Post 4 - Reading for Someone Else

It’s easy enough to do a reading about someone else, but for someone else is a totally different ballgame. Whether you’re a professional, or someone who’s been reading a while helping a friend out by guiding them through a reading, sometimes you find someone else touching your cards. 

​

A majority of my research this week ended up pertaining to how one reads for a client rather than for themselves, and it was more intuitive than instructional. Tarot is often affiliated with the profession of fortune telling, but there are also professional tarot readers. It’s got a dedicated clietle, and tends to attract those looking for spiritual guidance, so I was really surprised by the difficulty I had trying to find instructions on how to read for someone else. There’s plenty of resources telling you how to read for someone not present if you’re worried or curious about them, and a few that tell you how to get started, but fewer that describe how to interact with your client. Aside from ‘know the meanings’, which was a resounding consensus, it was difficult to get any sort of helpful advice in terms of how much control the client should have, what sort of questions to ask them, even if they should be the one shuffling the deck! Very little content on how to guide them in the right directions. Reading through Fenton-Smith helped, as he often gives anecdotes of himself and clients in his book, which helped me to at least infer how to interact with a client and what questions to ask them.

​

I eventually figured out that, yes, the client should shuffle the deck. Fenton-Smith always let the customer decide what the reading should be about, and prompted them to make links between the cards and their situations as well as weighing in with his own knowledge and associations with the cards and decks. With this in mind, I found someone willing to be my guinea pig and we began.

​

After I gave it a thorough shuffle, I asked Jenson to mess around with the cards a bit to charge them with their energy. It was interesting handing my deck over and instructing Jenson in shuffling them. Even that was an experience. “If you’re getting your cards read by someone, your literal only job is to pick cards, and shuffle the deck, and maybe channel your energy toward the process.” (Garis, M.G. 2019), but it’s a little more complex than that. How you handle your cards is pretty important. My mother insists that it’s bad luck to expose your cards to sunlight, and several of my friends who read insist that you shouldn’t let someone else handle your cards if it isn’t for reading. Fenton-Smith insists you use “the hand you don’t write with” (2008) for shuffling and drawing. As far as I understand, the left-handed thing is largely due to tradition, but some believe that there is a spiritual reason towards using one hand or the other. Garis quotes spiritual advisor, Alexis Alvarez: ”Traditionally, card readers would use their left hand to control the shuffle and deal the cards because the left side of the body is associated with feminine, intuitive, and receptive energy, [...] Others believe you should shuffle and deal with your non-dominant hand. Most people are right-hand dominant, so that still means using the left hand to shuffle.” (2019) I’ve always shuffled with my left because that’s what I was taught but explaining this to Jenson ended up being both a moment that broke the ice and launched a discussion about dominant hands, spirituality, and sports, oddly enough.

​

With the cards shuffled, we ended up doing two readings. A single card cut and a three fates, both readings pertaining to separate subjects.
 

Single Cut    Reading:

​

When I asked Jenson what they wanted to ask, they said they wanted to “start simple” and asked “will I fail this semester?”. A pretty weighty question to start, but a good tarot question, I’m learning. Open enough for the cards to give advice, and involved in a lot of personal contexts, but ultimately something of which many elements the client has control over. After giving a disclaimer that I take no responsibility for what the cards say or what actually happens come June, we began.

​

Single card cuts involve splitting the deck and taking a card based on intuition whilst thinking of or asking a yes or no question. These are good for quick readings or readings that you aren’t putting too much weight on. The nature of tarot means that you likely will not get a simple affirmative or negative, there will be a littlemore nuance to the answer, but the answer is rarely too in depth. I gave Jenson a few tips on how to cut the deck, but let their intuition shape the experience. They ended up drawing Justice.

​

Justice 

Justice is a card of as one might guess, justice. Making a just decision and achieving deserved success through clear thought. It also emphasises the importance of owning your actions and considering their consequences. Success is not guaranteed, and if you have acted poorly those consequences will come back to bite you. “She holds a sword in her right hand, showing the logical, well-ordered mindset necessary to dispense fair justice. The sword points upwards – expressing a firm and final decision – and the double-edged blade signifies that our actions always carry consequences.”  (Justice Tarot Card Meanings, n.d.)

​

Before giving them the official meaning, I tried to have them emulate what was advised for me to do when I was learning, which was to describe the card with no preconceptions.

Me: “Look at the card. Take in the colours, the picture. Try not to extrapolate meaning for now, just tell me the vibes you’re getting.”

​

Jenson: “I feel like it’s telling me that I’m overthinking this.” (J. London, personal communication, 21 May, 2021)

​

After that, I described the meanings of the card, and the repeated emphasis on both clear thought with an undercurrent of impartiality and consequences stood out to both of us. The woman in the card holds a sword, which represents thought in the tarot. The sword is pointed upwards, but is double edged, which means it is capable of cutting you as much as it is through the opposition or problem. Still, justice is a card of overcoming that double edge and the bias of the scales to dispense just reward and punishment. 

​

In the end, we came to the consensus that the answer was yes. All the resources were there, and Jenson is easily smart enough to pass. If they neglect their work, or overthink it too much, there will be consequences, as evidenced by the scale and the sword, but Justice Is a card that indicates success through clear thought, so as long as they keep a level head, odds are good. This reading ended up having immediate payoff, as Jenson received an A in formative feedback for a class mere hours later.