AUTHOR’S NOTE: When I create unique tarot spreads, I do so with an eye toward establishing an environment for the topic of interest that a sitter can then populate via “subconscious induction” as a result of shuffling and cutting the cards for the pull. The goal is to open a door into the collective unconscious by forming a channel in the querent’s inner awareness through which the desired knowledge can descend into the array of cards. (My Tarot 101 “how-it-all-works” lecture.)

Some professional readers have clients pull their own cards, but it is typically to fill the slots in an established spread of the diviner’s choice. Here I’m taking it one step further by having them personally lay out a fixed number of cards in any arrangement they like based on instinct. Many sitters are too timid to take such a bold initiative, so I will offer it as an opportunity that can be declined if they prefer. The more I can involve them, the greater their feeling of ownership in the reading will be (or so the theory has it), and therefore the easier my job should be since I will be “preaching to the choir.”

I prepared myself for working in this way a few years ago when I developed what I called the “Rorschach tarot” technique, where I flipped an entire deck into the air from waist height onto a rectangular plastic chair-pad and then read only those that stayed on the pad in clumps and singletons in a semi-formal manner; any that landed face-down I simply turned over without changing their position or orientation. I ignored any that fell off the pad in the same way one dismisses errant sorts in lithomancy. (This method can be found in an earlier post of the same name, and at the time I was just trying to demonstrate that reading “jumpers” is dumb, so I snarkily unleashed a whole “frog-pond” of them.)

If a sitter opts to distribute the cards in a completely random, offbeat way I will be ready to deal with it. It’s certainly no sillier than intuitively pulling card after card in a freestyle jumble until the engorged population “just feels right.” I see my challenge as the ultimate in querent engagement short of having them interpret their own cards, for which they wouldn’t need me at all and could stay home. I will be challenging myself at the same time, which is always a good thing for a crusty old-timer who has seen far too many Celtic Crosses.