The Purposeful Diviner
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I briefly covered some of these talking points in the “statement of intent” linked at the bottom, but I thought it worthwhile to put a more personal slant on them. As a diviner I consider myself a purveyor of serious content. It would be tempting to tell my clients “Sure, I’ll take your money and give you an opinion (or rather the cards will) about any frivolous fantasy you throw at me.” However, I wouldn’t feel honest about doing it. I’ve been too dedicated for far too long to shill like that.
I’m a scholarly hobbyist with a long history of metaphysical study and practice, not a fee-based entrepreneur who is scuffling for a buck. (If I were I’d be peddling myself on social media, and there are plenty of others already working that hustle.) I prefer meeting face-to-face with seekers who come to me with significant challenges and who are sincere about getting the most out of my contribution. I don’t do this for fun or profit (well, it is often fun or at least entertaining, although I don’t really need the money) but mainly for the love of it, and I try to capture that passionate mindset in my readings.
While any kind of query should be fair game if it’s backed by an absolute conviction in its legitimacy, I usually stay away from “love” questions that are really just attempts to “hide behind the tarot” rather than confronting the possibility of romance head-on by making one’s feelings known. I also steer clear of “psychic fishing expeditions” that are nothing more than mind-reading forays; if you want that, see a conventional fortune-teller. While many of my peers avoid them, I will do both yes-or-no and health readings if the question is stated in the right way, but I don’t offer actionable advice that might invite legal liability. (I’m not bound by law to say “for entertainment only” in my jurisdiction, but “for information only” is always appropriate.) I don’t mind empowering my sitters, but I try to stop short of pandering to their wishful thinking. I consider idle-curiosity questions to be wasting my time and squandering my talents.
This doesn’t mean that I’m drily analytical in my observations like a doctor or scientist. Anything but! I love the storytelling potential in the cards and strive to optimize it in every reading along with getting the details right from a more literal perspective. At the same time it’s important not to overreach in my psychic sleuthing since intuitive guesswork can too often provide false leads that don’t connect with objective reality. “Staying on the page” by pursuing the narrative shown by the cards is how I normally start, and then I take my cue from the sitter’s reactions. “Just reading the cards” and letting querent’s figure out the message for themselves while engaging them in conversation is the most revealing (and usually the most profound) way to handle it. Done right, it can be a therapeutic dialogue and not simply a monologue on my part. Together we will take the story where it has to go.
It is this sense of purpose-driven enlightenment that keeps me involved after five decades of doing this stuff. My favorite analogy for it is “turning over rocks to see what crawls out from underneath.” There is always more to learn about the human condition, and divination provides a unique opportunity to dig deeper into the psyche. While I think an over-reliance on Jungian psychology can stifle a more impressionistic take on the tarot, it provides a solid theoretical foundation as long as we acknowledge Korzybski’s axiom that “the map is not the territory” because divination will often take us into uncharted waters where the ancient cartographers noted “Here be dragons.”
https://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com/tarot-reading-overview/
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on October 18, 2024.
