Get Your Nose Out of My Tarot Reading
Something I’ve always felt very strongly about is that I don’t do ‘spying’ readings. What this means is, I won’t do a reading that pokes its nose into someone else’s business. I will read for my client, about my client - no one else. If someone wants to know whether their ex is in a relationship, or their sibling is happy in their marriage, or a loved one quit their job or got fired from it, they’re not going to receive that reading from me.
Unfortunately, though, I was recently reminded that this is a line that some tarot readers have no issue crossing.
A close family member of mine went to see a tarot reader. During this reading, they asked the reader about me and my future. I was not aware prior to the reading that they were going to do this, otherwise I would have respectfully requested they refrain from doing so.
Instead, I didn’t find out until the person was telling me what they had learned from the tarot reader.
This reader had given them predictions about major life events involving home and family. Several of these predictions were not positive, nor did they resonate with me, but more importantly, I would never have shared details of any of these things with the family member in question.
The predictions opened up a dialogue about intimate, personal details of my life, that I was incredibly uncomfortable talking about with this person. It was a conversation I would never willingly enter into, and yet I was forced to with a prying, “I don’t know whether that’s what you want or not?” The implied, “Because you haven’t told me.” hanging passive aggressively in the air.
There are a multitude of different approaches to tarot. People’s ethics and boundaries around what they will and won’t read on are somewhat fluid. And this is not a bad thing. I certainly don’t believe that my approach is the ‘only right way’ to read tarot.
But I also believe that we have a duty as a community to the people we read for. There are some lines that none of us should be crossing. And in my opinion, this is one of them.
No one is entitled to know anything about another person.
Even when the individuals are connected through relational bonds, that still does not entitle them to information about another human being. It is easy to make assumptions, based on the fact that the querent is asking about this person, and taking into account the term used to describe the relationship, that this is a ‘safe space’. But how can we possibly know that?
Doing this sort of reading, you might be handing intimate details of someone’s life that they are not ready to disclose - or perhaps parts of their life that they have made a concerted effort to protect.
All of this being said, it is worth noting that there are people in the tarot deck for a reason - because many of life’s problems involve other people and our relationships. Of course it’s okay to do readings about relationships, or situations that affect more than one person. We would have a very narrow, perhaps nonexistent, scope of what we could read on if we were to refrain from doing this type of reading. However, notice that there is a key difference here - the insight you are seeking to gain in the reading is directly related to and useful for the querent.
“What can they do to improve the relationship?”
“How can they communicate better?”
“My partner just got a new job and I just got laid off - how do we best navigate this together, on a material level?”
Notice that, in these scenarios, the querent isn’t seeking information about another person’s life. They are seeking to better navigate their own life, and someone else happens to be involved. There is no ‘spying’ going on here.
If we’re ever unsure what side of the line a client’s question falls, there are several questions we can ask ourselves:
Why do they need to ask a tarot reader for this information? Is it because they would not get this information from the person directly?
Is what they are asking any of their business?
Why would they want to know this information?
How does the information materially impact the client you are reading for, if at all?
If you were the subject of the reading, how comfortable would you feel with that information being shared without your consent?
And when predictions are involved, you may be handing ‘bad news’ over to someone who will not deliver that appropriately to the person it actually affects.
Predictions matter, because they do have an impact on the people who receive them. As someone who doesn’t do predictive readings, nor do I believe that anything is fixed or ‘set in stone’, receiving a hard and fast ‘prediction’, especially in this sort of context (where I wasn’t expecting it), still felt destabilising and a little overwhelming. But if I was inclined to put stock in tarot reading predictions, this experience could have been incredibly damaging.
As tarot readers, it’s important to remember that what we say, matters. While some people certainly dismiss and trivialise the tarot, there are millions of people around the world who take this seriously. And we should know that, because I certainly am one of those people, and if you’re reading this, I’m willing to bet you are too!
Reading tarot for others is a big responsibility, but so often we think that only extends to the person we’re reading for and how we deliver the information. We forget that part of that responsibility is also to the people who did not consent to an energetic excavation of their life, and in the information we hold private.
Sending love
N x
How do you feel about ‘spying’ readings? Let me know in the comments! And if you’re not sure what your own ethics and boundaries are when it comes to tarot reading, this is a great question for us to explore and unpack in a 1-1 tarot mentoring session. Click here to book, click here to learn more, or feel free to contact me if you have any questions!
