If you’ve had more than a few Tarot readings, you’ve probably encountered a reader who, “pulls,” the cards for you. They may mix or shuffle the deck a few times and then they pick some cards which are supposed to represent you and your situation. They lay those cards out and then interpret them for you.
There’s a real question in my mind whether we can even properly call that technique a Tarot reading. Still, it illustrates the difference between two highly different styles of reading cards: the psychic approach and the empathic approach.
PSYCHIC TAROT READERS: USING THE CARDS AS A FOCUS TOOL
Psychic Tarot readers tend to use the cards as a tool to focus their extrasensory abilities. Think of the classic movie scene where a gypsy woman is huddled over a crystal ball and utters a pronouncement like, “You are going to meet a tall dark stranger and have incredible sex in a variety of nearly impossible positions.” There’s no suggestion that the crystal ball is talking to her or texts are appearing inside of it. Rather, she’s using it to focus her attention on receiving messages from spirit guides or opening herself to intuitive flashes.
In the same way, a psychic reader might pull The Tower card out of the deck and say something like, “Towers are tall buildings and that’s what I’m picking up on. I’m seeing a tall building in your future and there’s something wrong with it. I’m getting that you’re thinking of buying a house and I’d caution you about any two story house you look at it.”
Now, that interpretation HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DEFINITION OF THE CARD. Not even close. That doesn’t mean that the reader is wrong, though. If you’re dealing with a genuine psychic, she may be totally right on.
But it’s not a Tarot reading. It’s a psychic reading using Tarot cards as prompts.
Put another way, the knowledge is coming from the reader and not from the cards. That’s a major clue that you’re dealing with a psychic reader – they deemphasize the actual definitions of the cards and substitute their own. The images on the cards are actually much more important to them than the definitions because the images are what trigger their psychic flashes.
EMPATHIC TAROT READERS: READING EMOTIONAL AND ENERGETIC PATTERNS
Empathic readers tend to take a much more traditional approach.
First of all, they want YOU to handle the cards as much as possible, rather than simply picking out the cards for you. This is a recognition that there is some sort of a synchronistic link between the cards and the person who’s receiving the reading. It’s almost like the cards have to get to know the person – they need to pick up your unique vibrations and then the cards will match those vibrations and give you a reading.
An empathic reader will also rely much more heavily on structure and definitions. He’ll use readings with predetermined positions such as past, present and future. He’ll have a set of definitions that won’t change simply because he’s getting a different, “impression,” of what the card should mean. In the example of drawing The Tower card, he’d tell you that some cataclysmic event is about to occur in your personal life, but he won’t mention two story houses.
In one sense, an empath’s Tarot reading might seem to be a little psychic because she will connect deeply with the emotional and energetic state of the the person receiving the reading. Rather than receiving psychic downloads, an empathic reader will sense the feelings, fears, and desires of the client and interpret the cards in a way that reflects these energies.
Because empaths absorb emotions, their interpretations of the cards mirror what the client is going through. For instance, they might sense the client’s anxiety over drawing The Tower card and interpret it as need for an emotional breakthrough, rather than pure destruction. In that sense, an empath’s Tarot reading might feel more like a therapy session than a psychic prediction because they’re much more heart focussed.
WHICH TAROT READER IS RIGHT FOR YOU?
Both types of readings are perfectly valid, but one or the other might be preferable for us. It depends on what we’re looking for.
If we’re looking for guidance about what may happen in the future, then a psychic reader may be the better choice. That’s assuming, of course, that we’re convinced that the person we’re dealing with is a genuine psychic.
We’d approach that type of a reading in precisely the same way that we’d approach a psychic reading without the Tarot cards. After all, the cards are just there to focus the psychic’s abilities. We might go to a psychic to try to establish communication with a loved one who’s passed over. Or perhaps we feel a need for direction from a spirit guide or angel and can’t communicate directly with them ourselves. The psychic is the channel and the cards are secondary, so we’re not really looking for the wisdom of the Tarot itself.
A reading with an empath, on the other hand, would be much more oriented toward trying to make sense of our daily lives using the cards and their actual definitions. Empaths process information in patterns and so they’d be looking at all of the factors in our lives and trying to stitch them into a coherent whole.
A reading with an empath is also much more about how we feel about what’s happening to us, rather than just predicting events. After all, that sensitivity to other people’s emotions and energy is what empaths do best.
In either case, we always need to remember that a Tarot reading is just a snap shot in time. It’s about what MAY happen if the current circumstances continue. Nothing in a Tarot reading is written in stone and we have the ability to change the outcome by changing our behavior.
Just the Tarot 