Questions
and
Answers

001

003

001   What to do with a one-card reading.

Bill wanted to know if he should keep his job. He picked a single card and got the Strength card, upright. Then he wasn’t sure how to proceed – so what does he do?

If we’re not sure about a card, the first thing we do NOT do is pick anothre card for help, or to explain the first card, or for confirmation. If you can’t read the first one, you’re not going to be able to read the second.
Instead, work with what you have. You know that in time you’re going to learn to read cards, so if you start now you’ll get there quicker.

What to do? Spend time figuring out, not so much what the card means, but more what sense it makes. You have to think it through. You can’t just look in a book and read the correct answer.

With a “should I?” type of question, as a general rule, a card when upright means “yes”; a reversed card means ‘no’.
Or if you are using more than one card, then upright can be showing “do this” or “act this way”‘ while
reversed can point out: “don’t do this”.

Since Bill’s card was upright, the simple answer is that he should stay where he is, at least for the time being.
That may be all he wants to know, but we can examine the card to discover why staying in his job might be a good course of action. If the card had been reversed, we could have looked to see why it would be worth his while to look for another job.
The answer was ‘Strength’, so if he stays where he is, he has the chance to develop strength. This seems like a good thing, but what sense does it make? Bill knows his work situation so he could answer the question.

However, we can also think about possible scenarios and this will be practice for us in becoming more fluent in what we say about cards as they answer different questions.
Developing strength can mean that:

i. maybe he learns how to deal better with people who are not cooperative, or who have bad habits that he doesn’t like or appreciate. He is thus developing personal strength of character.

ii. maybe he becomes stronger in the job itself. So if he is an accountant, then he could learn a new software program, or develop skills in a new area. He is becoming stronger as an accountant.

iii. maybe he asks for or takes on more responsibility. In this way, he becomes better at the job, and gets more experience – and this will look good on a resume or when he looks for other employment. He is developing strength in the job.

iv. it may be that physical strength is important in his job. He will know if he needs to become fitter or strongr, or if he needs to develop muscles he tends to ignore.

v. maybe at present he does the minimum to get by and is not very enthusiastic about the job. That may be understandable, but is not very satisfactory. If that should be the case, what does Strength mean or point to? He could put more effort into the job – just to see what happens.

He could do more, and treat his current job as a chance to learn something, or to learn as much as he can. This will bring out the best in him and he will discover he has strengths and abiliites he didn’t know he had – and they only needed to be used to be seen.

When he goes for a different job, he will be a much stronger candidate for the new position.

A Major Trump

The Strength card is a Major trump, so Bill has the chance to learn important lessons where he is right now.
Ideally, he should identify what the lessons are, and learn them as best as he can.

He can change jobs at some point in the future, but for now – since this is a good and strong card and upright – he can make good use of his current job

i. if he improves his personal or professional skills and

ii. develops whatever kind of Strength is appropriate.

003   A Yes that turned out to be a No, but maybe it was a Yes all along.

Someone tried a Yes-No spread that did not seem to work – or did it?

Kristi wanted to know if her boyfriend would call or message her on that day. She laid out five cards from the Rider deck and added the number of upright (three) and reversed cards (two) to get the answer: Yes.

Her thinking was that the middle card shows the present; the cards on the left show the past; and the cards on the right show the future. Upright and reversed would also indicate a Yes or a No.

Kristi’s analysis was as follows:

Card 1: The Sun card was in the past and showed that relationship was good.
Card 2: Next, The Devil indicated that the relationship had become burdensome due to various issues. The man and the woman are chained, and there is a big contrast with the previous card.
Card 3: The present was the 7 of Swords. She was expecting something that was not really in her hand. She also thought that this card could mean that she would get what she wanted because the man in the picture is actually taking away the swords in spite of the odds.
Card 4: Death reversed was in the future. Since Death when upright can mean an end, then when reversed it may show a delay before an ending. She thought this delay referred to her getting what she wanted – so there would be a delay in getting the call from the boyfriend.
Card 5: The 2 of Pentacles reversed in the future showed more delay.

The day came and went, but there was no call or message. However, he did call two days later, and Kristi wanted to make a connection with the Tarot’s answer. In the light of what happened, it seemed clear enough. Death reversed was the delay; the 2 of Pentacles indicated the number of days she would have to wait. As it turned out, the call arrived two days later, but Kristi didn’t answer the phone, so it was a one-sided message rather than a conversation.

So was the Tarot right after all? Kristi wanted to make the point that even though the boyfriend did not call on the day of the reading, he did get in touch, but two days later.

What can we learn from this?

We don’t want to start changing things to make them fit. It’s easy, and a bad habit, to pick and choose what supports our point, and ignore all the rest.

It’s understandable that we want the Tarot to be right, but it’s not such a good idea to change the question after it has been asked and the cards have been chosen. The question was: Will he call today?; the answer was: Yes; but he didn’t.

What is a reader to do?

We could just play it safe. Follow the method, and if it works, fine; if not, that’s just the way it goes. There can be good reasons why you tell the person the wrong answer, even if you don’t know what those reasons are.

You might say the answer is “No” and the questioner’s response is: “Oh yeah. We’ll see about that”. The No was what the questioner needed to hear to motivate them to take action. A Yes could have encouraged them to continue drifting since it was going to work out.

Sometimes, the reader’s ego gets in the way. They were developing an inflated idea of themselves and their ability – and being wrong brings you back to earth; it reminds you of the value of being humble – and that’s a good thing.

If the questioner is disappointed with the answer, then that happens sometimes. The reader can suggest what steps to take to turn it around, but you’re not supposed to start changing the answer to tell them what they want to hear.

The cards that came up can themselves point to what might be done, or how the questioner can act in order to get the most out of the situation.

If we look at the format of the spread, what sort of information might we derive?

In the method Kristi set up, the first couple of cards describe the past of the situation . They can therefore give an idea of why the question is being asked.

The middle card is the present, so we might be able to know the questioner’s state of mind or expectation at that moment.
The last two cards show the future, in chronological order, so the fourth card happens before the fifth.

If you have weak cards in the past, but Major Trumps upright in the future, then what is coming up is going to be a lot better than what has been. This may be true even if future cards are reversed because that can show delay rather than things going wrong.

Or the opposite can be shown. So someone might want to know if a business will be successful and you might have two Major Trumps first, then three reversed, or weaker cards. The indication is that the past was better than the future will be. The questioner won’t be as happy, and we should examine the cards that appear to know why this would be.

We may have cards showing financial difficulties, so there are fewer sales or lack of investment and this would make sense as an answer.

There can be reasons other than financial ones, however, for unhappiness with business. Perhaps business levels off, and the questioner misses the excitement of the early days; Court cards may indicate that customers or partners change, and the questioner isn’t so happy to work with these new people, or with a new attitude in those associates they are used to.
If we start by counting the Yeses and Nos, we have an answer; then we flesh it out by telling the story of the cards that appear.

Back to Kristi’s analysis

Maybe that 7 of Swords in the present position was the key.
Books will tell you that it shows someone making off with something that doesn’t belong to them. The card does not have to show dishonesty – but when it comes up, we might see it as a card of warning, or as some kind of red flag, alerting us to the need to be careful, or to approach the situation sideways, or to apply a different take from normal on the cards that follow.

We might then have re-considered the Yeses and Nos, and give more weight to the cards for the future, and read them to give the answer. So Death reversed for a delay, and the 2 of Coins for 2 days.

This might seem like changing the story to fit the facts. We don’t want to make a habit of this since it breeds confusion and doubt. We do, however, want to learn and make progress. An exercise like this adds to the total of our Tarot knowledge, and it means we can see more and do more even though we don’t repeat word for word in another reading what noticed with this one.

Play, and see what you discover.

At the same time, the Tarot works best when someone is asking a real question. You don’t get as reliable an answer if you are testing the ability of the reader, or trying to prove that the Tarot is nonsense. Or, if you can get the answer by making a phone call or asking for someone’s opinion, then go that route, and hold off on using the Tarot.

We shouldn’t waste the Tarot’s time – or maybe it’s better to say we should save the Tarot for what is serious or important to the questioner, even if it’s something we personally wouldn’t want to ask.