AUTHOR’S NOTE: For post number 2,800, I decided to revisit the subject of subtlety in the art of prediction. My inspiration was a comment made by actress Rachel Dratch, the commencement speaker at the 2026 Dartmouth College graduation ceremony:

“. . . sometimes a ‘no’ is just a ‘not yet.’ Maybe it’s just not the right moment.”

If there is one thing in tarot reading that is indisputable, it is the ubiquity of inflection, by which I mean the testimony in the cards is not always straightforward and must be inferred from understated hints. They have numerous layers of meaning that must be sifted to find the perfect nuance for the context of the question or topic of interest. This often throws the most common “textbook” meanings out the window in favor of a more deductive approach without descending into the verbal “fishing expedition” that is intuitive guesswork and its accomplice, free-association.

This is painfully obvious when seeking a “Yes-or-No” answer, and it is the reason why many readers avoid them (there are other, fussier reasons like “tarot is only meant for psychological self-improvement” that I don’t accept). The prognosis may come with “strings attached:” yes, but; no, unless; maybe, if. All too frequently, the situation is unclear at the time of the reading and the reader feels compelled to hedge by advising sitters that they must decide which result they want to manifest through their proactive involvement (sometimes “no” is the right answer for the matter at hand). This may be reasonable, but it isn’t particularly helpful.

I tend to steer the overall narrative in the most revealing direction without being boxed into a definitive “yes” or “no.” My method is to decide, on balance, which path seems the most transparent as the best way to go and then suggest how to decipher the road-map in a way that ekes a likely verdict out of arrival at the destination. The final card in the spread won’t always provide the “last word” on the subject when a preponderance of the others points to a different outcome. I see it as one of the ways in which professional diviners earn their fee.

For the seasoned reader who possesses a large inventory of internalized definitions for the cards, it is also where a great deal of the value lies in helping seekers sort out their options. A respect for language and a knack for finding “just the right words” to describe a proposed solution is a convenient benchmark by which to measure a reader’s state of development. Bringing a broad and deep vocabulary to the table allows the diviner to avoid the crutch of “toxic positivity” by not pushing an upbeat “empowerment” agenda when the cards pulled don’t warrant it.

I’ve recently been involved in online discussions criticizing the sterility of many social-media attempts at card-reading that rely on generic “cookie-cutter” meanings which could be true for almost any querent at any time. These are frequently generated by tarot apps, and more recently by AI “scraping” of internet sources, with no human contribution to personalize them, and some are so-called “collective” readings that are intentionally impersonal so followers can just choose “whatever fits.” There is little room for reflection in such trivial fare, and it seems to me that none is intended.

My take on it is that these shady practitioners aren’t reading the cards, they are “reading into” them according to what they think the average seeker wants to hear and then assembling a string of rote observations that they offer as original material. The consensus was that social-media shenanigans have “ruined” tarot, which may be a stretch when there is still an interest in more thoughtful engagement, but the online trajectory is definitely trending in the wrong direction. Too much of it amounts to “cheerleading” with little substance.