AUTHOR’S NOTE: In his book Tarot Master-Class, Paul Fenton-Smith discussed situations where clients dispute the accuracy of a reading as it applies to their own understanding of personal reality. He recommended probing more deeply into the querent’s past via dialogue since there may be insights the individual’s subconscious did not divulge during its interaction with the cards. There is almost always something more to see and say when this occurs that may not reflect denial on the seeker’s part but merely selective memory.

This premise aligns quite well with my oft-stated opinion that every card can be interpreted at several levels, and if I fail to strike a chord with my client at one level I can take the quest for wisdom to a different tier. I will typically move from practical to psychological to impersonal, universal or spiritual (although that last area is often too abstract to be useful in a pragmatic sense).

I find that I get the most mileage out of the psychological approach (and its stepchild, the “socio-psychological” inquiry) as a fallback because most sitters are eager to talk about themselves and their situation at least in a general way when prompted in this fashion, and I can take what I hear as a clue to dig more diligently into their attitudes about the matter, bringing them to the “Aha!” realization with little difficulty.

There is much to be gained by engaging in conversation in order to move the narrative past any “roadblocks” the querent erects to deflect it away from such bones of contention. I fully expect push-back on some of the points I make and I’m committed to talking it out to the satisfaction of both of us. There is no value in prolonging a monologue when it’s clear that I’m making no headway in getting the individual to accept the possibility that my observations are within shouting distance of the truth. If we aren’t on the same wavelength we will be sending and receiving only static.

I can always resort to the justification that they selected the cards (or arranged them in reading order by shuffling them), so they are in effect “talking to themselves” when I translate the spread for them. If I do a conscientious job of it and they still don’t see the light, there may be no help for it. I’m certainly not going to cave in to “confirmation bias” or any other ploy they invoke to coax what they want to hear out of the reading. It doesn’t work that way and I don’t operate that way.