How to use the Tarot for fortune-telling?

My mum read tea leaves and palms. They were always predictive readings, and given without questions being asked by the sitters

Grizabella said:

See what I mean?

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I believe I see exactly what you mean, and I am also liking your idea more. I also agree with your observation (or prediction ) about the opposition to having a forum called "Fortune-telling" (or similar). However, this thread was started in response to another thread saying "something was missing", a good, heated, passionate debate would sure liven things up!

As far as predicting the future, I will tell a story. When I first started learning the Tarot, I posted on a personals message board to meet someone to do readings for. I wanted it to be on a more personal level, so I could get live, personal feedback, and then also to follow-up on how it went and if it “worked”. I also wanted someone who didn't know the Tarot. Well, the first reading ended up being over the internet anyway, over email, with an American that had just moved abroad. It was my first reading for another person. In that email reading I mentioned "something unexpected is coming" and "possible paperwork problems". A month later her visa was revoked, her employer made mistakes on her application. Coincidence? Luck? Magic? Who knows? I do believe the Tarot can predict the unchanging, unchangeable future, because some "future" is unchangeable.

I will also mention that I received the first Tarot reading in my life, weeks before I picked up my first Tarot deck. I got that reading from a woman in Asia, certainly an “old school” Tarot reader and a “fortune-teller”. That was an interesting reading; she did it a bit differently than it is done here. I don’t remember a lot of what she said, I wasn’t really listening, it was just a gag. But when she turned over a particular card, her demeanor changed, I began to notice, and the predictions she made then are still coming true.

Those stories can be dismissed as "random occurrences", I tend to think they were “remarkable coincidences”, or as Jung would say, “synchronicity”, but they could also be construed as “fortune-telling” as well. I got into all this Jung and psychology stuff after picking up the Tarot simply because I was grasping for anything that made sense. Now, that is the only way I know how to express what I see. But I still don’t really know what I see, and I have gotten this far by understanding that I don’t understand. So I am open and interested in hearing about all uses of the Tarot. And more importantly, I understand about trying to relate. Just speaking for me personally, my posts "about Jung" are not really about Jung. I am interested in hearing comments on what Jung was talking about, which is, I believe, what we are all trying to talk about.

I enjoy Lillie’s and your posts, I think it would be a loss to AT to lose that experience, insight, and perspective. Besides, fortune-tellers, mystics, and diviners are the people who have gotten the Tarot this far…

Grizabella said:

I thought JSNYC was just asking how it's done and making a guess how it might be done.

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You are completely correct. I am enjoying this thread a lot!

My grandmother read tea leaves, and it was a bit "there's an anchor, that means safety" sort of reading. Personally I had difficulty seeing the shapes she saw so that part was certainly down to the reader. The shapes being looked for did seem to have specific meanings attached though.

But yes a definition would help.

There's something to do with predicting specific events in the future - specific enough so that they can be falsified?? i.e. you can definitely be wrong

And then there's the question of what input the reader has as against the cards and specific associated meanings.

Yeah, if I tell someone that during the coming week they will have a windfall and they don't, then I am definitely wrong if I am fortune telling. Well, that's how I look at it anyway . Although of course windfall could be anything from winning the lottery to an apple falling on their head as they walk under the tree.....

And also for me, fortune telling has to be that definite - you will so-and-so. Not, you might if the circumstances were right, or you will at some unspecified date so-and-so.

So if I do fortune telling then I have to be definite, fairly specific as to date and be predictive to fit in with my mum's definition of fortune telling. And the older I get, the more I appreciate that my mum was a wise lady, so I'm not gonna doubt her on this one.

And for you, fortune telling could be something completely different and that's fine by me

ime, if you predict an event and it comes true, but the timing is off, the reading is still correct to the event, just the timing was off.

~ C

Aerin said:

There's something to do with predicting specific events in the future - specific enough so that they can be falsified?? i.e. you can definitely be wrong.

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Wendywu said:

And also for me, fortune telling has to be that definite - you will so-and-so. Not, you might if the circumstances were right, or you will at some unspecified date so-and-so.

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Maybe that is the crux of the disconnect, the definition of "fortune-telling".

I will mention I said a lot of other things in that first reading, "it could be possible paperwork problems, or it could be X, or it could be Y". (It was my first reading! ) Also, the fortune-teller in Asia said a lot of other things (before she pulled the card) that I am not sure was correct or even applicable...

Maybe that is what Grizabella is saying, we think "predicting the future" (must) mean "predicting" with certainly and specificity what will happen in the future, when actually it is just about "saying stuff" and then "seeing what happens"... It may be "kind of right" or "kind of vague"... Like you, I don't know if that is useful, but the key words are "I don't know". (I thought all of this was a joke and scam a year ago! )

Grizabella said:

Well said, Lillie. I especially like and agree with this last part:



I clicked "submit" before I meant to in the first place.

I do believe, though, that there's a heavy and unmistakable emphasis on the non-fortune telling type of readings around here, though. I've tried my best to conform and fit in but I don't prefer doing the reworded stuff. I like fortune telling and I still think we need a sub-forum for us bracelet-clanking-scarf-sporting-hoop-wearing fortune tellers. (Even though I don't always dress exactly like that.)

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I NEVER dress like that ...though my wife wears scarves (for the weather), bracelets, hoop earrings (at times).

When I started tarot, all my readings for myself were predictive. When I gave my first reading for another person (my then g/f, now wife), I predicted a death in the family, and it came to be not long after.

I use tarot for prediction and/or how to best go about manifesting something or getting an answer to a question when I have no other way of finding out.

I do not want to restrict myself as a tarot reader. So yes, fortune teller I be, diviner I be, advice giver I be...amongst other things.

~ C

Caedryn said:

I NEVER dress like that ...though my wife wears scarves (for the weather), bracelets, hoop earrings (at times).
~ C

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Well, it was just a manner of saying something, you know. LOL It's fun, though. Maybe you should try it. It actually helps with the predictions. (not!)

I don't know why AJ thinks a subforum would just confuse people. I think, to the contrary, that it would be more specific and I'd think that those people who don't want to be seen as fortune tellers would then have more of their distinction made clear so they'd be happier with the prospect. I remember, though, how adamantly I opposed the forum for the counselors because I don't believe the cards should be used that way by people who aren't qualified to do it and I thought that would encourage that use of them, so I do empathize.

I think the people who are protesting having a separate forum are pointing up the need for it because it's highlighting even more the misconceptions people are having about what fortune telling even consists of. Just because a faction represents fewer members doesn't make them less deserving of a sub-forum. If even games get sub-forums, what's so against fortune tellers having one where we don't get trampled underfoot by the louder voices of the group of those who don't prefer to do it? Fortune telling is every bit as traditional and honorable a use of the cards as games are (because it did start as a game, after all, even if not the games we play here) and I think it deserves its own distinct sub forum. The fortune telling tradition certainly predates Freud and Jung.

Wendywu, maybe over the course of time your mom just learned that predictions do work and she got brave enough to go ahead and make them specifically as she saw them in the cards without the "or this could happen instead or maybe this", which is how it's developed for me. The wavering around was me doubting my own ability to tell for sure what the cards were saying, I think, rather than trying to feel around till something hit. As I learned to trust my cards and my ability to read them, I got better at it.

Grizabella said:

Wendywu, maybe over the course of time your mom just learned that predictions do work and she got brave enough to go ahead and make them specifically as she saw them in the cards without the "or this could happen instead or maybe this", which is how it's developed for me. The wavering around was me doubting my own ability to tell for sure what the cards were saying, I think, rather than trying to feel around till something hit. As I learned to trust my cards and my ability to read them, I got better at it.

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I think you're right there Griz . Thank you - she always seemed so confident and secure, I somehow never thought of her as having been hesitant but she must have been when she was young, and finding her way. She used to "dream true" too but kept that strictly in the family. She taught me to read clouds which I've always been grateful for .

Grizabella said:

I think the people who are protesting having a separate forum are pointing up the need for it because it's highlighting even more the misconceptions people are having about what fortune telling even consists of.

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What are these misconceptions to which you allude? This thread is about how to use cards for fortune telling so stating and explaining the misconceptions would certainly add value to it.

Grizabella said:

Just because a faction represents fewer members doesn't make them less deserving of a sub-forum. If even games get sub-forums, what's so against fortune tellers having one where we don't get trampled underfoot by the louder voices of the group of those who don't prefer to do it?

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There is nothing preventing you from starting a fortune-telling reading thread. In fact, Lillie's alethiometer thread ran into the 1,000s of posts because it was so popular. None of those posts were "trampling" Lillie for doing fortune telling.