My friend LJ sent me a link to an article about the tarot earlier this week with the note “Thought you might get a kick out of this.” The article is called ‘The Truth Is Somewhere in the Tarot Cards‘ with the tagline ‘When descriptions are vague and wide-ranging enough, we tend to think they’re true’. But if you look at the tab at the top of that page, it states ‘The Truth About Tarot Cards’. The author of the piece describes a tarot experiment she conducted with her friend when she had a reading done for the New Year. She does seem to be a lover of the tarot, and it appears the reading itself is one she would have had anyway, but was just documented for the sake of said experiment. The author also attributes any possible shortcomings in the interpretation on the distance between her and her reader (which is not an issue for most readers) but I honestly don’t think she is getting the most out of the tarot let alone conveying the truth about tarot cards. Reading through the article, I was all geared up to leave a comment at the end, but there wasn’t a comments section, so I decided to do the next best thing and write a post about my thoughts instead.
Tarot is more of an Art than a Science
Tarot is more of an art than a science which is why it takes an experienced tarot reader to be able to make the necessary interpretations to decipher the messages in a reading. This is why every reader has his or her own style of reading and while Katie Heaney gives a full rundown of her reading and what her friend Rylee, the reader, had to say on each card, I would have come up with a totally different response to her reading. Of course it all depends on the reader; perhaps if other readers had conducted the reading for her we would have gotten totally different results. But I don’t believe the messages one receives from the cards should be vague or wide-ranging if a professional, experienced tarot reader conducts the reading. The cards have very specific meanings when they show up in certain placements and in correlation to one another; this is why it is not enough to just know the meaning of each individual card.
Friends do not always make the best Tarot Readers
There are a number of reasons friends do not always make the best tarot readers. We can suppose that most friends care about each other and have a vested interest in the happiness and well-being of the other. This can affect the objectivity needed to interpret the meaning of a tarot reading. Even when this is not an issue, sometimes we don’t want to tell our friends the tougher messages that come through, either because we don’t want to upset them, or because it may impact the friendship; the messenger very often gets shot. In fact, the author of that article admits that she and her friend “gently shape the available information to fit what we know the other wants to hear” as part of a friend-soothing session, which is nice for the friendship, but really has very little to do with the tarot.
Tarot Experiments Don’t Always Work
If you’re only having a reading for the science factor (and there is nothing to indicate that the author of that article was) the energy and drive to know the answer can often be lacking from the question, hence giving a correspondingly vague or lacklustre reading.
My very quick interpretation of the reading
I see the author as being bound by the Devil, in the form of a bad habit or unhealthy relationship. There is no stated specific question that is asked, which most readers will insist upon as it gives a clear direction for the interpretation of the reading, but as she claims to have conducted the reading for New Years, this may even be a point of the author looking at her vices and my advice to her would be that she is only bound by those chains she has allowed to bind her. From this card we know the direction of the reading. I would have then told the author that the 7 of Wands means that she may feel like things are coming at her from every angle, but that there is nothing to show she won’t succeed. In the past she was making plans and setting her goals, but this may have stopped as she feels many of these are not actionable. In fact she may have plateaued in many ways; not losing ground, but not moving forward as she could be either. The cards are clearly telling the author that this stagnation is very much of her own creation as she definitely has all that is needed to make a success of the areas she wishes to. I disagree with the part where the author feels the reading makes her seem like a bigger workaholic than she is; I see the opposite in that some hard grafting is actually required. In order to achieve her goals, the author has to knuckle down and as boring and repetitive as she may find some of the work she is doing, it is necessary to get to her goals. I would have gone on to say that the author feels over-burdened, like she has too much on her plate at this time, but this is mostly because she is doing things in the hardest way possible. There is an easier way to do it, and perhaps even some of the work can be delegated. The rewards for hard work are not far off now, but this is no time for the author to start slacking. She must dig deep and push a little more. The King of Pentacles made me wonder if this was a man who would be able to help the author. Was she looking for a new accountant? Due to its positioning, it may well be that she needs to ask this guy for help, but a part of her also does not want to. As for the outcome, I’d say that if the author can knuckle down and get her work done now, she has the Queen of Wands to look forward to. This could mean more socialising and getting out there and meeting and greeting people. She mentioned a book – book signings?
This is just a very quick rundown of the hits that I got from that reading, but of course I didn’t pull the cards so they may have told me a different story in my hands. I went with the work angle because this is the way the author and her friend took it, but to be honest, this could very much apply to a relationship, which is why a specific, clear question helps tie down the reading in a real definable way. The author quotes the Forer effect, but honestly, most of the best readings I have had and given make reference to real and tangible events that cannot be explained by this effect.
The Truth about Tarot Cards
So going by our different views, I guess the truth about tarot cards is that there seem to be multiple truths. The truth for the author of that piece is that she is happy using them in the way she does and that is a valid truth. But that does not make it the truth for the multitude of other practitioners, and I am in no way equipped to speak for all of them. The truth about tarot cards as I see it, is what I have shared here and on this site, and there are plenty that would disagree with that, and that is as it should be. Despite everything that I have said here though, it is good to see people having fun with the tarot and if nothing else, it is wonderful to see people enjoying the cards and playing with them. We don’t always need a professional and in those instances I would say more power to those who use the cards themselves or with a friend. We’re all making the cards work for us in our own ways and that is the overall truth of tarot cards; they are a wonderfully versatile tool.