Can Tarot Tell You More Than Your Higher Self Already Knows?

Recently I heard a well-respected tarot professional say that tarot can’t tell her anything she doesn’t already know.

That struck me. I’ve been spending some time thinking about whether this is true for me. Tarot is such an intensely personal thing; we each experience tarot in our own way.

I know for a fact that tarot does indeed tell us things we already know. This can be wonderfully affirming and confidence-building. Tarot can help us feel seen. Tarot can help us understand ourselves.

This is true whether we are reading for ourselves or receiving a reading. Very often clients say to me, “You just told me everything I already knew, but now I know I am seeing things correctly.”

Tarot also has a way of bringing to the conscious mind things that are buried within the subconscious. This is where things get tricky. When tarot reveals something that we truly did not know, the question is this. Did we truly not know it, or was that knowledge there, in the subconscious, all along?

To some extent, this question is academic, and meaningless to the tarot divination process. Yet, in another way, this question feels important. While I cannot speak for any other tarotist, I truly would like to be clear for myself when I consider this question.

Can tarot tell me things of which I truly had no prior knowledge?

Because most of us who use tarot identify as psychic, intuitive, or both, this question may be impossible to definitively answer. Even when discussing a future prediction that has proven true, the question remains. Did I intuitively know this would happen, and tarot simply confirmed it? Or did tarot give me knowledge I would not have otherwise had?

It is without a doubt in my experience reading for myself and others that tarot gives new perspectives and new ways of thinking about things. “I’ve never thought of it that way before” is something I hear from clients quite often. Tarot helps us reframe things in ways that are helpful and healing.

Tarot can also give us insight into things that are happening behind the scenes. Sometimes, for example, when planning business strategy, it is good to know the potential plans of the boss before the boss wants to tell us. Whether or not our intuition might have known these things, our intuition would likely not have supplied the information with the same clarity we can get from tarot.

My experience is that it feels that tarot tells me, and my clients, things that we did not know prior to checking the cards. Sometimes it does feel that a hidden part of our psyche knew these things all along. Sometimes it really feels that we are accessing new information.

I have very often used tarot to make predictions for people who found my prognostications utterly ridiculous and unlikely, until those things indeed came to pass.

This question of what is intuitively known and unknown in the subconscious is a conversation that could be had long into the evening with tarot friends and several bottles of wine, and still yield no definitive consensus.

I am going to say that my experience with tarot is different than that of the professional who feels tarot cannot tell her what she does not already know. For me, tarot absolutely gives me information that I did not know before. In fact, for me, this is part of the magic of tarot divination.

Tarot, Psychic Addiction and Emotional Illness: The Balance Between Free Will and Fate

Recently in my “Answers to your Questions about Tarot” YouTube video series I have fielded two questions that each touch on emotional illness and tarot.  One was about “Tarot Slavery,” or psychic addiction. The other was about reading for “Eeyore,” that is, people who are so negative about their lives they do not believe they have any power to make it better.

I’m also finally reading the book “Psychic Junkie: A Memoir” by Sarah Lassez. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for years. It’s the story, told in the first person, of a struggling actress with a monster psychic addiction. One of the things I like about the way she presents her story so far is that she holds herself accountable for her psychic addiction, rather than blaming her tarot cards or her readers.

What she, and other recovering psychic junkies, may not realize, is that some psychic professionals are very concerned about psychic addiction. Sure, there are some psychic professionals who encourage psychic addiction. Many of us do our best to identify those clients who are likely to misuse our services and encourage them to find other ways of dealing with their anxieties.

It is true that any tarot student could become “addicted” to the cards, turning to them to try to assuage anxiety rather than to find spiritual insight.

People who don’t understand tarot have lots of negative things to say about tarot. Most of those things are based on misinformation, misunderstanding and superstition. Sadly, there are some tarotists who perpetrate misinformation about tarot, either for their own gain or because they really want to believe that their future can always be both secure and predictable.

These are people who, like Sarah Lassez, have studied tarot and utilize professional psychics and have found the experience to be disempowering, rather than empowering.

How does this happen?

It happens when people have an unhealthy insecurity about their future, and about themselves. They come to the cards, and to psychic work, with one express purpose. They want to know what will happen in the future. It’s not curiosity, or the opportunity to be proactive, that drives them. They are driven, perhaps solely, by fear.

It may be laziness, misinformation or low self-esteem that causes them to believe that their future is something that awaits them, rather than something they could have a hand in creating.

Part of the problem is the reality that sometimes the future is set, and therefore predictable, and sometimes it’s not, and therefore changeable according to the choices and actions of self and others. It’s about the balance between free will and fate.

Many tarotists, including me, believe that it is sometimes better to focus on the areas where we can be proactive. Future predictions can be very accurate, and can also be fun, interesting and helpful. But it is not often in predicting the future where the healing nature of psychic work is realized.

There is zero introspection required when we believe the future is already set, and zero personal responsibility. Introspection and personal responsibility can be found in the wisdom of tarot, and are key components in healing from anxiety and depression.

Anxious people who fear their future, and depressed people who have no hope or faith in themselves, often lack the motivation to use a tool like tarot in the way that would actually be helpful.

It is so much easier to wait for a future that has been predicted than it is to work proactively at creating one’s life.

Future predictions can entertain us. Future predictions can give us hope. Future predictions can help us prepare for, and maximize, our potential. Tarot, and psychic work in general, can help us do that, not only by making the predictions, but by helping us choose our goals and stick to them.

Psychic addicts are looking for easy answers and quick fixes. Like all addicts, they want to make the pain go away but they don’t want to do the hard work to make change in their lives.

Often a good reading can help such a person change their perspective, get help for their emotional disorders, and realize that they are in charge of their life. A good reading should put the client in the driver’s seat as much as possible. Of course, this can only happen if the client is ready and willing to heal, and to take responsibility for their own decisions and goals.

Tarot can be incredibly helpful to people who are anxious and depressed, but only if they are willing to use the cards to heal.

Tarot, and psychic work in general, won’t turn an emotionally healthy person into a psychic addict. Potential psychic addicts are damaged before they get to us. As readers and teachers, we need to be ready to identify those who are likely to misuse our services to their detriment. Gentle redirection and referrals to psychological professionals are often appropriate.

Why is it easier for some people to believe that 78 pieces of cardboard could unfailingly predict their future than it is for them to believe that they have the personal power to create the future they want?

The sad thing is, if they could only adjust their thinking a little, they would discover that tarot can be the perfect tool to help us set our goals, make our plans and create the life we desire.

Predictions for 2014 from Christiana Gaudet

Many psychic readers, tarotists and astrologers make a practice of issuing predictions at each New Year. Some are more fanciful, other more practical. Some readers predict doom and gloom every year. In some ways, they are right every year. Each year on planet Earth holds a certain potential for all sorts of disaster.

While I find it more effective to read for a particular person than a whole planet, it’s always fun to think about the upcoming year and consider the possibilities.

Here are some of the things I see for 2014.

In American politics, I feel the Democratic Party will take back the House of Representative is 2014. However, the Republicans might take the Senate. 

Third Party and Independent candidates may have more wins than ever before. Many Republicans will distance themselves from the Tea Party. There will be some effort to create a more centrist and bipartisan approach, which will have some success.

After an embattled start, the Affordable Care Act will be for the most part successful in 2014, although not all the public will view it as such.  Nonetheless, Obama’s approval rate may improve over the course of the year. On the other hand, the approval rate for Congress (which is lower than ever before) will not likely improve, and may in fact become worse.

History will likely remember Barack Obama as an immature president; one who lacked the training and experience needed to govern effectively.

The country will watch Colorado and Washington carefully this year to see how the end of marijuana prohibition goes. While getting the industry in place and regulated will be difficult, what happens in 2014 will inspire other states to consider adopting the same laws and taking advantage of a great deal of potential revenue.

Overall, the American economy will improve in 2014, with new business starts and new innovations helping businesses both small and large.

Around the world, China will be involved a human rights scandal that will leave U.S.-Sino relationships in a bit of a diplomatic stand-off for a short period of time.

The Middle East, of course, will continue to be troubled, but I am not predicting any major or unusual problems beyond what we have unfortunately come to expect.

In fashion, although the economy will improve, thrift store chic and vintage wear will be increasingly popular. Big fashion dollars are likely to be spent for elaborate costuming (cosplay), rather than for business attire.

In entertainment, video games will continue to be popular, with indie games taking a larger market share than ever before.

In spiritual communities worldwide there are many theories about what might be happening on the planet. Are we shifting or raising our vibration? Are the End Days near?

I think in terms of the consciousness of our species we are slowing raising our awareness. We may all become more psychic and more aware of the psychic energy around us over the next few decades.

I do believe there will be political shifts and economic shifts are there always are. I do not attach any true spiritual significance to those things for 2014. In 2014 life on the planet is likely to continue. There will be problems and solutions, atrocities and blessings, as there always are.

In 2014 scientific discoveries will begin to happen and be unveiled more quickly, but not all of them will be made on American soil. Communication technology will improve, causing some larger changes in our global society. As international communication and the global economy grow, diplomatic relations are likely to change for the better.

At the same time, there are undeniably some aspects of American culture and society that are changing, for better or worse. This will be a common topic of conversation as we struggle to find our identity as a nation in tumultuous times.