From: dhardin@bbn.com (Dawn Hardin)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: emotional tarot readings?
Date: 30 Dec 1992 17:06:03 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

I have a question about tarot readings that I've never seen discussed anywhere.
One of my housemates asked me to do a reading for her.  I've been studying
for about two years now and I'm reasonably good, although I don't get much
opportunity to read for other people.  She and I had discussed tarot before, 
and I thought she had an idea of my basic philosophy of the cards -- that 
they don't mean anything in themselves, that it's the meaning that the mind 
imposes that gives them meaning -- ya know, the whole pseudo-Jungian, 
semi-cynical viewpoint stuff.

When I laid out the cards (using a celtic cross spread) the final outcome
card was Death.  As soon as I saw it, I said "don't panic, that means
more of a transformation than a physical death," but it was already too
late.  Turns out, her daughter had tried to commit suicide earlier in 
the week.  I knew she was worried about her daughter, but I didn't know
what the situation was.  I kept trying to work the card into the reading
as a whole -- one of our other housemates is dying of cancer, so death
is on all of our minds lately.  Even if I wanted to put a predictive
value on a reading, there were PLENTY of more likely interpretations to
the reading, but my friend now thinks that her daughter is going to
try again and be successful this time.  No matter how many times I told
her, "We're surrounded by death right now.  Of course it's on our minds,
but we really can't say who or when or even what kind of death this refers
to," she was still convinced.  When her relatives came over to discuss
what kind of treatment the girl should get, I overheard her telling them
that she had gone to a witch and gotten a bad reading.  Do you know that
sick feeling you get when you realize that a small error in judgement on
your part had a really bad effect on somebody else?

I really wish that I hadn't read for her at all.  I didn't know what kind
of question she was really asking -- when I asked her what she wanted to
know, she said she just wanted to know how things were going to go for
the people around her.  The whole thing sounds like a decent arguement
for never reading for other people -- it makes me very uncomfortable to 
think that she took it this way.  Or maybe I should get
a sweetness and light deck with no death card.  Or maybe I should spend
more time on explaining how it works up front -- I don't think that 
"is my daughter going to die" is an appropriate question for the tarot,
maybe if I had stressed the psychological, un-divinatory nature more
before I laid a card down she would have read the cards differently.

Are there other people here who read cards for other people regularly?
Do you see this frightening faith in it?  How do you calm people if the
reading looks negative to them?  Should I just avoid this situation?
In all my readings, the only mention of having negative reactions to
a reading is to a) remember that people may take what you say very
seriously and b) as soon as you lay down a card like Death or the 10 of
Swords, you should say something reassuring.  Can anyone add anything
else?

Dawn

Joseph Campbell gave me hope and now I have been saved.
"Folk Song" by Bongwater