Helpful Tarot Love Readings

Whether you are a tarot pro, a tarot enthusiast, a tarot client, or merely curious, you know the trope. There is a perception that the primary consumers of tarot readings are the lovelorn.

There are real reasons for this. There are many, many cautionary tales of psychic addiction that stem from the pain of uncertain relationships and the false belief that a tarot reader can tell you, for certain, the destiny of your relationship. There are an equal or greater number of people who rely on wisdom from tarot to help them navigate difficult situations with great success.

We humans tend to over-spiritualize romance, often to our detriment. I think that is because so many of us are driven, either by hormones, societal conditioning, or genuine desire, to find a workable relationship. At the same time, workable relationships can be hard to find, and hard to maintain.

When an attraction or connection with another person catches us, it can feel spiritual, whether it is or not. That crush, or new relationship, or amazing sex, can be captivating. That sense of connection with another human generates for us all sorts of questions. Where better to take those questions than to your own tarot deck, to a friend with a tarot deck, or to a professional reader?

Skillful work with tarot can indeed help us with all aspects of navigating relationships. That includes finding love, choosing a partner, building a healthy relationship, ending what doesn’t work, healing problems in a long-term relationship, healing from a breakup, and handling the grief of widowhood. Yet, tarot in the hands of naïve or manipulative people can sometimes make things harder.

How Unskilled Tarot Hurts Us in Relationships

Sometimes people stay in abusive relationships because they believe that tarot told them they were meant to be together. Sometimes people mourn the ending of an unhealthy relationship because they believe tarot told them that they were soulmates, or that their lost relationship was their only possibility for partnership.

I have seen readers encourage clients to believe that a spiritually ordained ‘soulmate’ relationship would be without any conflict or difficulty and would not need any maintenance work to prosper.

I have seen readers give false hope to clients for relationships that are obviously over, never to return.

These are but a few of the ways that unskilled use of tarot can hurt us in relationships. In this age of livestreamed collective tarot readings, there are also those who conflate a collective reading on YouTube or TikTok with a specific one-on-one reading. This can lead to a great deal of misunderstanding and misguidance for those already in emotional turmoil.

How Tarot Can Help

Good practices in relationship readings require asking the right questions and managing expectations.

Collective readings on social media can be fun, interesting, informative, and even profound. However, do not assume that the collective reading about “where your relationship is going” is necessarily a valid piece of helpful information for your individual situation.

Do not assume that the future of a relationship is always predictable at all. Love is a choice that each partner must make every day. It may be impossible, in a single reading, to predict what two people will choose each day for the rest of their lives.

 “Will we stay together?” “Is he the one for me?” “Is this the right relationship?” “Is this my soulmate?” are very often not helpful questions, or questions that can easily receive an accurate answer.

On the reverse side, if the cards clearly suggest that a person might be dangerous or abusive, and you have other substantiating information or history, it might be a good idea to trust the cards and use caution, no matter how attached you may feel in your heart. If this is the case in an ongoing relationship, asking the cards about options and solutions can be very helpful.

When we ask, “What does this person feel about me?” or “What does this person think of me?” we may get a valid answer that is helpful. Or we may get an answer based on a passing thought or mood. Even in very stable relationships our moods and feelings can shift from moment to moment. A snapshot of a particular moment might be misleading. Asking that sort of question could also be a gross invasion of privacy.

There are many questions we can ask of the cards to help us navigate relationships.

A single person may receive great counsel by asking, “What can I do to attract the right partner?” or, “What can we know about the possibility of a new relationship for me in the near future?”

Tarot can be helpful in vetting possible candidates. A reading can give us a heads-up about potential good matches, and those who might be incompatible and inappropriate.

When you want to access the potential of a new relationship, a two-question reading is helpful. Ask “What is the worst this relationship could be?” and “What is the best this relationship could be?”

Another helpful question to ask any time in a relationship timeline is, “What can I do right now to make this relationship the best it could be?”

In a relationship, tarot can help us improve communication with our beloved, and can help us meet their needs, and get our own need met. “How can I help my partner?” can be a great question to ask. “How can I communicate my concerns to my partner in a way that they can hear me?” is another helpful question.

Tarot can help us know when it is time to leave a relationship, and how to heal. Tarot can keep us in communication with our loved one in spirit after they leave this earth.

If you have questions about love, romance, and relationships, tarot can provide helpful answers, but only if you have the skill to ask the right questions and interpret the cards thoughtfully, or if you find a good, intuitive, intelligent tarot reader to do those things for you.

If you are reading for yourself on your own relationship, it is helpful to remember this. No matter how intuitive you are, no one should fully trust their intuition when it comes to matters of their own heart. It is almost always impossible to discern the difference between desire and intuition when we are in the throes of heartbreak or attraction.

Follow your heart, certainly, but keep your head, and attend the wise counsel of tarot in a way that is healthy and healing. It is better to use the cards to help us make wise decisions, understand our feelings, find solutions, and know our options.

Many relationships feel like fate and destiny, but only a few of those truly are. Even a relationship that is a brilliant match can suffer from neglect and poor communication.

Many people think that the cards can help us know our fate. I think the cards do a better job helping us understand ourselves and those around us so we can make good decisions for the best possible future, in love and in life.

The Angel and the Devil

Images from the Giant Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, copyright 1971, U.S. Games Systems, Inc. Used with permission.

I had the pleasure of being a guest teacher at the Jamar Enlightenment Center in Palm Beach Gardens this month. It had been a few years since I taught a tarot class in a shop. I had forgotten how much fun that sort of class can be.

The class I taught was an all-level Major Arcana class, with a focus on the Waite-Smith images. When we got to Major Arcana 15, I talked about the Devil as the necessary gatekeeper on the path to spiritual enlightenment. I talked about the inherent choice offered by the Devil to stay attached or to break free. I also spoke about the Devil’s connection to Major Arcana 6, the Lovers.

One student looked at the Devil and asked a brilliant question. “Who is the third character in the Lovers?”

I was not sure what she meant, so I asked her to clarify.

“In this picture, there are two people and the Devil. Who is with the two people in the Lovers?”

I did not have to look at the card to remember that there is indeed a third character in the Waite-Smith Lovers, and that character visually dominates the image.
“It’s an angel”, I answered her.

This is why I love teaching tarot. Never, in the more than three decades of my study of tarot have I considered this aspect of these two cards. I have thought about their numeric connection, each being a Six. I have thought about the fact that in each image the two people are Adam and Eve. I have thought about ‘choice’ as a dominant theme in both cards. I have thought that each card asks us to contemplate our relationship to something or someone. Never have I thought about how there is an angel in the Lovers and a devil in the Devil.

I do not have a personal connection with either angels or devils. This realization about the Six cards in the Major Arcana made me want to dig a little.

Benebell Wen presented a fascinating presentation on the exorcism of demons for StaarCon 2021. Other than what I gleaned from that I know next to nothing about demonology. The mainline Protestant church of my youth did not acknowledge any sort of Satanic being, so the whole concept of demonic entities has been largely foreign to me.

I do talk a bit about angels in tarot readings because people ask about them. When people speak about angels, they mean varying things. For some, angels are their loved ones in spirit. For some, angels are God’s messengers on earth. For some, angels are the fearsome beasts of the Bible. For others, angels are the specifically named archangels.

The Christian Bible only names three angels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. Michael and Gabriel are also recognized in Islam and Judaism. The Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes seven archangels. Many scholars point to Iranian Zoroastrianism as the origin of these named archangels.

There are names and classifications for demons in Christianity, Hindu, and occultism.

The book of Abramelin includes named demons.  The Abramelin was translated into English by Macgregor Mathers, one of the founders of the Golden Dawn. Of course, A.E. Waite, designer of the Waite Smith Tarot, was a member of the Golden Dawn.

In 1856, Éliphas Lévi drew the ‘Sabbatic Goat’ image. This image has been associated with Baphomet; a deity allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar. Waite chose this image to become the Devil on his Major Arcana 15 card. This drawing was originally meant to represent a balance and integration of opposites.

This idea that this Devil image was not intended to be sinister, but rather to depict a balance of, and connection between, light and dark, human and animal, male and female, is an important point to consider. When we think of the Lovers we also think of that same balance and connection.

A.E. Waite did not name the angels in his tarot deck. Yet, many scholars assume the angel in Major Arcana 6, the Lovers, is Raphael, the angel associated with the element of Air.

Waite was clear that the Lovers image was to depict Adam and Eve before the Fall. We might say that the Devil is Adam and Eve after their banishment from Eden.

When we think of the Genesis myth in the context of these two cards, we again might think specifically of choices. In the Lovers, Adam is looking at Eve and Eve is looking at the angel. There is a choice between the physical and the spiritual. Once the choice resulted in banishment, new choices became available. In this new world of pain and toil, how should one live? In our life on earth, we are all yoked to many devils. Which devils do we chose, and how do we manage those realities?

When I think of an angel and a devil together, I have two immediate cultural references in my mind. One is a song by Dory Previn entitled “Angels and Devils the Following Day”. The song begins, “Loved I two men equally well, though they were different as heaven and hell. One was an artist, one drove a truck, one would make love, the other would…”

The song concludes with a preference for the devilish man over the angelic one, because the angelic one could not enjoy pleasure without suffering guilt. “And the one who was gentle hurt me much more than the one who was rough and made love on the floor”.

This very secular song offers me a way of considering the Lovers and the Devil, and their connection to one another. We might assume the Lovers to be desirable and the Devil to be undesirable. The Lovers might indicate a thoughtful choice, while the Devil might indicate an obsession. Yet, either could end up being hurtful, and either might turn out to be worthwhile. As with all of tarot, context is everything.

The other cultural reference is the “shoulder angel” who is always accompanied by a “shoulder devil”. We saw these characters in the cartoons we watched as children. The angel encouraged good decisions, while the devil enticed the character to give in to temptation.

This idea of a good angel and a bad angel is present in non-Biblical Christian writings as early as 150 AD. Perhaps most famous and influential is the play from the late 1500s, The Tragic History of Doctor Faustus.

There are similar paired characters in Islam, and in Japanese Buddhism.

This makes me think of an interesting meditation one could try when stuck in a decision-making process. One could, in meditation, think about the dilemma and consider Major Arcana 6 as the angel on one shoulder, and Major Arcana 15 as the devil on the other shoulder. What advice might each whisper into the ear?

Likewise, one could do a divination by using the Lovers to create one tarot spread position, such as “This is the advice of the Lovers”, and a second position created by the Devil, “This is the advice of the Devil”.

In those cartoons of our childhood, the Devil’s input is always ill-advised. We root for the character to listen to the angel at all costs. In tarot, there seems to be room for either character to offer wisdom, depending on the question and the situation.

It is easy to interpret Major Arcana 6 simply as a love relationship, and Major Arcana 15 simply as a negative attachment. Sometimes these simple card meanings will be appropriate in a reading.

Yet, these two cards offer opportunities for deep contemplation, meditation and magic, especially when we think of them as an angel and devil pair.

Some Thoughts About the Questions We Ask Tarot

In building tarot skills, learning to develop questions is often just as important as learning card interpretations and intuitive techniques. 

Those who read tarot for others, either professionally or casually, seem to fall into two groups. One group wants to honor their clients’ question exactly as it is asked.

The other group wants to feel free to rephrase the question, and this for a variety of reasons.

I fall into the second group. For me there are many reasons to rephrase a question. We might rephrase for clarity, or for ethics.

Beyond rephrasing, I believe that sometimes a question needs to be broken out into more than a single question.

I did a short text reading for someone recently that illustrated the need to break out questions, and the need for tarot readers to be hyper aware that the question that the seeker is asking may not be the question that needs answering.

The question my seeker asked me was if she should go do a particular thing. The cards were very clear that this thing needed to be done, so I said yes, she should do it.

She then told me that she had hired a person to do this thing, and what she was really asking was if she should be present while the person she hired was doing the thing, or if she should just let the person do it without her. Clearly, this is an entirely different question.

Adding to the situation is that the thing she had hired the person to do had a very charged energy related to her specifically, so her presence there could be problematic.

Had I considered her question more thoroughly and intuitively, or had I probed a bit to get her to make her question clearer, I might have known to break the question into several parts, as follows.

Does the thing need to be done?
If yes:

What happens if she does the thing?

What happens if she gets someone else to do the thing?

What happens if she is there while the thing is being done by the person she hired?

As it was, she eventually clarified the question, so I was ultimately able to give her the reading she needed, rather than the reading she originally requested.

This experienced served to remind me that a single question reading truly is only as good as the question asked. I need to be vigilant in making sure I am asking the right questions of the cards. For me, and perhaps for many readers, more questions in a session usually works better than fewer questions. The original single question is often more of a topic, or a line of inquiry, than an actual single question.

Seeking the Truth with Major Arcana 18, the Moon

Major Arcana 18, the Moon, has amongst its keywords, ‘confusion’. This is apt since this card can be extremely confusing when it appears in a reading.

Recently a friend reached out to me with this question about the Moon.

I am studying the Moon today and the keywords I have are very confusing: intuition, illusion, deception, darkness, reflection, fear, subconscious, dreams, difficulty, imagination, journey, spirituality, mystery, and psychic awareness. How do I decipher this card among all these unrelated descriptions?

I think it is fair to say that the Moon is one of the deepest and most confusing cards of the tarot. Our collective relationship with this card has changed over time. Go-to interpretations seem to vary depending on each reader’s cultural background.

I blame misogyny and fear of witchcraft for some of the negativity historically associated with this card. The moon in the sky has always been associated with feminine spiritual power. What was and is feared and persecuted by some as witchcraft is practiced and celebrated by others. This easily explains the dichotomy between deception and spirituality.

The moon in the sky ‘steals’ its light from the sun. The full moon has long been associated with insanity. The words ‘lunacy’ and ‘lunatic’ have ‘luna’ as their root word.

This makes sense, too. I often say that there is a thin line between psychic and psychotic.

There is a deeper and more provocative consideration with the Moon as well. We can see the twenty-one numbered cards of the Major Arcana as three groups of seven, and the final seven as the journey toward spiritual enlightenment.

The Devil is the gatekeeper. To begin this journey, we must see ourselves as we truly are. The Tower is the first step toward releasing false foundations. The Star allows us to heal. Then we approach the Moon.

The Moon represents spiritual truth. As we walk through the moonlight, we know that things do not appear as they do in the sunlight. Walking at night is fraught with danger. The path to spiritual truth is likewise fraught. There are cults, fundamentalism, and scams. There is egotism, and spiritual bypassing. There is greed and lust for power and control. There are many ways to be trapped as we pursue the spiritual truth and knowledge that leads to enlightenment.

The Moon shows us the path, and the Moon shows us that there are dangers along the path.

As part of this search for spiritual truth, the Moon speaks of intuition. How often intuition can be subverted in favor of fear and desire!

In a reading, the Moon may speak of this deep, dark, and important journey. Yet, as with all tarot cards, the Moon may speak of more mundane things as well. The Moon may appear to tell us of simpler hidden dangers, such as a false friend, or an infestation of termites.

The Moon may encourage our psychic development. The Moon may tell us to pay attention to our dreams. The Moon may encourage us to practice magick and witchcraft. The Moon may warn us about someone’s ill intentions toward us.

The Moon may simply make note of the confusing mysteries of life. Sometimes when the Moon appears regarding a particular department of life it is an invitation to dig deeper into that department to reveal something that has been hidden. The Moon might indicate that we are confused about something, or that something will turn out differently than we imagine.

The obvious question is this. When we see the Moon in a reading, how do we know whether to encourage psychic development, call an exterminator, or deeply explore hidden aspects of our romantic relationship?

As with all tarot interpretation, context is the key. We need to look at the spread position meaning, or the question that was asked. We need to consider the surrounding cards, and our intuitive reaction to the card. The person for whom the card is drawn also provides context. For a devout Catholic, the Moon may offer a suggestion to light a candle in church and pray for a loved one. When drawn for a practice Pagan, this card may be a directive to dance naked in the moonlight. When drawn for a person who is seeking consultation regarding a career situation, the Moon may indicate confusion about career goals and direction, or a coworker or boss who is stealing credit or sabotaging projects.

It is possible, too, that the Moon will have more than one message for us. We can interpret the same card multiple times in a reading.

Tarot study is different than tarot interpretation. Tarot study teaches us, in theory, to interpret the cards. Tarot study also gives us access to the spiritual lessons inherent in the cards. Our spiritual understand of each card can be expansive. That understanding can become part of the spiritual code by which we live every day. The interpretation of a card in a reading will likely not involve all aspects of those deeper spiritual lessons.

While the possibilities for interpretation of Major Arcana 18 are vast, there is a simple thing we can remember about this card. Whenever the Moon appears, we might consider that things may not be as they seem.

When we study the Moon, we learn vital lessons about our path to spiritual understanding. We learn to avoid cheap and easy answers that pose as simple spiritual truths. We learn that we must dig to expose the depths of dark murkiness pierced by glimpses of light that spiritual growth truly is.

Skeptical Resistance at the Tarot Table

This article is about client skepticism that sometimes happens during professional tarot readings. If you are a professional reader, or an aspiring tarot professional, you may find this helpful.

If you are a tarot client, or a prospective client, you may be interested in this exploration of skepticism from the point of view of a professional tarot reader.

Very often, tarot readings work best as a conversation. Sometimes clients are uncomfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings about the cards, or about our interpretation of the cards. Sometimes this discomfort is based on a trauma history that is appearing in the cards. Sometimes the client is truly skeptical of tarot readings. This can cause a client to be resistant to the tarot reading process.

Skepticism at the tarot table often seems rude and off-putting to the reader. We have all had a client fold their arms and snidely say, “You’re the psychic, you tell me.”

Another oft-heard skeptical statement is, “Well, that is true of everyone, isn’t it?” This is particularly infuriating when it follows a very specific observation.

Some clients do not want to say anything at all during a tarot reading session, in order to avoid influencing the reading.

It is often hard to immediately discern whether a client’s resistance is borne of their genuine hurt, fear, or trauma, or whether their behavior is entirely based on their lack of buy-in to our process. Either way, that resistance can cause a reading to go bad quickly and irreparably.

Learning how to handle client resistance with grace, humor, and dignity, and to nonetheless give a great session, is an important skill for every reader to develop. It has taken me years to learn this skill. After much frustration, here are some things I have figured out.

We need to stop shaming our clients for being skeptical. I know readers who refuse to read for ‘non-believers’. To me, this makes no sense. How can someone believe in what I can do for them if they have never experienced it? Tarot, itself, is not a thing to believe in, nor to disbelieve. The value of the reading is determined by the skill of the reader, not the cards themselves.

There are many reasons for a new client to be skeptical. There are more scammer psychics than there are legitimate readers. There are also plenty of well-intentioned tarotists who went professional way too quickly and simply have not acquired the skills to give an impressive reading. It is very likely that your skeptical client has had a bad experience with a tarot reading, or that they know someone who has.

We need to understand that clients may be acting with resistance and skepticism because of their own personal issues. If they come to us with skepticism, they might be shocked when we share their painful truth with them. That shock can show up as resistance,

No matter what, we cannot make their resistance and skepticism be about us. We, as readers, cannot take their attitude personally. It took me years to learn this!

These days, when a client displays skepticism, I praise and encourage their critical eye. Right away, this improves the energy between us and sets the stage for a good experience. This is a huge shift from the days when client skepticism felt like a personal assault on my integrity.

The job of a tarot reader is to give a reading that is thought-provoking, inspiring, comforting, clarifying, and perhaps, entertaining. Skeptical resistance at the tarot table does indeed make that job harder. This is for three primary reasons.

The first is energetic. When a client crosses their arms and states the intention, either internally or aloud, that they “don’t want to give us anything”, they close off their energy and make themselves harder to read. This feels to me a lot like going to a hair salon and asking the stylist to give you a great new do, but instead of sitting in the chair, you prefer to stand on your head.

If you want me to read you, why are you intentionally making it harder?

I think they believe that if we can do the reading while they are resisting being read, we prove our talent to them.

Here’s the solution I have found. Rather than correcting their posture or admonishing them to open their energy, I remember that I am indeed a good reader, and I can get through the barriers they have imposed. Sure, they are making me work harder. Rather than resenting or ridiculing this, I accept it, and do the work.

The second reason skeptical resistance makes our job harder is that their attitude can shake our confidence. This is entirely on us, and not on them. We cannot make our clients responsible for our own confidence.

The solution here is both energetic and psychological. We very naturally meet their resistance with our own resistance. Instead, we need to breathe and allow the energy of the reading to flow regardless of their words and demeanor. We need to stay in our confidence and meet their resistance with acceptance. This keeps strong both the energy of the reading, and our confidence in our abilities.

The third reason skeptical resistance makes our job harder is that, often, we rely on the client to provide the context in which we interpret the cards. Since the cards can mean so many different things, individually and in groups, we often look to the client to help us understand what we are see. We can see the energies around the client, the client helps us understand why those energies are present.

If the client does not want to contribute to that conversation, we have an obligation to continue. We must rely on our intuition to supply the context, and on our skill in delivery to make the reading understandable.

This is not most readers’ favorite way to work. Yet, we should be able to perform this way. If this is how our client wants us to work, we should still be able to give them a solid reading, even without their verbal input.

There is an added benefit to us here. I have, on several occasions, been asked by a client to deliver a full reading with no input from them. This means that I simply tune in psychically and read the cards, trusting that what I am saying makes sense to them.

Each time I have been asked to perform this way, the feedback at the end has been magnificent.

These days, when someone says, “You’re the psychic, you tell me”, rather than becoming angry or resentful, I say “okay, fair enough!” And I tell them.

Would it be easier to do the reading in a more conversational format? Of course.

Might there be times that the information derived from a more conversational format would be more nuanced and complete? Sure.

Yet, sometimes when we just dive into a reading with courage and confidence, we can come up with extremely profound and helpful information.

There are ways the skeptical and resistant client can actually help us find our confidence. When we are forced to do the reading in less-than-ideal circumstances, when we must go with our gut rather than with guidance from the client, we learn to trust our intuition, and our knowledge of the cards.

When we disabuse ourselves of the notion that skepticism equals disrespect, we open ourselves to a better experience for our clients, and for ourselves.

The Importance of Nuance in Tarot and in Life

This week I took a deep dive into the word ‘nuance’. According to Merriam Webster, nuance is “sensibility to, awareness of, or ability to express delicate shadings (as of meaning, feeling, or value)”.

Tarotists like me will often use this word to describe a particularly thoughtful and accurate tarot reading. We also use this word to advocate for our specific tarot reading techniques. For example, we might say that reading reversals offers a more nuanced reading.

My dive into the concept of nuance began as I was contemplating cognitive dissonance and conspiracy theory. Of late, it has concerned me that many people find wild, highly unlikely and easily disproven conspiracy theories to be a comforting alternative to provable and studied facts.

I have decided that the reason this is happening is that people are comfortable in dichotomies. People want to divide everything into good or bad, like or dislike. We want to think that something is helpful, or it is not. Something is dangerous, or it is not. The ‘is/is not’ binary is easy for people to understand and embrace.

Yet, the world is full of things that are hurtful and helpful at the same time. There are things that can be dangerous to some people, and not to others.

If we are unable to think in nuances, we have no ability to understand our world as it is.

Nuanced thinking means we have to wrap our brain around difficult concepts. For example, pharmaceutical companies have done hurtful, dangerous, greedy things. At the same time, those same companies have provided products that are literally lifesaving.

Here is another one. Our history is filled with shameful violence. And, our history is full of bravery and idealism.

We cannot truly understand our world, and life itself, until we can move out of dichotomous thinking and into nuanced thinking. The same is true of tarot.

When we work with a tarot deck, read a tarot card, or perform a tarot reading, we are best when we stay away from anything that makes us say ‘always’ or ‘never’.

We need to take dichotomous questions and find nuanced answers.

For example, suppose the question is, “Will my new job be good?” You pull two cards and get the Sun and the Three of Swords.

The answer may be that the job will be great in some ways, and difficult in others. It is not only good, or bad. In a way, it is both.
To continue the reading, you can divide that into two questions and pull cards for each.

In what ways will this job be great?

In what ways will this job be difficult?

From there, you can foster proactivity by asking other questions of the cards.

What can I do to make sure I succeed at this job?

What do I need to know about this job in order to make it a good experience?

To bring nuanced thinking to tarot, we need to be nuanced about the questions we ask, as well as about the way we interpret the cards.

We need to understand that, in life, very few things are all one way or another.

A good exercise is to practice using tarot to describe a situation or a person in the following manner. Ask, “What is true about this job?” Pull several cards, maybe as many as five. Interpret each card as a specific aspect of the job. Then, see if the cards go together in a way that gives you an overall feel, or additional information.

This exercise will teach you to read qualities of a person or situation that can include authentic nuance and mixed messaging. You are not looking for an up or down, you are looking for the nuanced truth.

Here is an example. When performing this exercise about my job as a full-time tarot professional, I pulled the following five cards.

Justice reversed: My job is literally illegal in many places in the world. I am often judged unfairly because this is my job. I cannot get the same credit rates or other business privileges as most businesses do.
I often work with people who feel they are treated unfairly in their current situation. A huge part of my job is to help people heal from unfair treatment, and to seek out situations that are more favorable.

Page of Cups: I must always deliver messages that speak to the heart, from the heart. I must always be learning, and helping my clients learn. I must be a bearer of loving messages from spirit.

Judgement reversed: I always have projects to finish, and new projects to begin. There is never a feeling of being finished with something. I always have deadlines and due dates to consider, classes to plan, books to write, and clients to see.

Seven of Wands: Much like Judgement reversed, this card reminds me that my work requires a great deal of multi-tasking. There is also a sense of my services being in demand, and my need to maintain my schedule. The Seven of Wands can also speak of the boundaries that good ethics and good self-care require.

The Ten of Pentacles: I have built a strong and successful business over time. My business involves family members. My psychic skills are ancestral. Many of my clients and students feel like family. I am in an office that feels like home to me, my clients, and my students.

When I look at these five cards as a group, a few things strike me. The two Major Arcana cards, Justice and Judgement, both reversed, speak of the long and difficult journey to build a legal and legitimate business as a tarot reader. I am called to do it, I am doing it successfully, but it is an ongoing and sometimes difficult process.

The numerology of the Minor Arcana cards is Seven, Ten, and Page. As higher numbers, these cards speak of my lengthy journey, and how far I have come.

The Page and the Ten speak of my love for my work. The Seven speaks of how far I will go to defend my work, and to protect my ability to run my business successfully.

When we look at the nuances of this five-card reading, can you see how silly it is to try to determine if my job is good or bad? Clearly, there are significant challenges here, and, just as clearly, there is a significant commitment to do this work, and significant enjoyment and success.

When we move away from thinking in binaries such as good/bad and like/dislike, and move into nuanced thinking, we become better at tarot, and at life.

Five Things to Help You Find Your Niche as a Tarot Pro

I had a great conversation recently with fellow tarotist Mitchell Osborn about the differences between tarot pros, and how we each need to find our own way, our own niche. I joked that it sounded like a good blog topic, so here we are.

It seems that many small business owners struggle to find a niche. Many business owners struggle to pronounce the word correctly (it is ‘neesh’, not ‘nich’). It may be that what I will share here is helpful to many solopreneurs, rather than only professional diviners.

Much of what I will share in this post involves concepts from my book for tarot pros, Fortune Stellar: What Every Tarot Professional Needs to Know. Much has changed in the tarot world, and the world of technology, since I first wrote Fortune Stellar in 2011 and released a revised Second Edition in 2017. Yet, the basic concepts of what it is to be a tarot pro, and what it takes to have a successful tarot business, remain unchanged.

What does it mean to find your niche? The answer to that question, is, in a way, as unique as you are. It might mean finding your tarot voice, and how you market yourself. It might have to do with reaching your preferred clientele. It might involve the venues in which you work, or the specific services you offer.

One of the best and worst things about being a tarot professional is that there is no single business model. This means we all must struggle to find our own way. Yet, it also means we can each build a business that truly serves our needs and allows us to serve our clients in the best ways possible.

Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

This is the very first thing you need to know. You may be a great teacher, but not have the time and energy to teach in-person classes. You may be a great photographer, but not have the patience to build an Instagram presence. There are very few marketing tools or offerings that are essential to your success. You must do some things, but you do not have to do all the things.

Define Your Goals

What is the purpose of your tarot business? Do you want to ultimately make a full-time salary, or are you looking to have a great side hustle? Are you here primarily for your spiritual enrichment? How much time and energy can you devote to marketing, and to providing services? Beyond that, how do you define success? What needs to happen for you to feel that you are successful in your endeavors? These are the questions you must be able to answer truthfully for yourself.

Things Change with Time

Once you have found your preferred way to market, your preferred place to work and the services you want to offer, you are all set, right? Well, yes and no. You are all set for now. Things change. Technology changes. Trends change. Your own needs and abilities might change. You must be willing to reassess, and you must change with the times.

Only You Can Know What is Right for You

You can read books, talk with peers, attend conferences, take classes, and work with coaches and mentors. In fact, you should do some of these things regularly. Yet, at the end of the day, you are the best judge of what is right for you. Do not let anyone shame you or scold you. Anyone who says there is only one correct way to do this is unequivocally wrong.

Find the Cross-section of Excellence and Enjoyment

To find your perfect niche, you must figure out where you excel, and what you enjoy. The places where those two things meet are the things on which you must focus to build your success.

The Hierophant as a Sacred Revealer

Images from Spiral Tarot copyright 1997 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. Used with persmission.

I have written about the Hierophant a few times over my years as a blogger. Yet, there always seems to be more to say about this multi-faceted Major Arcana card.

I wrote a poem for the Hierophant as part of my 78 Poems Project.

I complained about certain tarot decks that attempt to change the Hierophant in a 2014 blogpost emphatically entitled “Stop Fixing the Hierophant”.

Most recently, I wrote about the Hierophant and its numerological counterpart, Temperance. That was in January, in honor of the fact that 2021 is the year of the Hierophant.

Over the past week the Hierophant appeared in two client readings in deeply appropriate ways; ways that make me appreciate the most traditional interpretations of the Hierophant archetype.

This caused me to begin an ongoing conversation amongst my YouTube channel members, and, of course, to write yet another blogpost about Major Arcana 5, the Hierophant.

The word ‘hierophant’ is Greek in origin. That translates as ‘sacred reveal’.  I have always been struck by the similarity to the word ‘hierarchy’. That similarity is not accidental. ‘Hierarchy’ is also of Greek origin, meaning ‘sacred ruler’.

The Hierophant is Key 5 in the Major Arcana. That places the card in the first seven numbered cards, which I see as the lessons of the physical plane. That means that, to me, cards 1-7, Magician through Chariot, each teach us what we need to know to live well on the planet. When we see these seven cards together as a story, we see our journey as we learn these basic life skills and lessons of human existence.

We know the Hierophant is tricky simply because the card is number Five. In tarot, all the Five (5) cards deal with expansion. That is, moving out of the safety of the comfort zone, breaking out of the confines of what we know, and moving into something more. Before we get to that something more there is a moment of unsurety, of conflict, and of fear. The Hierophant encompasses these processes and feelings.

The Hierophant is related to Taurus, and therefore the element of Earth. Although sacred, the Hierophant is grounded and connected to the earth, and not always in the best way. In this we see the materialism often associated with religious institutions. That Taurus energy can reflect the Hierophant’s stubborn adherence to outmoded traditions.

Archetypally, the Hierophant is the Pope. In Roman Catholicism, the Pope is God’s appointed representative on earth.

In early tarot decks, Major Arcana 5 was literally named ‘The Pope’. In many tarot decks we see the Hierophant in the regalia of Catholic religious hierarchy.

Some modern decks show the Hierophant as a religious leader from other traditions. For example, in World Spirit Tarot the Hierophant is an Incan priest conducting a ritual.

The problem with the Hierophant is the problem with any religious authority. Religious authorities may be loving spiritual mentors, teachers, healers, and guides. Or they may misuse their power, misunderstand their doctrine, and abuse their congregants.

Key 5 in tarot represents the doctrine and dogma as well as those who teach it. Operationally, in a tarot reading, the Hierophant can speak of the ‘priest’ of any ‘church’, or the ‘church’ itself. The Hierophant is both the authority and the doctrine. The Hierophant can represent a doctor, and medicine, or an attorney, and the law.

The Hierophant is the boss. That means the Hierophant can represent a business owner. I often say that the Hierophant who owns a business likes to be the boss. The Hierophant reversed who owns a business doesn’t like having a boss tell them what to do. That subtle energy difference can be quite apparent in readings for entrepreneurs.

This brings me, finally, to the two recent readings in which the Hierophant figured prominently.

The first reading was for a business owner who was vaguely dissatisfied with the way her business was going. I did my usual eleven-card Celtic Cross. In this spread Card Two is the atmosphere around the client. The Crossing Card, or the Challenge Card, is Card Three, and is placed to cross Card Two.

In this reading the Hierophant was reversed in that second position, referencing the atmosphere around the client. The Hierophant was crossed by the Star. I immediately interpreted this as her dissatisfaction in the way her business was going.

As we got a little further into the reading, it became clear that those two cards, the Star crossing the reversed Hierophant, had an additional, more traditional, more hard-hitting and more important interpretation.

My client had been speaking with a friend who had experienced a lot of dogmatic spiritual and financial abuse within institutional structures such as Islam, Catholicism, and some New Age and yoga-based traditions. Every spiritual organization this person had been involved in turned out to be patriarchal, rigid, and personally abusive of her. This had caused my client’s friend to turn away from any possibility of spirituality, and spiritual healing. All of this weighed heavily on my client.

Clearly, the Hierophant reversed was the need to leave all patriarchal abusive traditions behind. The Crossing Card, the Challenge, was the Star. My client and her friend needed true spiritual healing, true connection to grace, and an end to fundamentalist abuse.

In a reading, tarot cards can mean so many different things. It is poignant when a card shows up so clearly and powerfully in a traditional archetypal interpretation.

Just a few days later I was reading for a tarot student who was raised in an oppressive religion. She has left that religion though still dances the fine line with her indoctrinated family. She is now finding spiritual healing and inspiration through tarot reading, Reiki and magic. Obviously, she must hide this from most of her family. Occasionally, she still feels a tug of guilt for abandoning the religion of her family and her childhood.

In this reading, the Hierophant crossed the High Priestess. The meaning was clear. She needs to honor her inner priestess, her inner wisdom, her inner magic, and her intuition. The Hierophant as a crossing card was challenging her to resist the feelings of guilt instilled by the doctrine of her oppressive church and family.

We are in a time in history when many are polarized and divided by their belief systems. Many are indoctrinated in dogma, both spiritual and political, that is illogical and hurtful. It is no wonder the Hierophant is finding his way into some powerful readings. It makes sense that the Star and the High Priestess appeared to challenge the Hierophant. These feminine cards bring the healing that comes with direct and intuitive spiritual connection to Source. They offered needed messages of feminist spiritual empowerment.

The Hierophant is named as the keeper and revealer of sacred truth. Even when he represents a perversion of what is sacred, he is still a sacred revealer, and still points the way to truth.

Three Ways to Learn a Tarot Card

Very often when we study tarot, we are focused on how we will interpret a card, or a group of cards, in a reading. We want to learn how to answer a question with a card. That is, in fact, the essence of tarot reading.

Yet, interpretive tarot is only a portion of how we can encounter tarot, contemplate tarot, and understand tarot. The more ways we have to work with a card, the easier tarot interpretation becomes.

When we study tarot in a broader, more contemplative way, we learn from tarot, as well as learning about tarot. In time, it begins to feel that tarot is teaching us. Tarot can teach us about life, and about ourselves. Tarot can also teach us new ways to work with, and interpret, the cards in divination.

It is never too late in our tarot journey to learn something new about a card. The more possibilities we add to our tarot vocabulary, the more our intuition will have to call upon when we see a card in action.

The more ways we learn to use tarot, the more helpful tarot will be in our lives.

Interpretation in Divination

Interpretation in divination is what most people think of when they think of tarot study. We may memorize classic interpretations and keywords. We may study astrological and Kabalistic associations.

In my practice as a reader and a teacher I have discovered that finding the stories within the numerical order of the cards can be an effective way to understand and remember the classic card meanings. Remembering the elemental and numerological associations for each card is a helpful way to enhance a divinatory practice.

It is perfectly acceptable and advisable for a student to perform even large and complex readings by consulting the book, or several books, to reference the classic interpretations and the artist’s intentions. Part of the skill of a tarot reading is in extrapolating the classic meaning into the actual life situation. One does not need to have the cards memorized in order to do this.

Spiritual Lessons

Tarot is a book of spiritual wisdom in picture form. Each card, and each section of cards, can teach us a spiritual lesson. These are lessons that we learn in our study of the cards, and that stick with us throughout our lives. Sometimes in a reading a card will remind us of its spiritual lesson, and that lesson will become part of the reading. Yet, the spiritual lesson we take from a card may not be involved at all in a particular divination.

For example, from the Wheel of Fortune we might learn to accept the ups and downs of life which are beyond our control. Yet, in a particular reading, the Wheel of Fortune might reference a trip to a casino, or reuniting with an ex lover.

It is a good practice to think of the lessons of each card and carry those lessons in your heart. It is also helpful to think about the lessons of the cards in sections. For example, what lessons do we learn from the suit of Swords, or from the Aces, or from the Sevens? Tarot divides into natural sections, and each section carries its own lessons.

Cognitive Contemplation

There are many great tarot exercises which involve choosing a tarot card, not at random, but cognitively. Whether working from the full deck or a small section thereof, to choose a card based on your knowledge, the image, or the way it makes you feel, helps you learn about the cards and about yourself.

For example, if you choose five cards at random and look at them all, you might challenge yourself to decide which one of these cards expresses something you are feeling at the moment. That process of contemplating all the cards, choosing one, and think about how that card applies to you is immensely powerful.

You might do the same sort of exercise choosing from just the Majors, or from just a particular suit.

This sort of exercise leads into the practice of tarot magick, where we choose a card, or a few cards, to bring a particular energy into our lives. We might also choose a card which expresses an energy we want to banish from our lives.

Many who do not know much about tarot, and some who do, often focus only on the process of divination when studying and practicing tarot.  The less we limit the cards, the more we learn about their power to teach us, to inform us, and to change the energy around us. Then, we are able to truly harness and use all the power of tarot in our lives.

Pivot from the Anxious Question to Healing

A tarot reading, whether professional, casual, or self-reading, is very often about getting some questions answered, or some specific areas of concern addressed.

One of my favorite kinds of tarot reading is the one that begins without a question, when we are open to the wisdom of the universe. Even then, such a reading will usually produce questions that we need to contemplate both with tarot and within our own hearts.

One type of question that most ethical tarot readers worry about, and that scammer tarot readers use to their benefit, is the predictive questioning that is produced by trauma and fear.

There are some tarot clients, and some questions, that seem to want to repeat over and over again.

Many of us have found ourselves turning to our cards, day in and day out, asking the same question. Sometimes we even shuffle again and repeat the question in the same session.

This is not always a bad thing.

There can be times when a slight rephrasing of the question can make a repeated question worthwhile.

There are times when new information makes it worthwhile to ask a question a second or third time.

There are times when having the cards repeat an answer over and over can help us finally accept an unwelcome truth.

However, there are times when repeating the same question can lead to psychic addiction. There are times when working with tarot might increase anxiety rather than relieve it.

Many professional readers will refuse to read twice on the same question within a short period of time. Sometimes, refusing the reading may be the best policy for that reader in that situation.

Yet, there is technique that can be helpful. This technique won’t work for every reader, every client, or every question. A great tarot reader, either professional or casual, needs to have a lot of techniques in their toolbox.

Sometimes the anxious question is about love; very often about the hope for a reunion with an ex, or the reform of a partner who makes regular and repeated bad choices.

What happens when the constant question is “Will we get back together?” or “Will my partner start to treat me better?”

In a situation where we have worked with the same question several times, and the answer is consistent and not hopeful, why does a person continue to ask that question over and over?

Sometimes, as we said earlier, it is because they need time to process and accept the truth.

Does hearing the same answer over and over again help them do that? For some people, yes. For others, and especially in the professional setting, this can be expensive, frustrating and unhealthy.

Yet, the reader still has an opportunity to foster healing in a situation like this. With gentle and firm skill, sometimes the reader can pivot the question to get to the heart of the problem, and help the client discover a real path for healing.

Even in self-reading, if there is real willingness to heal, this pivoting technique can work.

The pivoting technique relies on the idea that there is something deeper causing the client to stay stuck in their thinking. It is not that they are pigheaded or blinded by love.

They are hanging on to their fantasy, or their version of this story, or their fear, for a reason.

The trick is to ask of the cards a question that will help you understand what that underlying fear or belief is.

Try asking the cards, “Why am I (or why is this person) so stuck on this situation?”

Pull a few cards and see what you see. This can very often take the reading in a direction with new questions that bring new hope.

Sometimes the client themselves will reveal a clue. They may say, “He’s a really great guy.” Then, you have an opportunity to ask the cards a question such as, “What sort of person is he?” You may discover a way to help your client, or yourself, understand that he really is not that great at all. Once that belief system is dismantled; healing can begin.

Even in self-reading, you can use tarot to examine your assumptions, and the things you believe to be fact. When you use the cards to make this examination, you may find the need and the ability to change your thinking and begin healing.

Tarot can be very good at revealing the flaw in our thinking. For the person who desperately wants a reunion with their ex, and the reader sees no reunion possible, there is a different kind of question that can break that cycle.

Ask the cards what the relationship would look like if they did get back together. Very often, the reason for the breakup is apparent in that answer. When the cards reveal that a second go-round would be nothing but more of the same heartache, healing and change can become more welcome.

There is a belief among some tarot readers and clients that the only fair question at the tarot table is the question that brought the client to the table. I believe that a good reader should know to ask the deeper questions to get the answers the client didn’t know they needed.

The key is to be quick enough, smart enough, and intuitive enough to ask the right questions of the cards at the right times. This creates an opportunity to pivot from anxiety and fear to healing and hope.

In the end, a great tarot reading can almost always provide healing and hope, even when there is no possibility that the original hope will be fulfilled.