“Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t Know is on third . . . “
– from Who’s On First? by Abbott and Costello

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In online tarot discussions I often see novice readers asking for help with their efforts to guess the thoughts and feelings of an absent “third party” who is usually someone the querent is romantically interested in but is afraid to approach. The assumption is that the reader is the “first party” and the “sitter” is the second one, so the party of interest would be the third participant in the charade. Some have suggested that the “first party” is actually the individual seeking the reading, so the absent person is in fact the “second party,” with the reader standing outside the interface looking in. Regardless of what we choose to call it, I don’t read minds so I’m only concerned with the exchange between myself and the client.

But in every reading there are three factors at play: the seeker, the reader and the topic that brought the sitter to the table. The matter itself can be “bigger” than the individual’s ability to comprehend all of its ramifications, making it an invisible “third party” that can weigh heavily in the analysis. It won’t always address the private details of a personal connection, real or imagined, but rather a compelling situational aspect that is “larger than life.” One of the best examples is the externalization of a dysfunctional relationship.

In my previous post, “Feeding the Elephant,” I described a failing partnership as an unacknowledged “elephant in the room” that the couple kept feeding with their antagonism, and it kept getting bigger-and-bigger. The two parties refused to recognize its presence but all of their friends could see as plain as day that it would eventually crush them. The goal of the spread was to identify where the “elephant” came from and find healthier ways to “feed” it before it went rogue.

I don’t often see the nature of personal interaction being described as an independent factor in a reading since relationships are viewed more as something two people do with or to one another. But a liaison that gets off on the wrong foot can quickly blow up into an imposing obstacle to communication and thus to cooperation. Even the blind men in the parable who were trying to describe an elephant by feel should be able to get the gist of what’s going on. The one who described it as a “wall” probably came closest to the truth of the matter when applied to irreconcilable human differences.