The Importance of the Question

barefootlife

JMI_Tarot said:
This led me to think about how we go about asking questions in Tarot. Whether we are asking for ourselves or helping someone else, the forming of the question is fundamental. To dig down to the real question is an important skill for any tarot reader.

For example, someone asks, "Does _____ love me?" A common question. I bet I am not alone in trying not to just roll my eyes at someone who asks this kind of question. But of course, that won't help anyone. So what if we ask, "Why do you want/need to know that?" Now, the person is really thinking. And we can keep digging until we get to the the REAL question and at that point the learning, the understanding can begin.

I think this is a very fundamental part of Tarot reading, as important a skill as knowing what the cards mean. It's a real test of your skill and intuition before you ever lay down a card.

I wonder if any of you have any opinions on this or any techniques you employ to get to the right question with yourself or with others.

I agree with you in principle - that kind of question is rarely interesting or particularly helpful. But sometimes trying to get down to the real meat of the matter is too much for someone who isn't used to that sort of thinking. Plus, someone who comes to tarot asking a yes/no question like that may not have experience with what the cards really do. Possibly explaining that y/n is not really the way of tarot and then asking them what result the answer of the question would bring them to is an easier way to get at what they really want to know.

Personally, I prefer my questions very broad instead of very pinpoint, although it's good to have something to go off in order to choose my spread. (I don't like the CC, I think it often confuses people new to tarot more than it guides, sometimes. Maybe that's a fault in my reading, though.)

barefootlife

Barleywine said:
Call me "old school," but I use an approach that goes back to an earlier era. I let my clients keep the specific question between themselves and the cards. Although details of their area of interest may come out during the dialogue, I don't consider my knowing it in advance to be crucial to the cards "speaking their piece." In my view, there is a subconscious "communion" between the querent and the cards that occurs during their handling of the deck and emerges in the cards pulled for the spread; my job is to translate their private conversation into a coherent narrative. Usually I never learn what the exact question was, but the readings have never failed to be relevant to the inquiry and my sitters have gone away satisfied with the insights provided.

One main advantage of this method is that it avoids the ethical dilemmas we as readers sometimes agonize over. They could be asking anything from "Does John love me?" to "Should I poison my husband?" and the cards will provide the answer they need to hear at that time. What they choose to do with it is their business, since "ownership" of the reading lies in their hands. In most cases, though, they get much more than they bargained for from the "higher wisdom" invested in the system. The reading serves to "explain them to themselves" in ways that may be consciously inaccessible to them; it can go right to the heart of any "blind spot" they may be willfully avoiding.

From a purely technical standpoint, how do you choose your spread? Do you have a set starting spread and then go from there? I know you're a prolific spread creator, which makes me even more curious.

Barleywine

barefootlife said:
From a purely technical standpoint, how do you choose your spread? Do you have a set starting spread and then go from there? I know you're a prolific spread creator, which makes me even more curious.

I'm a "dyed-in-the-wool" Celtic Cross type and used it exclusively between 1972 and 2011, when I joined AT. It's still my hands-down favorite (with a number of tweaks I made to it over the years) because of its depth and complexity, but upon returning to professional reading last year I found myself facing 20-minute reading sessions on some occasions and I can't really shoehorn a decent CC reading into that time-frame. So I created an abbreviated "environmental development" spread of seven cards that does the trick from a situational awareness and developmental insight perspective. This one, but I don't always have time to get to the optional "inspiration" and "aspiration" quint cards.

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=263258

Since most of my clients are after a more general forecast, I haven't used any of the various topic-specific spreads I created in public settings, although I do bring a binder with a few of them in it just in case I'm asked to show something more sharply focused. I do occasionally use the rest of my inventory in my personal readings, but more for experimentation and testing of the concepts. The ones I use most are my astrology-informed daily draw spread and my various relationship spreads, with which I examine the situations of my eight siblings and various kids, both mine and theirs.

barefootlife

Barleywine said:
I'm a "dyed-in-the-wool" Celtic Cross type and used it exclusively between 1972 and 2011, when I joined AT. It's still my hands-down favorite (with a number of tweaks I made to it over the years) because of its depth and complexity, but upon returning to professional reading last year I found myself facing 20-minute reading sessions on some occasions and I can't really shoehorn a decent CC reading into that time-frame. So I created an abbreviated "environmental development" spread of seven cards that does the trick from a situational awareness and developmental insight perspective. This one, but I don't always have time to get to the optional "inspiration" and "aspiration" quint cards.

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=263258

Since most of my clients are after a more general forecast, I haven't used any of the various topic-specific spreads I created in public settings, although I do bring a binder with a few of them in it just in case I'm asked to show something more sharply focused. I do occasionally use the rest of my inventory in my personal readings, but more for experimentation and testing of the concepts. The ones I use most are my astrology-informed daily draw spread and my various relationship spreads, with which I examine the situations of my eight siblings and various kids, both mine and theirs.

That's an excellent spread, and it makes much more sense now why you can read without any question at all. Going to have to try this one out, I really like the look of it.

JMI_Tarot

barefootlife said:
Possibly explaining that y/n is not really the way of tarot and then asking them what result the answer of the question would bring them to is an easier way to get at what they really want to know.

That's really nice. I like that approach and can see how it would be really helpful.