The face of tarot is always changing, growing and evolving. Until Eden Gray’s books in the 1960s and 1970s, tarot was thought to be only the domain of occultists and those who possessed some secret mystical knowledge.

Eden Gray suggested that ordinary people could enjoy tarot and find compassion, answers and spirituality within it.

Mary K. Greer carried that torch forward, encouraging us to read for ourselves and find healing in the process.

Without modern tarotists like Gray and Greer tarot would not be what it is today.

Now, there are readers, even professionals, who shy away from “predictive” readings, focusing instead on the more psychological and spiritual interpretations of the cards. There are others who are even uncomfortable with the basic divinatory aspects of tarot reading such as using the cards to check in on situations that cannot possibly be known to the reader by ordinary means.

I believe in the psychological and spiritual aspects of tarot. I believe that a tarot reading that does not include these components is less than what is possible. I believe that tarot helps us tap into our subconscious mind. I believe that tarot can reveal to us the behavioral patterns that no longer serve us, and offer solutions to help us change those patterns.

I also believe that tarot helps us communicate with the higher forces that drive the universe. With tarot we communicate with all that is Spirit. Again, if a reading does not include that sort of wisdom, it is less than what it could be.

But I also know this. As much as we all appreciate the opportunity to heal, understand ourselves better and receive spiritual direction, we all have real needs – anxieties, curiosities, options, heartache – and tarot can help us here as well.

Tarot is a practical tool as well as a mystical one. Tarot can show us our best options and point us in the directions that serve us best. Tarot can help us understand the people around us. Tarot can find ways for us to solve our most mundane problems.

By nature, tarot is a tool of divination, and divination is the process of making the unknowable known.

But what, then, about future predictions? Some readers are more comfortable predicting the future than others. Some readers feel that they can see into the future without question, and present their predictions as solid fact.

Since we all have different views about fate and destiny, we all have different views about our ability to predict the future.

Here’s how future predictions work for me. Some things really do seem to be set in stone. Many other things are totally dependent on the choices we make today. Some aspects about the future are not yet determined, and therefore completely unpredictable. And there are some things we just shouldn’t know.

I have found tarot to be an amazing tool to help me and my clients prepare for what is coming, but I do not believe future predictions are the only or primary use of tarot.

We are constantly discovering new ways that tarot can benefit us. We are constantly able to improve our psychic skills and our understanding of the cards.

As long as the work we do with tarot, either professionally or personally, is helpful and healing, there are no aspects of tarot we need to leave unexplored.

Who know what uses the next generation of tarotists will find for the cards?

What do I know is this. When I approach the cards without limiting what I might do with them, all things are possible.

There is one only limitation I set on myself and on the cards. The information I get and give must be for the highest good of all. Practical solutions, creative options and common sense are some of the greatest gifts we get from tarot. Coping strategies for difficult times are helpful. Dire gloom-and-doom predictions with no options, solutions or spiritual perspective are not.