AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m not a scientist by education or profession, but my understanding of the cardinal rule for any scientific experiment is that, to be accepted as legitimate, the conclusions must be reproducible (i.e. “replicable”) with a high degree of confidence via later independent trials, ideally at an unaffiliated laboratory. I’m also not an occult historian, although I’ve lived through the last 50+ years of that history as a student and practitioner of the esoteric arts and have a hands-on appreciation for their foibles, one of which is poor cross-cutting integrity between consecutive predictions about a single topic.

Novice diviners often complain that they don’t receive identical forecasts when presenting a question multiple times to the same oracle. There is a confusing and discouraging lack of continuity in the results, and it usually gets no better when soliciting repetitive readings from professional seers. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard in the online tarot community: “I took my request to three different readers and received three different answers. I don’t know which one to believe.” I suspect that these individuals ran into several unavoidable variables:

The readers possessed different levels of knowledge, experience and talent. Not all diviners are created equal.

The providers used different methods: the first one may have been psychic, the second one intuitive and the third one literal in his or her approach. It should be a given that all inquiries tap into equivalent sources of subliminal knowledge, but subjective bias can make that less likely to occur.

The querent consulted online readers and may have received “collective” readings with no personal content. All tarot readings are speculative, but many remote reading are almost entirely intuitive guesswork, while group predictions are decoupled from the querent’s private reality and are typically a waste of time and money. They suggest the hack’s solution to complex problem-solving scenarios: “just throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.” Another way to put it is “garbage in/garbage out.”

The seeker was driven by anxiety and insufficient time had passed between predictions to allow the initial narrative to play out as presented, so the subsequent readings yielded only uncertainty and shouldn’t be trusted.

The matter wasn’t ripe for resolution when the first reading was performed, but once again anxiety prevailed.

This inability to wait for a reasonable amount of time before trying again reflects a misunderstanding of how tarot works. At its best it will convey potential events and circumstances, none of which is guaranteed to occur exactly how and when predicted without a commitment by the seeker to resolutely pursue the identified goal. Its forte is perceived trends, tendencies and possibilities, not absolute assurance; no amount of wishful thinking is going to improve upon that premise and I have my doubts about “affirmation without action” as well. This is what makes the pointblank “yes-or-no” question so unproductive, and it’s not simply because the cards “should never be used for them” under the misconception that tarot is only intended for psychological self-awareness and self-improvement. (This kind of prissy gatekeeping has always annoyed me.)

When applying a large spread like the Celtic Cross, I usually tell sitters to allow three-to-six months (and sometimes longer depending on the cards pulled) for the conclusion or “end of the matter” to manifest before asking about it again. If they need closure sooner than that, I will suggest a smaller layout like the French Cross and let the context of the question dictate the likely turnaround time. For example, receiving a decision about a job application should not take more than a week (or two at the longest.)

Because tarot timing is only approximate and never unconditional, placing a firm end-date on the outcome is usually a “no-win” proposition. But if things don’t work out as proposed within the nominal “window of opportunity,” a second reading can be done to update the outlook, assuming that the first one promised a definitive result. This should never be an excuse for making more money by exploiting the aforesaid anxiety. I once had a client in Australia who had lost an important document somewhere between one location and another, and she kept coming back to me for more readings on the same subject. Upon the fourth request I told her I could do no more for her after having tried tarot, Lenormand and horary astrology.

I treat all of my readings as advisory and not prescriptive. With an eye toward the now-cliched “empowerment,” I describe my aim as “giving the seeker the ammunition and pointing them at the target.” Scoring a bullseye is entirely up to them.