If you do it a lot, how do you answer clients who ask serious questions like “Should I marry him?” or “Do I invest heavily in it?”
“The cards indicate that you should search your heart and go from there. The cards further indicate that you can make a smart play in the markets, if you speak with the right guy.”
“Who is the right guy?”
“The cards don’t tell me that.”
It’s knowing when to say “the cards don’t tell me that,” and the rest of the time, saying things that people don’t necessarily want to hear, but that they need to hear. “Everybody is pressuring you to marry John Smith, but you’re unsure? Look in your heart; this, this and this cards say it may not be a good idea. But this card is encouraging because [reasons], and this one too. Best I can say is to follow your heart, and to do what you yourself decide is best, not anybody else.” Being unsure about marriage was, according to my ex, a red flag; and no matter what the cards said, my ex would always come up with some creative way to interpret the cards that basically boiled down to, “Is this choice really what you want, or what others want for you? Who’s in charge of your life, you or somebody else?” She was more tactful, but you get the idea.
I thought they were pretty cool and got a set when I was young (and wanted to believe). I did friends and family readings for fun but grew to realize the info I gave was so vague it could apply to anyone or anything, people saw the meaning where they wanted and I stopped. I finally understood the why people would pay so much to scam artists for readings.
A few years ago I was listening to a guy discuss tarot cards. He said when he was in university he read tarot cards to make beer money and he 100% believed in them. He said people’s jaws would drop at how accurate he was and they’d walk out of a session thanking him profusely.
His roommate was a skeptic and said it was all bullshit and he was ripping off vulnerable people. They agreed to do tests where the reader would tell the people the* exact opposite* of what the cards said and see what happened.
You guessed it, every person’s jaw dropped and they were blown away by how accurate he was and thanked him profusely on the way out.
The guy said he put down the tarot cards and never did another reading and he now crusades against fortune telling scam artists.
My daughter collected tarot card sets for a while i her teens. There are an astounding variety of them out there.
Add me to the folk who are astounded that there are still storefronts advertising psychic readings. I’ve long toyed with the idea of a hobby/project of going into each one I see - including on travels and such, and just paying for a basic reading. Combined with photos of the businesses’ exteriors, I thought it could be an entertaining exercise. Alas, I’ve never quite convinced myself to unlock my wallet and darken the doorway of such a site. My imagination is that such “professionals” are well trained in identifying easy marks, and if you do not appear to be one, they would give you the bum’s rush.
Come to Salem, MA sometime – they’re all over the place.
I still grind my teeth:
Twenty-something years ago, the town my wife and I lived in put on their annual Spring Festival (might have been Fall Festival) and hired the local older woman to come do her fortune telling. This was along the lines of Little girl, you will grow up to be a beautiful Mommy with three kids and a handsome husband. Eww, BOYS, Yuck! That kind of thing. The local Baptist church launched a campaign to have this “witchcraft” banned from the Festival. They were successful; the woman was sent packing. At which point, the Baptist church installed their own Christian-based fortune teller. And charged for it. And kept all the money. The end.
Compared to the Yi Jing, since we are talking about a deck of cards there is enormous room for the personal expression and interpretation of the artist. It is a subject that really deserves a book rather than a post, but you may look at eg this post for some photos of what is out there.
Inevitably, even the typical “modern” deck used to play cards, such as this one, is not minimalistic and devoid of decoration nor of symbols: notably, the trumps feature themes including the ages of life, the four seasons, classical elements, and urban versus rural life.
Agreed that a “real” fortune teller should at the very least be versant in all forms of divination, including cards, coins, coffee grounds and tea leaves, crystal ball, lots, belomancy, etc., though you will need to pay a little extra for haruspicy.
And sometimes those tricks can lead to something genuine and useful; a sort of peace or closure the person hasn’t found elsewhere. Don’t get me wrong; its abused a lot - I have no question of that. But again, if you treat it as a business and act as a responsible owner - as a sort of service - it has its place as well.
You ask the client further questions until you are able to ascertain what they actually want to do, then you advise them to do that. Most people that are going to ask a card reader those questions (heck, most people who go to a spiritual advisor) aren’t really looking for advice. They are looking for someone to agree with a decision they have already made, but are insecure about.
The exact same thing can be said for tarot card readers. Yes, there are some unethical ones, but plenty of others do want to help people and provide genuine and useful services. The cards are merely a tool to get people to talk not unlike therapy dolls.
Imagine your at a street fair and their are say 5, 10, or even 20 booths set up of people doing tarot readings and such. Which do you choose? I’m guessing the one with the wackiest costume and odd name.
Just looking their are 4 such persons at this years KC Ren fest. But they are scattered around.
Remember these people are NOT doing it for fun. It’s how they make a living and they have to pay rent to be there. So I dont know maybe they start with a plam reading for $10 then tarot for another $10 and then they convince you buy their magic crystals and so on.
I know their have been conflicts with artists and craftsmen when they set up booths at say street art fairs.
THAT would make an interesting study. Go to several and ask the same question and record the response. Are they all the same or not?
Would that she’d called herself the Runed Woman
I have a friend that does readings, and she’s taught others to do it. She uses the cards to bring up topics in the subject’s life and talk about them, she doesn’t make predictions. As a kind of therapy it’s not a bad idea.
No, not even close. Trauma dolls, and other forms of therapy, are used by professional mental healthcare providers, who’ve spent years learning how to provide therapy; how to listen and what to listen for, how to guide clients, set boundaries, identify blocks, offer strategies to overcome them.
Tarot readers, psychics, and other woo-peddlers, on the other hand, are entertainers. They’re selling … well, advice, at best. The opportunity for their customers to open up to a neutral listener. Helpful, maybe; but no better than you’d get from a random stranger on the bus. But by dressing that up with mystical incense and tarot cards and New Agey bullshit, they invest themselves with an authority they’ve by no means earned. And that’s excluding the knowingly fraudulent, whose purpose is to get as much money from the customer as possible by pretending to some mystical insight or psychic abilities.
I don’t doubt there are some psychics who have enough life experience to offer decent advice. But so are some bartenders. And they at least can get you a drink.
I read tarot cards. I don’t charge people, and it is mostly just advice and encouragement.
That said, I definitely see where I could be super shady and milk it.
36 posts in the thread, and no one’s quoted Stephen Wright’s joke about playing poker with a tarot deck: “I got a full house and three people died.”