“No Blame” — A Useful First Principle in Divination
AUTHOR’S NOTE: There is a handful of what might be called “first principles” or “prime directives” in reading the tarot cards, broad concepts to which I mostly adhere.
One premise, for which I am indebted to Dr. James Wanless, is that “There are no ‘bad’ cards, only opportunities” (in a forthcoming essay I make the point that every one of them carries a useful life-lesson that qualifies as a revelation, no matter how difficult it is to accept).
Another is that every reading should be about “empowerment” in dealing with the situation, leaving the seeker with constructive insights for managing it to their advantage.
A third is that the cards pulled are generally (although not infallibly) “right” in their advice for confronting the matter at hand, even when their testimony doesn’t seem to mesh cleanly with the question asked.
A fourth minor note is that reversal does make a difference.
To those fundamentals I’m going to add the I Ching tenet of “No blame.” When it comes to divination, trying to pin responsibility on another person or entity for circumstances viewed as unfortunate is essentially a useless “feel-good” exercise that makes no difference to the outcome of the reading, and in many cases it is only a “projection” of the querent’s own liability for the problem. While there may in fact be complicity (tacit or otherwise) on the part of friends, family or associates that will show up in the cards, personal readings seldom identify outright ownership of culpability that can be placed squarely on the head of another; ideally, they are more about self-awareness.
As an “action-and-event-oriented” diviner I’m primarily interested in the “what” and “how” of an occurrence, and I leave the “who” and “why” up to the client to ponder. I make no attempt to read the mind of anyone else involved in the affair regarding their motives or intentions. I think of Sgt. Joe Friday’s (Jack Webb’s) deadpan request in the old Dragnet TV series: “Just the facts, ma’am” when deluged with the overwrought testimony of a crime witness, and I usually put it to the cards the same way.
That attitude not withstanding, it’s certainly human nature for a sitter to attempt transferring blame from their own shoulders to another individual who may in fact be blameless and unaware that they are being maligned. There’s no real harm done (except perhaps in karmic terms) if this is just the client “venting” (aka whining to the counselor) with no intention of following through with any kind of explicit retribution, but it can become dangerous if I in any way confirm their assertions to the point that they feel justified in acting intemperately. I definitely don’t want to be an accomplice to that based solely on the evidence of a card reading.
I like to half-joke that when a court card comes up in a spread, I ask the sitter straight away whether in their estimation it represents another person with a hand in the matter, on the assumption that most people love to have someone else to blame for their troubles. I do this as a time-saver (“cutting to the chase,” so to speak), although it’s usually more productive to talk about attitudes and behaviors reflected in the card’s character that the querent should either adopt or avoid, and that is often where the reading ends up anyway. Far be it from me to fuel their fantasies about their own innocence, particularly when they may have unintentionally set themselves up for what befell them; the cards are often unforgiving in that regard.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on September 6, 2024.
