When I asked Paul to write an article for my Tarot blog, I had no idea what he would furnish me with. He had asked if I had a premise for him, but keeping true to the ethos of the Tarot Elements’ Contributors section, I granted him a free reign – he could write what ever he wanted.
What Paul delivered is a thought provoking comparison to healing and Tarot readings. Called Why Tarot Is Not A Magic Bullet, he explores the client’s need in wanting an instant fix to their problems, and how by delivering that, we are actually removing the client’s ability to solve their problems through self-examination and choice.
Of course responsibility for their lives must rest with the client, but where do we draw the line as interpreters of their Tarot readings, their circumstances and messengers of their potential outcomes?
This causes me to ponder the validity of predictive Tarot readings, not from the perspective of my belief in my ability to interpret a reading, or the message from within the Tarot cards themselves, but from the perspective of doing the right thing by the client. In light of that thought then, is it ethical to perform a predictive style Tarot reading like the Celtic Cross spread? Are we hindering the client by stating that the card in the outcome position is what’s going to happen?
Are we hindering the client by stating that the card in the outcome position is what’s going to happen?
This surely brings in another debate about Tarot spreads. Paul states that his spread of choice is the Opening of the Key as it provides multiple options as opposed to a definitive outcome. I have to agree with him, it is unparalleled in its ability to show the client’s situation and what choices they actually do have – something that any other spread simply cannot compete with, including the Celtic Cross spread. While I still believe that the Celtic Cross is a useful spread, and I’m keen to promote it, if it’s read to its full potential; it’s still important to recognise its limitations in comparison to the Opening of the Key Spread.
Why Tarot Is Not A Magic Bullet looks at the need to lift those limitations from all sides. It also looks from the Tarot readers perspective, how the learning of our craft is a continuous process. Paul demonstrates from personal experience how his clients have inadvertently assisted him in this process and shows in another comparison, how mentoring further enriched his own learning experience. The journey it would seem, is never ending.
Catherine
When Catherine contacted me and asked for guidance, little did we know that we would spend many months working on the same tarot reading, discovering new levels and dimensions that took us both into new insights and ideas on tarot and life. It was hard work for both of us, and we both changed and grew in ways we would have never predicted. From acorns do great oaks grow. Like so many tarot students, Catherine lacked confidence in her abilities, but she had the tenacity, drive and sense of purpose, and desire to change her situation. Her question was about relationships, but as we worked on the tarot reading, she would find answers for herself about her situation, the origins of her situation, and how she could change the situation. Early on I realised that she would be an excellent professional tarot reader, a notion that Catherine resisted for a long time. Mentoring is not about teaching. Catherine wanted me to teach her the tarot, but I realised she already had sufficient knowledge, and that what was required was direction and understanding, and someone to bounce ideas off. We had a few tears and a lot of laughs. Catherine had to do the work herself (not fair!), and she continues to work hard. One result is this website. The process was not one way, Catherine taught me so much as she cajoled and pushed my own boundaries, seeing that I too needed to grow and develop. A recent development of this Faustian Pact between us was Catherine’s request for an article. This is it.
My Experiences Mentoring Catherine
Why Tarot is Not a Magic Bullet
Western medicine is constantly searching for the magic bullet that will cure cancer, the common cold, heart disease, and all those other ailments that plague society. In many respects tarot readers are not much different, searching for the tarot deck, or tarot spread, or divinatory meanings that will create the perfect tarot reading. The tarot industry that creates new tarot decks and books is remarkably effective in feeding this fundamental need. However, despite this effort, tarot students remain desperately searching for solutions, and they often lack confidence in their own skills.
Western medicine works by isolating the symptoms of the illness, and then applying narrow solutions specifically directed towards that illness. The pharmaceutical industry isolates the active compounds in plants and synthesizes them into drugs, ignoring all the other apparently inert compounds in the plants that are there to balance the side effects. These approaches naturally ignore the rest of the mind/body/spirit complex and all the other innumerable levels such as the endocrine system, pollution, environment, behaviour, etc, etc.
The truth is that healers do not heal; neither do doctors. It is the patient that heals himself.
Paradoxically, western medicine has discovered that most powerful healing mechanism, the placebo effect, which it uses to measure the effects of medicine. Tarot readers do something similar. The e-lists are awash with tarot spreads cobbled together by students designed to solve a particular problem or situation in the client’s life, effectively ignoring everything else about them. By only focussing on the problem or issue, interpreting the tarot spread can also create unwanted side effects.
Who Does the Healing?
The truth is that healers do not heal; neither do doctors. It is the patient that heals himself. What healers and doctors can do is facilitate the natural healing processes within the body/mind of the patient. Tarot does not see in the future, but what it does do is help the client see what is going on in and around him, and how he can change, transform, work with or around these situations, thereby creating a better future (how better the future might be is of course a value judgment made by the reader).
The Origins of Fortune Telling
We all know that marching into the doctor’s surgery and demanding pills not only does not cure the illness, but will in fact mask the problem and probably contribute to greater illness down the road. Popping pills does not work, and neither do tarot readings. To understand why, we need to look at the history of fortune telling, which goes back thousands of years, but fortunately for our purposes we only need go back about one hundred and fifty years to Victorian times when society was static. The Victorians were class ridden and stratified, despite the growth of railways, most people stayed where they were, married, had many children to counteract the high child mortality rates, and die early. It was extremely difficult to change one’s social status, except perhaps to go downwards. The main questions for fortune tellers in those times revolved around: Who am I going to marry? How many children will I have? When will I die?
Fatalism Versus Free Will
My greatest teachers have always been the people who walk in off the street wanting answers.
This fatalistic approach continued well into the twentieth century and it seems that many tarot readers rely on this approach. Tarot spreads often have a position for the past, present and future, the arrow of time that is inexorable and unchanging. The problem is that it is static, unchanging, and denies free will and choice. I dread a client walking in and demanding such a reading, to the point that unless I can change their point of view, so that they can see they have a choice and can change their life, I would rather not do a reading for them. So, unless you prefer your clients to sit across the table, stony faced, implacable, arms folded, saying nothing until you have completed your reading, please read on.
When I first started reading the tarot, I was continually frustrated by the fact that just about every person that came for a reading was clueless as to their situation regarding relationships, work, and direction in life; consequently they were unable to see their future. Other tarot readers I spoke to seemed to find the clients who had certainties, and so they could easily make predictions. I spent a long time wondering what was wrong with me as a result. Of course, there was nothing wrong, people spend their lives in a state of indecision and uncertainty, and it is the job of the fortune teller to provide that direction and certainty. The easy way is of course to do the tarot equivalent of pill popping, giving prescriptive solutions, and easy answers, Fate would work Its magic.
Finding Other Solutions
Finding a way through the confusions, doubts, fears, and all the other experiences will no doubt take a life-time, but exploring the psyche, and multiple levels of the human condition, and how these levels influence behaviour and actions, and how behaviour and actions in turn influence these levels will continue to be a fascinating journey. The solutions I have found came as a result of a lot of hard work and study of a lot of other disciplines not associated with the tarot. Of course there is the spiritual side, looking at systems such as the Kabbalah, paganism, magic, philosophy, psychology, neuro-linguistic programming, spiritual healing, the list is endless.
By now you must be thinking that solutions are hard to come by, but what actually happened is that the tarot readings themselves were the teacher! Earnestly studying the tarot, the spreads, the divinatory meanings of the cards, the astrological and elemental attributions are important, but they are only part of the process. In itself, tarot teaches us nothing. What is most important in a tarot reading is not the tarot deck, or the spread, or the divinatory meanings, but the client sitting across the table. My greatest teachers have always been the people who walk in off the street wanting answers. The vast majority of those teachers are anonymous, I do not know their names, and they have no idea that they were teaching me, but however well or badly the readings went (and many were pretty awful), I would continuously learn.
The insights I learned in one reading I found I could apply in subsequent readings, which sound good except that the entire process is iterative. Just as I was learning to deal with a particular situation, I would come across other situations that would defy my attempts until I learnt something else. Tarot readings are hard work! The tarot has never allowed me to rest on my laurels. As soon as I made a breakthrough on a particular situation, I would never see that situation again, and in its stead would be another knot that could take months to untangle.
In my experience the process of a tarot reading is iterative, going from the Known deeper into the Unknowns.
Having said that tarot decks and divinatory meanings are not that important, I did of course have to make some choices, and for me the only deck I use is the Book of Thoth, and my spread of choice is the Opening of the Key spread. The colours and design of each card in the Thoth deck is unique, so that I never had to spend time trying to work out which card is which, while the powerful techniques of card counting, pairing and elemental dignities enable me to access the multiple levels of being within us all. In therapeutic terms, multiple outcomes rather than one, are vital to the healing process, which is why the Opening of the Key Spread is so important as all 78 cards have a value and function in the reading, so that I can show the client several different futures, from which he can make a choice.
Going from the Known to the Unknown
In my experience the process of a tarot reading is iterative, going from the Known deeper into the Unknowns. As this process unfolds, the Unknowns become Knowns, allowing for greater understanding and insights. For this to work, the client cannot sit there, arms folded in the static situation. He has to be part of the process; there has to be a dialogue. It is fascinating and hugely satisfying and rewarding when I see the client suddenly make leaps forward in understanding not only about himself, but his situation, how he got into the situation, and how he can change the situation. There is a surge of energy and intensity that takes the reading to a new level, from which grows composure and confidence, and optimism and empowerment. The body language changes, the posture and the client opens and becomes involved. In this new state of course, whatever the future was when he came in is now irrelevant, so to finish off, we will shuffle the cards again and see how the situation now looks and what potential futures are now available.
There are no magic bullets, but the magic will happen in the process of the tarot dialogue (it is no longer a reading), for those cards that were hidden will now come forward to reveal those hidden aspects that contribute to the total picture. A particularly satisfying aspect to this approach to tarot is that when clients return the progress they have made in their own life is obvious to see. Consequently the next tarot reading builds upon the foundations created by the previous reading, creating new challenges, insights and new futures.
Mentoring Catherine was done almost entirely through emails and instant messaging, we only met once, at a point where a lot of the work had already been done. Consequently I could not see the physical changes I describe above, but the changes were clear to see in her writings and opinions. I trust you too will see those changes.
Paul Hughes-Barlow is a professional tarot reader, author, healer, mentor and creator of the famous Supertarot website, where he brought Elemental Dignities and the Opening of the Key Spread to a wider Tarot reading audience.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
This is an excellent and thought-provoking post, in both your introduction and Paul’s essay. I’m hesitant to throw my off-the-cuff comments out here, because they become trapped in written form, without the benefit of having time to germinate in my mind and grow through active dialog. Which, come to think of it, is an analogy for the kind of reading style that is described above.
I think the Celtic Cross and Opening of the Key serve two different kinds of readers. Not everyone has the mindset and interest in learning something like Opening of the Key, along with the attributions (and what many consider Golden Dawn baggage) it requires. While the OOTK certainly has more potential in providing options, especially with the way that Paul has refined it, I have no doubt a competent reader can get an amazing amount of detail from the ten cards of the Celtic Cross. It all comes down to reading style and experience.
I’m not a big spread kind o’ guy. I know some people collect spreads the way others collect decks — as Paul indicates when referring to the tarot industry — and many people love building custom spreads where each card can have a given, set positional meaning. Most of my reading has been with the Celtic Cross, a line of three or four cards, or the OOTK.
I feel that my reading has become more predictive over time, but I don’t think that makes me a worse reader. (I hope not!) I’ve always been driven by the desire to learn and to know things. I suppose it’s natural that desire translates to my approach to cards.
Thinking about it, maybe predictive isn’t always the right word. For example, I’ve been reading lately (using Lenormand not tarot) to determine information about homes that I’m visiting, as I look to buy one. Mainly it’s been good practice in reading cards, but certainly I like the idea of getting information to keep my eyes open. For example, if a reading suggests a home may have air circulation issues, I am starting to pay better attention to the furnace and the basement (excess moisture) on my initial look. This differs from examining someone’s life situation and looking for behavior patterns, for example.
Even then I’m not trying to limit someone’s choices. For example, I recently gave someone feedback on a reading she’d done about her marriage. I went through each card (it was a positional spread) and how I would interpret it in context. I presented my thoughts on what the cards suggested about her relationship, but looking back I did it in a way that was respectful of her situation (which I knew nothing about) and made clear that she had strengths or weaknesses to check for, and actions she could take.
One way I like to think of my readings is being a cartomantic detective: I’m researching a situation, exploring it, looking for clues to answer a question. I’m not trying to dodge the predictive label: sometimes that overlaps what people would consider prediction, and sometimes it does not. Even for predictive readings, I suppose I do my best to present things as positively as possible and in a way that presents options of notes choices; or things a person can avoid.
I hope I’m explaining that well enough. As I said, this is a bit off-the-cuff.
Thanks for making me think about all this. Really!
Hi Jason,
Wow! Thanks for the comment, it’s awesome
I agree! The Opening of the Key is an amazing spread, but it can look and feel formidable at first with so many cards on the table. Once that is overcome though, the Opening of the Key can provide incredible insights into yours or your client’s situation.
We can’t forget the Celtic Cross though, stalwart of Tarot! And neither should we, it has it’s place; for newbie or seasoned professional. As you said, a lot can be gained from ten cards, it depends on the reader and I agree that confidence plays a huge part in how we interpret any spread.
I believe this is a natural progression. It’s the culmination of growing knowledge, confidence and intuition. Going with the flow is also a natural progression, trusting that what you have just intuited is correct, even if you have no idea why you said it or where it came from! When this begins to happen, the key is to let it continue – predictive or not, you’re on the right track!
Cool way to choose a house! I have been asked where client’s will buy a house; or they have asked for guidance in location, and while I’m not a psychic, I believe the cards can be very helpful in assisting with this kind of choice. Once you have found a property or location, then I believe Tarot comes into it’s own. For specifics, Tarot can’t be beaten, not in my opinion.
As for choices with clients, and in your example above, pointing out the choices is the best way to go, so well done
We all have choices, even when a reading is or has become predictive; we can still make a decision that will change the course of the prediction. This is also an area where I feel that Tarot reading wins over psychic readings – choices have been removed and a fatalistic, final outcome has been stated. Of course the problem with that scenario is the chance the client will unconsciously take steps to make that reading true, it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a dangerous practice with a client without the state of mind to decide they want a different outcome; and the reason I feel a lot of Tarot readers say they don’t or won’t do predictive readings, they want the client to have the choice.
What a wonderful description Jason! You should use that as a tag line on your own Tarot blog, or after your name
It’s a fitting description for what we do though and I’m awfully glad you said it. Empowering a client, or friend, I believe, is part and parcel of the job. It’s not always easy though, and not always welcome, but necessary all the same. I believe you’re doing everything right already Jason.
And you did explain yourself – perfectly. Glad you enjoyed the post – thinking about things in depth is always a great idea, and a compliment I graciously accept
Thanks for stopping by again, I look forward to engaging with you again very soon.
Warm wishes,
Catherine
There is considerable scope for narrowing the gap between the Celtic Cross and the Opening of the Key Spread, and what is more, there are many more layers of interpretation and insight to be found in the Celtic Cross spread than people realise.
I hope to demonstrate that with Catherine very soon…
Tarot detective work is good, and in my experience we can go on to the next level – forensics.
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your comment.
Your detective work comment is intriguing.
Would you care to elaborate?
What is your experience with Tarot and forensics?
I’d love to hear more
Warm wishes,
Catherine
When the cards are fanned out, I ’scan’ them for subtle impressions generated by the sequence of cards as they relate to the client. Very often these impressions do not make a lot of sense, but I still have to articulate something to the client. That is the detective work.
The forensics kick in when there is a dialogue between me and the client as we explore deeper levels of the current situation, how it might relate to previous experiences in the life of the client (who may not necessarily remember what they are), or find hidden ‘trigger’ points that are keys to what is going on, and by knowing the keys, transformations occur. It is a magical thing when this happens, and there is a realisation, a change of awareness, and insight that is empowering for me and the client, which then feeds back into the original situation, and then the cards can be read at deeper and deeper levels. It is kind of like biofeedback.