Tarot and the role of ethics

Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc

By Sarah Taylor

In the wake of news in recent years that the government in the UK is aiming to regulate what they consider to be ‘psychic’ industries, there has been a response from many quarters in the tarot industry to provide a greater emphasis on ethics as a disciplinary framework for tarot readings.

Whatever I think of the government’s efforts at regulation (and don’t get me started!), I believe that if it has managed to get more readers talking about, and implementing, an ethical framework to tarot, then that’s no bad thing at all. This isn’t just to protect prospective clients from those who are simply in it to make a fast buck: it’s also to try and establish some fundamentally important boundaries between reader and client.

So while many of us are laying the foundations for the coming year, I thought we could look at ethics in terms of laying the foundations for an effective and responsible tarot reading. I’m going to draw quite a bit from the ethics set out by the Tarot Association of the British Isles — on which my own work is based. But I’m also going to be re-emphasizing some, and adding other, observations based on my own experiences as a counselor and psychotherapist-in-training, and which delve into areas that are less easily definable. I wouldn’t expect to find them stated explicitly in any published code — they are concerned with a reader’s inner world and the boundaries that I referred to earlier — but they can play a critical role in a client’s experience of both a reader and a reading.

Given that ethics as a subject is wide-ranging and often open to debate, this list is far from exhaustive; but I hope it covers the basics. If not, then it is mea culpa entirely.

Confidentiality

Maintaining your client’s privacy is a cornerstone. And not just privacy around the content of the reading, but around the fact that a client has had a reading at all.

Although in some circles tarot reading is, if not the norm, then widely accepted, it is definitely not accepted everywhere. As a tarot reader, I’m more than willing to engage in lively debate with someone who views what I do with scepticism or disapproval (although these reactions are few and far between). In fact, bring it on! But don’t assume that your clients are equally enthusiastic about sharing their experience with others. In fact, they may be sceptics, or at odds with themselves about the notion that what they have actively sought out can actually assist them. Keep quiet. Always.

Equality and non-judgement

These are treated as two separate points in the TABI code of ethics, but I think they really boil down to the second idea of non-judgement. If you keep judgement (i.e. prejudice) out of the tarot session, then equality takes care of itself. All clients have a right to be there, and all clients have a right to expect a reader’s best efforts.

A qualification: show me a person who is free from internal judgement, and I’ll show you a saint. The vast majority of us have our intolerances, rational or not. The difference is that in a tarot reading, you leave them at the door. Most professional readers worth their salt can do this with minimal effort. When they can’t, and if they start sensing the introductory drumbeat to the rant of the self-righteous, then the reading is going to be compromised in one way or another, in spite of their most valiant efforts. Which makes it a good time to get on to the next point, taken directly from TABI:

“If you can’t complete a reading, withdraw tactfully”

Yes, if you’re struggling with judgement or prejudice, now would be a good time to bow out gracefully. It might also be a good time to investigate whether tarot reading really is a suitable career choice, or if perhaps there are unresolved issues that are best dealt with before continuing. (More on this later.) There are also times when a reading breaks down because of external interruption, for no foreseeable or explicable reason. To put it technically: shit happens. In some readings, it might become clear that a client is not willing or able to continue, for instance because of their own reactions to a reading (and I have no direct experience of this).

Either way, the key word here is “tactfully”. This hopefully allows both parties to go their separate ways, while keeping the emotions and integrity of both in one piece.

No third-party readings without permission

These are readings about other people without their knowledge or consent — most often requested in relationship-based readings of the “Does s/he love me?” or “What is going on in his/her life?” ilk. They are understandable, often highly tempting to ask, and many clients are completely unaware of the potential transgression.

So why do many tarot readers place such importance on refusing third party readings? For two main reasons: first, it is an invasion of privacy. If someone has not expressly given their go-ahead for a reading, then they are, in essence, being robbed: of their feelings, thoughts and ideas. If they are not willing to tell the client directly how they are feeling or what they are thinking, then a reader would do well to respect that. A tarot reading is about empowering people. Here, refusing to do third-party readings empowers those who are absent. It also — and this is the second point — empowers the client, too, because it puts them at the center of their reading, and not someone else. More often than not, when I get a request like this, I will help a client to rephrase the question so that the client sees the relationship from their point of view. This is not only ethical, but goes some way to start re-emphasizing the client as initiator and driver of their own life.

Set guidelines for returning customers

My own guidelines: I do not answer the same question twice — no matter how differently it is phrased — unless something significant has happened to change the circumstances; and if a client requests a subsequent reading, I’ll work with them to ascertain whether they have reached closure with the previous reading first.

Both of these lay down some useful boundaries and help to keep the balance of power evenly distributed between client and reader. Clients, on the one hand, retain the power to make decisions about their lives, with tarot playing a supporting, rather than primary role, in the process. Readers, on the other, are more easily able to remember that their main focus is tarot rather than their bank balance; and it tends to curtail any early pretensions to a messianic complex. (I say this with tongue planted firmly, but not wholly, in cheek.) Finally, avoiding asking the same question twice prevents the cards from playing silly buggers: as I stated in an earlier article, my experience is that they don’t take repeat requests at all seriously, preferring to get more and more ridiculous as the number of attempts escalates.

Be aware of your emotions at all times

This is a subject that could take up an article all by itself, but I still think it is worth mentioning here, even if only as a point of departure for a later discussion. As a reader, I will sometimes get momentarily sidelined by a particular feeling or emotion. The skill here lies in determining whether it is mine, or my client’s. If it is mine, a ‘strand’ of it will lead back to me; I can feel its roots in a part of my psyche. This, in therapy, is known as transference and counter-transference. All therapists will experience it, and good therapists know how to deal with it. In some forms of therapy it is encouraged. In tarot, it is incidental but I’d like to suggest that awareness of it is crucial, because it can interfere with a reading if it remains disowned.

Without crossing the line into therapy-speak too much here, I would also like to suggest that if, as a reader, you are motivated by a strong need to help, heal or save, or your readings are constantly being beset by intense feelings or emotions that have a particular pattern to them or which affect your ideas about a client, then it might be valuable to explore these away from your consulting room. I can remember all too clearly when my first (an admittedly difficult) client seemed to become uncannily like my step-mother halfway through the reading. For me, it was a case of ‘healer, heal thyself’, and resulted in a very productive therapy session.

Know when to refer

Likewise, be aware of those times when your client would be better served by someone else’s expertise, be that an attorney, a doctor, an accountant or a therapist. Don’t see it as a failure on your part if you need to refer. Remember, this is about them, not you.

Finally, a good tarot reader always knows when to end a consultation. Say what you feel is asking to be said, and then say no more. Good advice to take.