AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m sure it’s abundantly clear from my written work that I value the precise use of language. (Chalk it it up to being a former technical and legal writer in business.) This quest for accuracy spills over into the way I read the tarot cards, although I have to be vigilant in not letting it sabotage the immediacy of my presentation.

I’m not much of a James Bond fan (or a fan of cinema in general), but I borrowed and adapted the quote in the title because it seemed like a perfect way to distinguish between a loose, impressionistic narrative forecast and one that is more carefully constructed. As an amateur bartender, I learned that some ingredients have to be shaken vigorously to emulsify them into a singular taste-and-texture experience, while others need only be stirred briefly to let the individual flavors shine through. When I read the cards, I strive for just the right expressions to make my point, not to show off my vocabulary but to guarantee that the message gets across exactly as intended by the cards pulled. It’s part of my longstanding ambition to “just read the cards” and not editorialize overmuch.

As any experienced diviner knows, the cards have their own language and it’s our job to scrupulously avoid distorting it to satisfy our own subjective vision of what they’re trying to say. This forbearance is a serious matter, although its economical delivery depends on whether the sitter wants straight-up guidance and not merely light entertainment from the reading. It’s not always a simple task to separate the rhetorical “gold” from the “dross” in something as dynamic as a tarot reading, and it’s not uncommon to trip over our own feet as we rush to fill any void left by a tongue-tied inability to communicate our thoughts. I admit that, instead of resorting to “verbal tap-dancing” in these instances, I will take a few more seconds than I should while reaching for perfection in my language, but it’s usually worth the effort.

I submit that the majority of any synthesis required to seamlessly blend the wide range of meanings that has grown up around the cards over the centuries should occur during the learning process as we try on different interpretations to see what fits our personal style. We probably shouldn’t be doing it “on-the-fly” during a session except in a minor way to specifically tailor our observations to the context of the question. We owe it to our clients to be “at the top of our game” going in and thus avert naively bouncing random ideas off them to assess the impact.

That said, I do think it’s a legitimate goal to transform the reading into a two-way conversation by opening a dialogue with the sitter and resisting the temptation to state our case as an uninterrupted monologue. While it may be viewed as a badge of honor to be able to nimbly grab intuitive insights from thin air (or, as I sometimes say, a good deal lower on the anatomy), this can easily turn into showy theatrics rather than coming across as sober counseling. I prefer to maintain a reputation for treating the cards with respect and offering thoughtful analysis of their wisdom, not for “playing fast-and-loose” with their historical veracity in the interest of psychic showmanship.

The relentless blurring and disfigurement of time-honored conventions in tarot thought seems to be a rallying-cry of the so-called “New Tarot;” its proponents can argue all they want that progress is inevitable and therefore desirable (I suggest they go back to their AI fantasies), but I find it woefully wrong-headed. I’m with the Wicked Witch of the West in believing (without the evil smirk) that “These things must be done del-icately” (and cautiously), while on a different cultural arc I join the Everly Brothers in recognizing that intuitively “wishing won’t make it so” if the cards say otherwise. It is, of course, possible to have it both “shaken” and “stirred” but – if we’re being entirely honest about the notion – it ain’t easy to pull off.