Tarot Ethics

[Ruby Jewel]

I would be interested to hear what others here think about using the tarot cards to answer questions about 2nd and 3rd parties as opposed to questions regarding the querent and a 2nd party. It has been my experience that the tarot reader is obligated to have high ethical standards that would necessarily preclude using the spiritual world for "snooping" into other people's relationships. For instance, how do you feel about a person coming to you to find out about an "ex" and his new girlfriend? For one thing, it is contributing to the querent's "obsession" which I feel is very unhealthy for the querent, and highly unethical as a professional practice.

That is my take on it, and I am curious to know if I am in the minority here.

 

[Redfaery]

The Tarot is a tool. It has no more ethical standards than a shovel or spoon.

 

[Ruby Jewel]

The Tarot is a tool. It has no more ethical standards than a shovel or spoon.

It is the tool of the reader, and how the reader uses it is the determining factor. I have corrected the phrasing to reflect this. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[LeFou]

Experiences vary but for me, anyway, third party readings don't work well (if at all). There's not enough energy to "charge" the cards, I guess.

 

[Ruby Jewel]

Experiences vary but for me, anyway, third party readings don't work well (if at all). There's not enough energy to "charge" the cards, I guess.

I agree with you 100%. I have no faith that the readings are at all accurate.

 

[Laurelle]

It is the tool of the reader, and how the reader uses it is the determining factor. I have corrected the phrasing to reflect this. Thanks for pointing that out.

Yes, because you can use a shovel to do many things depending on what you are getting out of it. You can dig a hole to bury the dead, you can use a shovel to plant a vegetable garden and you can even hit someone over the head with a shovel to inflict pain and/or death.

Tarot is an esoteric element that has a lot more depth than a shovel or spoon. It is not exoteric, but is being used by many to do so. If you feel that it holds no more power than a shovel, then that is what you will get back. The symbolism and wisdom has been carefully handed down from generations of occultists. There is a subconscious realm combined with a conscious realm that encompasses each card and that's just the surface details....

But to each their own.

 

[think]

Meh, all readings really have some element of third party. E.g. what does X feel for me? Well that has to incorporate his feelings for others. If he's besotted with someone else, it doesn't leave much for his feelings for you. Even if you re-word the question to "what is going on between me and X" it includes his feelings and again, what is going on elsewhere.

So with that, I don't mind reading on 3rd parties. I believe they are accurate, insofar as I believe any other reading is accurate. And I don't think it is unethical or 'snooping' - someone could see them walking down the street hand in hand and derive at the same conclusions as tarot. Nor is the querent's obsession my responsibility as a reader, and I think it's quite judgemental to even suppose such a thing. If they ask you daily this kind of question, then that's different, but it seems a bit holier-than-thou to presume anything.

 

[Redfaery]

Yes, because you can use a shovel to do many things depending on what you are getting out of it. You can dig a hole to bury the dead, you can use a shovel to plant a vegetable garden and you can even hit someone over the head with a shovel to inflict pain and/or death.

Tarot is an esoteric element that has a lot more depth than a shovel or spoon. It is not exoteric, but is being used by many to do so. If you feel that it holds no more power than a shovel, then that is what you will get back. The symbolism and wisdom has been carefully handed down from generations of occultists. There is a subconscious realm combined with a conscious realm that encompasses each card and that's just the surface details....

But to each their own.

I'm Buddhist. I don't believe *anything* has inherent meaning. Or inherent anything. So there's that.

 

[Grizabella]

It is the tool of the reader, and how the reader uses it is the determining factor. I have corrected the phrasing to reflect this. Thanks for pointing that out.

This is true. You have a right to abide by your own ideas of ethics and not do readings you're not comfortable with and consider unethical. But no reader or organization has any right to judge other readers and try to control what they do because they deem that reader to be unethical. Nobody on this forum I know of is selling candles and bilking old ladies out of massive money, so especially here at AT, all of us have the freedom to just abide by our own ethics and leave it at that. I've yet to meet anyone unethical here and I've been here a long time.

I'm a reader who is very ethical but as think has put it so very well, I don't quibble and judge my sitters and dictate what they can ask.

Meh, all readings really have some element of third party. E.g. what does X feel for me? Well that has to incorporate his feelings for others. If he's besotted with someone else, it doesn't leave much for his feelings for you. Even if you re-word the question to "what is going on between me and X" it includes his feelings and again, what is going on elsewhere.

So with that, I don't mind reading on 3rd parties. I believe they are accurate, insofar as I believe any other reading is accurate. And I don't think it is unethical or 'snooping' - someone could see them walking down the street hand in hand and derive at the same conclusions as tarot. Nor is the querent's obsession my responsibility as a reader, and I think it's quite judgemental to even suppose such a thing. If they ask you daily this kind of question, then that's different, but it seems a bit holier-than-thou to presume anything.

Very well put. Especially about the reading for or about second or third parties. That can hardly be done, for one thing, because nobody lives in a vacuum.

Coming back to add that there are people I won't read for and there are questions I won't read on, but I'm not judgmental on the usual questions we get about matters everyone is concerned with.

 

[Apollonia]

I'm a reader who is very ethical but as think has put it so very well, I don't quibble and judge my sitters and dictate what they can ask...

Coming back to add that there are people I won't read for and there are questions I won't read on, but I'm not judgmental on the usual questions we get about matters everyone is concerned with.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on the ethics of the matter.

That having been said, although I will do them without a murmur of protestI don't feel that the third party reading is the most accurate. I always tell my clients that the cards will tell them what the other party is thinking/feeling, but not what they will do based on those thoughts or feelings. Sometimes the cards say, "He loves you," and don't add "which makes him want to run far far away."