AUTHOR’S NOTE: It’s not uncommon that seekers who resort to a professional diviner have reached a dead-end in their personal affairs. Either they have come up against the proverbial “brick wall” and feel like they can go no further without help, or they have not yet found their way to that barrier and are floundering aimlessly, unable to gain traction in their current circumstances.

Short of visiting a psychotherapist or other licensed provider, these individuals may find that an experienced tarot reader is uniquely equipped to assist them in sorting things out. Up to a point, of course; if we don’t already possess the qualifications, we should shy away from any engagement that involves government strictures such as formal training, monitored experience and official credentials, and remain vigilant for legal liability. (We may be artists, but we could be messing with our clients’ mental, emotional and physical well-being and taking on health, financial and statutory matters can be playing with fire.)

The word “empowerment” is tossed around lightly in tarot circles, but I think it’s a bit uppity. If we can motivate our clients to get off their backsides and do something constructive on their own behalf without burdening them with an inflation-adjusted “fifty-cent word” like empowerment, we will have met the objective. Inertia is the bane of ambition, and all too often it is the only thing standing in the way of accomplishment. If a reading can drum up some enthusiasm the battle is almost won but, as George Carlin said, above all else “Ya gotta wanna” and it’s “lackawanna” that bites you.

Tarot encouragement comes in two forms: upbeat cheerleading and cautionary advice. The first is frequently associated with favorable cards and the second more typically attends less fortunate cards. Turning the latter into any kind of behavioral reinforcement is the hardest task a reader faces when the cards are especially dire. It’s unwise to say “grin and bear it” when the bricks and mortar of the Tower are falling all around the querent.

I don’t set out to work my sitters into a frenzy of optimistic anticipation anyway, I read the cards in a calm, detached manner that covers all the bases but never flies off into hyperactive boosterism. It’s not my job to convince them to do anything they don’t see a good reason for doing, but it is my responsibility to point them at all the options described by the cards and let them choose for themselves. This is the kind of motivation the tarot excels at delivering as long as the reader has the skill to coax it out of the spread and the sitter is paying attention.

I tend to present my forecasts with a fairly high degree of equivocation. Rather than saying “This is or isn’t likely to happen,” I will advise the seeker “Here is a potential trend that you might watch out for, and it could manifest thus-and-so.” There is no point in getting them cranked up over something that is still open-ended and will stay that way until something breaks in the situation. My mission is to alert them to the pressure-points where such abrupt transitions could reasonably occur (in my spread designs I label them “turning-points”); theirs is to keep their eyes peeled and stay light on their feet. Sometimes a little judicious “weasel-wording” goes a long way toward prompting them to engage.

Then there are the clients who have no clue that I’m trying to steer them toward an epiphany about some action they should at least be thinking of undertaking. These individuals can be completely “at sea” about what they’re seeing and hearing, so I’m confronted with the challenge of becoming Virgil to their Dante. I have to spend precious time giving them their coordinates and apprising them of their inherent safeguards and vulnerabilities before I can consider handing them their marching orders. They want to know all about the mechanics but can come up empty when it is time to assimilate the guidance. I do my best, but I often leave the session with a “woulda/coulda/shoulda” feeling that I haven’t connected. <Steve Miller sings “Take the money and run” in the background.>