What Do You Expect From A Tarot Reader?

Yeah, i haven't actually been to one for quite a while because the last few weren't very good, and the last one, the woman was so unprofessional and obviously couldn't read the cards, so i was paying her to learn pretty much, yeah its ok to draw a blank, happens to everyone at some point, but this woman just kept saying "i don't understand" and was looking at me like i should make her.Unfortunately i had to pay in advance, and was just glad to get the hell outta there. But i would like to go again, theres more depth for me in a face to face reading, i'll just have to shop around.

There seem to be two very different types of readers here, the fortune tellers (myself included) and the counselling type readers. I wonder if the difference is how they learned. Most people I know who learned from someone else, or had it passed on to them read fortunes, where as the people who started with books and new age type learning are more into the how can I make my life better types?

214red said:

If i go to a reader that bills themselves as a psychic or a medium and they start talking card details and archetypes, then i stop listening because they shouldnt need any of those things to read.

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I disagree here, but only due to my own experience. I always tell them what the cards are supposed to mean, but I then pull the psychic message from them, the cards are a focus and are there to focus my attention on a thing. In the end, the card may be telling me something totally different from the "rote" meaning, but both things are important to the reading as a whole.

Silver Crow said:

I disagree here, but only due to my own experience. I always tell them what the cards are supposed to mean, but I then pull the psychic message from them, the cards are a focus and are there to focus my attention on a thing. In the end, the card may be telling me something totally different from the "rote" meaning, but both things are important to the reading as a whole.

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I personally think its a waste of time to tell me about the card, i really dont care, i want to know what the message your getting for me, however you get it...thats up to you, you have the skill. I glaze over when people start telling me about a cards symbolism or detail

214red said:

I personally think its a waste of time to tell me about the card, i really dont care, i want to know what the message your getting for me, however you get it...thats up to you, you have the skill. I glaze over when people start telling me about a cards symbolism or detail

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That is the difference between you and a layperson getting a reading. You don't need to know, because you do know. I have never found someone that didn't read tarot that didn't want to know what the cards are supposed to mean - which is why my clients sit next to me during a reading not across. But then again, I write keywords on most of my in person reading decks so they can see that I am putting the whole picture together, the "rote" meanings, what else the cards are telling me, and the story.

I think it's important to tell a reader if you are a reader, or have studied tarot, it really does call for a different type of reading in my opinion. If you are a reader or one who studies and you don't tell the reader this, you get what you get and will most likely be disappointed.

I would also say that more than 95% of my clients do not read or have ever studied tarot.

Silver Crow said:

There seem to be two very different types of readers here, the fortune tellers (myself included) and the counselling type readers. I wonder if the difference is how they learned. Most people I know who learned from someone else, or had it passed on to them read fortunes, where as the people who started with books and new age type learning are more into the how can I make my life better types?

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Interesting idea, Silver Crow. That may indeed be true (the results of a formal survey of readers outside of AT would sure be enlightening).

Though, I can't really say I understand how people are using the word "New Age" here. It seems anything that's not fortune telling proper is chucked in the same New Age bucket? And, in this thread, described in a number of not-very-flattering terms, as well. Why must we maintain any traditional tensions that may have existed between or amongst different styles of reading? I'm not drawn to either predictive fortune-telling or to New Age themes, but more power to any who subscribe to either. You like your potato fried with eggs, I like my po-TAHT-oh baked with sour cream!

One last point (general, not directed to you, SC):

The original question (unless the OP went back and edited it) was what do we expect from another reader whom we would go to for a reading for *ourselves,* not what our style of reading for others is.

Several people have since posted answering, instead, as to what they think *the public* wants or expects.

That's a different matter altogether. I definitely agree with the posters above me that many people in Western countries where tarot has the longest history do hope/expect for some predictions and "foretelling" to be involved. That's not what I personally desire from a tarot reading, but I think many others (some non-tarotists, and some tarotists themselves) do, and good for them, as long as they understand the ethical issues, limits of the tarot reader, etc.--which hopefully their reader briefs them on before beginning the reading.

I would like more people to come back and post about the original question-it would be interesting to see how a tarotist's expectations of a tarot reader might differ or be similar to their expectations of their own style of reading; of other (non-tarot) types of reading, etc.

Silver Crow said:

I think it's important to tell a reader if you are a reader, or have studied tarot, it really does call for a different type of reading in my opinion. If you are a reader or one who studies and you don't tell the reader this, you get what you get and will most likely be disappointed.

I would also say that more than 95% of my clients do not read or have ever studied tarot.

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I agree with this, as well. In "real life," I have never read for a person who knows anything about tarot, but I imagine I would do some (not all) things differently for them, even if only as a courtesy. Why make them sit through: "And this is the suit of Cups, which correlates to the element Water, and represents..." etc??

Guess that's a different thread, though, so I'll leave it at that and escape the wrath of the mods.

Chiriku said:

I agree with this, as well. In "real life," I have never read for a person who knows anything about tarot, but I imagine I would do some (not all) things differently for them, even if only as a courtesy. Why make them sit through: "And this is the suit of Cups, which correlates to the element Water, and represents..." etc??

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I don't put anyone through that whether they know how to read or not. I'm not teaching a Tarot class, I'm reading the cards for someone. I give them the information the cards are giving for them, not a lesson on what the cards, suits and archetypes mean. I think anyone, whether they read or not, wants just the message from the cards, not a class on Tarot. If I had gone to a reader even when I didn't read yet and they went into that kind of stuff, I'd probably ask for my money back and leave. People pay for the message of the cards. If they want a lesson in Tarot, they go to a Tarot class.

Chiriku said:

Why make them sit through: "And this is the suit of Cups, which correlates to the element Water, and represents..." etc??

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Yeah, doing that that doesn't make sense to me, either, because context is everything (well a lot ) in a reading. Just because a card has a generic keyword or key phrase attached to it, usually, it takes on a meaning of its own when it falls into a spread. Other cards can change its generic meaning a lot depending upon juxtaposition, etc., and I don't want to waste a seeker's time explaining all that (which took me dozens of years to learn myself...so how could I put it into words in a couple dozen minutes and still give the seeker a valid reading?)

From my experience, seekers look more at my face and eyes than they do at the cards on the table, anyway.

Chiriku said:

I agree with this, as well. In "real life," I have never read for a person who knows anything about tarot, but I imagine I would do some (not all) things differently for them, even if only as a courtesy. Why make them sit through: "And this is the suit of Cups, which correlates to the element Water, and represents..." etc??

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Well - if I got a reading that started like that, I would ask them to stop. So in that sense it is relevant. I want to know what they SEE. If they came out with stuff like that - I will say "I can look all that up for myself, thanks". I would say that even if I didn't read myself; it has been something I have always felt about generic meanings anyway.

So I would say I expect a reader NOT to put me through all that ! I need something from the reader, not from their books !