When There's a Shadow on the Queen's Throne

I’ve noticed an unfortunate social phenomenon in the world of local-level pro diviners.

That I’ve only seen this phenomenon amongst local readers in metaphysical shops and psychic fairs in various cities, versus readers with national and international businesses, may be significant. It’s possible that, without mitigation, the condition I see may preclude many readers’ ability to rise to the top of their game, even if their skills are remarkable.

I have to describe this phenomenon in a way that is gender-biased and heteronormative. I apologize for this, and recognize that the circumstance I am going to describe could potentially happen between people of any gender.

I think there is a reason my experience of this phenomenon is limited to the husband-and-wife gender dynamic, and that reason isn’t pretty – it’s a reflection of our current social norms that still reflect age-old traditions of misogyny.

What I want to discuss is a certain disrespectful and unsupportive tone I have seen the husbands of female professional diviners take in regards to their wives’ psychic work.

This is in sharp contrast to the many spouses (including my own), who support their partner’s careers and good naturedly put up with the many unusual inconveniences that come with the territory.

I’m not talking about a husband’s strong religious objection to their wife’s tarot reading. In cases like that, a woman almost always ultimately has to choose between honoring her marriage and honoring her own spiritual nature.

What I’m talking about is the husband who makes no obvious impediment to his wife’s work, but also does nothing to help, nor to show support.

Worse, these otherwise-good-guys subtly ridicule their beloveds’ aspirations, goals and skills.

Sometimes even seemingly supportive husbands can manage to marginalize their divining wives by confusing a career with a hobby, being patronizing toward clients and students, or de-prioritizing her important career responsibilities.

Professional divination is a difficult (though rewarding) career. To be successful you must be talented, studied, diligent and fearless. You must believe in yourself and your calling one hundred percent. Having your most intimate partner whispering their lack of belief in you and lack of support for what you are doing makes it harder to believe in yourself, and to muster the courage you need to successfully market yourself.

Sales and marketing is perhaps the hardest part of a professional diviner’s career. I often joke that if we had wanted to be sales execs we would have studied marketing in college and would be a lot wealthier now.

Typically, professional mystics don’t have the budget to hire an agent, or a PR person, or a marketing person. We have to do these tasks ourselves, even though marketing is usually not in our comfort zone.

So much of marketing and sales is tonal. Typically, women who experience disrespect and mockery (even good-natured) at home take a somewhat apologetic and self-deprecating tone when they talk about their work. Even when the words are perfect, their tone communicates that they do not believe in themselves fully.

Psychic work, by its very nature, requires a certain amount of belief. It is hard to get a client to believe in you if your tone says you don’t believe in yourself.

Why do these otherwise decent husbands disrespect their wives’ choices, skills and beliefs so often, and so easily?

It may be fear of being outside the social norm. It may be concern for the stressors of an entrepreneurial career. It may simply be a lack of imagination.

In some cases, it seems to me that what really scares non-metaphysical husbands of witchy wives is the possibility that their wives might know too much about them. Poo-pooing the wisdom of an oracle wife may be an act of self-protection.

Years ago, men feared that their wives might be witches, and often blamed their impotence, illnesses and infidelity on sorcery.

I wonder if, on some subconscious level, this fear continues in our culture. I wonder if less-than- supportive husbands of female diviners really do, on some level, fear that their wives may have some knowledge or power that they do not. Perhaps their mockery and dismissal of their wives’ abilities and interests is borne of that archaic fear of witchcraft.

What can you do if this is your story – if you want to expand as a professional diviner but are married to a decent guy who marginalizes your skills and your calling, and thereby, you?

If you want to keep your marriage, you need to start by agreeing to love him anyway, and to appreciate all the things that work in your partnership.

However, if you want to keep and grow your tarot career, you need to shield yourself against the subtle-but-constant assault on your character and intelligence.

You need to recognize how unintentionally damaging your husband’s attitude can be to your own self-confidence, and thereby your ability to market yourself effectively.

You might try calmly explaining to your husband that his behavior is, in fact, an attack on your character and a demonstrated lack of respect, and you are sure he doesn’t intend that.

Whether or not that is effective, there are things you can do to mitigate the damage.

First, don’t take the things he says, or his energy toward your divination, personally.

Secondly, you must marginalize his views on this topic in the same way he marginalizes yours.

Even itoday, there is something in western society that says that in a male-female partnership, the opinion of the man is more valid the opinion of the woman. Somehow, in many castles, the king is still more important than the queen. Whatever the gender dynamic of your marriage may be, in the arena of your psychic work, you cannot let that happen. You must not let yourself feel marginalized, and you must yourself marginalize his dismissive attitudes toward your work.

Third, you must surround yourself with supportive people.

At many conferences, classes and events we get to meet the supportive spouses of our most successful diviners. Many of us are lucky to have partners who coach us, drive us, and act as our chefs, roadies, tech support and homemakers as we build our careers.

Single diviners, those with busy spouses, and those with unsupportive partners have to learn to ask for help. That’s harder to do if you have already been taught by your unsupportive partner that what you are doing isn’t valuable.

This is probably the most important step to mitigate your situation if you are a diviner with career aspirations and a husband who just doesn’t get it.

Know the value of your work, and surround yourself with others who know the value of your work. Don’t let your husband’s devaluing of what you do into your own field of vision.

As you become more successful, you might earn your husband’s respect because money talks, hard work is impressive, and what we do really is admired by many people.   If that happens, it’s a good thing. Don’t expect his change of heart, and don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t happen. As long as you respect yourself and your work, you can be successful without his cheerleading.

Women constantly need to remind the world that we are powerful, and that we cannot, and will not, be dismissed or sidelined.

If you are a divining woman married to a man who marginalizes your skills and abilities, you must find your own internal source of inner support, faith and confidence.

Perhaps, to be the diviners we want to be, we must all find the strength to stand in our own power, no matter what exists in our lives to make that difficult.

Performance Tarot: Three Exercises to Help the Tarot Pro Nail it on Stage

Not every professional tarotist considers themself an entertainer. Tarot work can happen in a variety of venues, and with many different goals.

Over the past two and a half decades I have kept my own tarot career as varied as possible. I love deep, personal, introspective readings. I also love entertaining with tarot.

What’s amazing is that, even when the goal of your particular tarot gig is entertainment, there can still be enlightenment and insight each time you pull a card.

What is tarot performance, versus tarot reading? Tarot performance can include stage-work, that is, doing readings on a stage in a gallery setting. Tarot performance can include doing quick live readings for callers on radio and television. Street readers and festival readers are always “on stage”. Tarot performance can also include working the cattle call at a corporate party with enough attitude that people gather around your table to watch, and be part of, the show.

I am sure that some tarotists reading this are already cringing. Because there is so much fraud and chicanery associated with tarot and psychic work, many readers avoid thinking about their showmanship. They are afraid that developing a good stage presence might be too similar to those who use cheap tricks to take advantage of gullible people, or those who simply don a spectacular costume and give obviously fake readings in a party setting.

I’ve had some occasion to mull over this topic of tarot performance recently. I started 2016 with a very special Psychic Gallery performance in a Unity Church. Unlike tarot stage shows I’ve done in nightclubs, this required a very delicate balance. On one hand, I had to be entertaining enough to keep people’s attention for the two-hour performance. On the other hand, these were spiritual people who were there, not for an entertaining evening out, but in hope of receiving life-changing oracular information.

Let’s contrast that with the gig I did Wednesday night. Like most tarot performers, I occasionally work with talent agencies and event production companies to provide entertainment at corporate functions and large family parties.

This was an employee party as part of a sales seminar. The party had a circus theme. There were jugglers, carnival music, a strong man, and three tarot readers. The other two readers seemed a bit bewildered at the gig. Our clients for the evening were primarily men who had no interest in divination, tarot reading or spirituality. These are people who would never typically have readings, or find value in the process.

My fellow readers certainly gave their share of readings over the evening, but a crowd of people gathered around my table. What was the difference? In the corporate party setting, I do quick, hard-hitting readings, but I do them with a great deal of showmanship. I turn those who try to heckle me into my biggest supporters. I say true things about my sitter loudly enough that his colleagues can hear. It’s all in good fun, and it is fun.

At the same time, I am able to give real advice and insight to those who might not have been able to hear it before I developed that rapport with them.

I think, among some tarotists, there is erroneous belief that tarot reading can’t be both entertaining and deep, or that a reader with showmanship is likely to lack substance.

I encourage my students to develop their stage presence as well as their intuition and card understanding. Here are three simple exercises that can help you find your inner star for the next time you find an opportunity to take tarot to a stage.

1. Practice giving deep, involved one-card readings.  The more information you can quickly pull from one card, the more easily you will be able to read in performance mode.

2. Learn ways to interpret the cards in the context of personality. Nothing is more entertaining than having one’s personality accurately described by a stranger in front of one’s friends.

3. Learn to pick out the most important points. Practice by using a large spread, but giving your interpretation of that spread in under three minutes.

Whether performance tarot is happening on a stage, on a street corner or festival, on an FM radio morning show or at a party, it will always have a few things in common. Performance tarot will highlight your personality, and your ability to immediately connect with people. Performance tarot will utilize your ability to read the cards quickly and accurately. Performance tarot will call in your intuition, and allow Spirit to speak through you in ways you might not have expected. Finally, performance tarot will disarm your audience with entertainment, and then astound them with your ability to speak their truth.

Performance tarot isn’t for every reader, but if you think it may be for you, don’t be afraid to use these exercises to help develop your performance tarot skills.

Excellence and Confidence

There is a strange dichotomy in my professional field. There are many extremely talented and knowledgeable body workers, Yoga teachers, tarot readers and other healers who simply lack confidence in themselves. It shocks me when talented people don't see their own abilities, but it happens all the time. These people have the skill and the desire to make a difference in people's lives, but they are afraid they are not good enough.

On the other side of the coin, there are people who confidently market themselves as healers, readers and teachers but lack the actual skill, training or talent to do so credibly.  Truly, there are some people who think that anyone with a deck of cards can be a professional tarot reader! The sad thing is, with a little practice, patience and study many of these professionals could be phenomenal. I am not sure why these sorts of professionals eschew the actual work they need to achieve real excellence, but they do.

Within our community of healers we have those who have studied for years, have a great deal of natural talent and a desire to work in the field. All they lack is belief in their abilities. Sadly, when they do get the gumption to start their practices they often fail because potential clients can feel their lack of confidence. Frankly, who wants a healer who has no confidence in their abilities?

Also within our community we have folks who are called to healing work but have circumvented the process of training, learning and practice. These folks have plenty of confidence, but don't realize aren't ready to present themselves as professionals. They often struggle in business because they fail to achieve consistent results.

So some people don't hang their shingle when they should, others hang their shingle too soon.  The question is this. How in the world do we know when we are ready to transform an interest or a hobby into a career?  At what point are we highly qualified?

Within many modalities there are licensure procedures or certification processes to which we can submit ourselves. This is no guarantee of excellence, but it is a help. That a person is willing to study, or to be reviewed by peers, says something about that person's professional commitment.

For many, the sign that you are ready to go pro is demand.  You generate that demand by freely offering services in order to gain experience. If you are really good, people will start requesting services and will offer to pay, even when you don't ask for payment. When this happens, the transition from personal interest to profession is natural and organic.

Another clear sign you are on the right path is that you receive plenty of referrals. Word of mouth is the best advertising, and it is the only advertising you can't buy.  That people trust you to take care of their friends and family is proof of your excellence, and a legitimate boost to your confidence.

A clear sign of commitment to professional excellence is a commitment to continuing education. True professionals never feel they know it all. True professionals are committed to constant study, and constant improvement.

A healer of any modality should have confidence in their abilities if and when the following events occur.

1. Much like a religious leader, a healer should feel spiritually called to his or her path.
2. A healer should feel excited to study and learn his or her modality.
3. A healer should be excited to practice on friends and family.
4. That practice should generate results, requests and referrals.
5. A healer should never lose enthusiasm for learning.

Healers, if you experience these five things, you are more than ready for your professional path.  If you have yet to experience them, don't be discouraged.  Simply acknowledge you are still developing your basic skills, and redouble your efforts to do so.

Now, more than ever, the world needs healers of all modalities. Let neither lack of confidence nor lack of study hold you back.