitely *Not* denying such methods' integrity. ...QUOTE]

I like what you say about energy here

 

[Tarot2015]

Thank you Gregory, Yuri, LeFou and IndigoViolet

 

[SunsetKay]

Imo, as far as questions are concerned, it doesn't matter. The same whatever it is that assures that the "right" cards come up for me when I read for myself is the same whatever that will ensure the "right" cards for someone else's question, whether they touch the deck or not. I don't think personal energy is what ensures the answer. I think that's just whatever it is that makes tarot work to begin with.

I DO however think that personal energy determines how you interact with the energy of the deck as a reader. I've worked with one deck of playing cards for a long time now and the way it responds to me is the way that will make the most sense to ME. I do not like another READER touching my deck with the intent to read it at all. Lol.