What is the reader’s responsibility?

If someone asks or pays you to read their cards, then they probably think you know more than they do about what cards might mean, or how to make sense of a combination of them.

You may not be a Grandmaster of the Tarot World, but you are expected to know a bit more about cards than the local postman or the checkout person at your neighbourhood store. You have let it be known that you have an interest in – or an ability with – reading cards; that’s why the person asked you in the first place.

So you turn over a card – let’s say it’s the King of Cups, reversed – and the questioner says: What does this mean? You have to give an answer. You can’t say: Well, what does it mean to you? If they already knew what it meant, they wouldn’t be consulting you.

It can help to think of a reading as giving the weather forecast. You might tell a friend that it’s going to rain tomorrow morning. That is enough information. You don’t need to say that we will have one sixteenth of an inch of rain starting at 8.17 am and ending at 12.43 pm. It’s going to rain; the friend can figure out how he wants to handle the situation.

So, with the King of Cups reversed. You don’t have to specify that Bill, a friend since childhood, is going to come with you to small claims court, but at the last minute will be called in to work and so will let you down and cause you upset.

On the other hand, you can say that someone is going to offer emotional support but for one reason or another won’t be able to follow through. Or, if you ask for emotional support, you won’t be surprised when people say that they can’t help at this time.

This is valuable information for the questioner who can then decide how best to deal with his or her life and its lessons.

It’s enough for the reader to provide the outline or the template,  and let the questioner fill in the blanks.