A Matter of “Reach”
I’m constantly chiding my wife over the perfectly reasonable assumption that talking to someone is best performed face-to-face, not by shouting from two rooms away and expecting to be understood. (On the other hand, getting up and trotting over to her desk every five minutes is great exercise!) As I see it, this premise also applies to tarot reading. In remote (specifically online) reading scenarios, we can spend hours writing up our observations (and I have), but unless we receive meaningful feedback from our clients, we will never know whether we have fully addressed their concerns in the matter. To fill this void, I’ve adopted the solution of offering one “Q&A” email exchange at no extra cost with every online reading I perform, which is about as far as I will take the old Bell Systems advertising slogan, “Reach out and touch someone.”
With a “live one” sitting across from us, we can ask for confirmation if we aren’t entirely sure about something and get immediate validation or redirection. We will never learn much on either side of the table if we aren’t fully immersed in the experience (as long as we hold the line on “reaching out and touching” them). For me it’s not about the money to be made by expanding my reach to pull in seekers from across the county or halfway around the world, it’s more a matter of being as insightful as possible, which comes through best in a two-way dialogue rather than via a monologue. I could not begin to provide adequate value via text messaging, and I have little interest in Skype or Zoom. If it weren’t for the interruption of Covid, I would probably have more than my share of opportunities to practice what I preach. While I do appreciate the chance to come up with the perfect turn of phrase when writing down my conclusions, the loss of immediacy seems contrary to the motivational purpose of the diviner’s art.
Perhaps in the not-too-distant future when we all have computer chips implanted in our heads, this communication will be telepathic. But until that time the testimony of the cards must be put into words, and words can be notoriously imprecise unless they’re adjusted on-the-fly to meet the goal of understanding one another. (That’s why a verbal encounter is called an “exchange” and not merely a statement of each person’s opinion, which I would liken to a campaign debate where the candidates talk past one another). I’m skeptical of just floating the evidence out there on the web and expecting a good result. While it may be fine for the kind of theorizing I typically do in this blog, an actual reading is where “the rubber meets the road.” I don’t want to wind up in the “he said/she said” dilemma of the legal investigator should my client misconstrue my meaning (or worse, incur litigation if the misunderstanding causes serious harm that could have been avoided with a little bilateral foresight). Besides, when it comes to divination I like interactive discoveries much better than the “navel gazing” kind. They are more fun and usually more instructive in human terms.
I know there are readers who are intimidated by personal contact with strangers, and who much prefer the anonymous comfort of keeping their clients at the far end of a network connection. There are also those who believe they can offer more benefit if they don’t have to think on their feet and thus won’t have to scramble for relevant insights. In my own in-person work, if I reach that point I will often toss the ball to my sitters for their input rather than hem-and-haw over some elusive observation that just won’t come. Nothing can kill the querent’s expectant mood faster than me sitting there gaping with my mouth open as I fumble for something to say, so I will make like the television commentators, smile winningly and offer the equivalent of “Over to you, Mary (or Joe)!” I’ve found that people usually love to talk about themselves, so this is no hardship and a very good way to move things along while I gather my thoughts.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on November 6, 2022.
