I'm not talking about me, Paul.

Amiable

when I say perhaps for you it would be different I don't mean you specificallly, rather perhaps for others it is different.

i forgot the three card additional questions are for readings where you keep every card in the spread upright in other words the cards are not read upside down whether it comes out that way or not.

Looking for the reference for this and might take a while.

>>>I didn't see Teresa using the term 'energy' anywhere either<<<

No, but the connection was a bit more tenuous. If I remember correctly, Teresa had made some comment expressing frustration with practices common among some readers, especially the inexperienced. Perhaps I misinterpreted her post, but it seemed to me that the context was appropriate for me to mention one of my pet peeves with beginning readers who say things that sound profound, but offer no genuine information. It wasn't aimed at anyone here, I assure you. And the word "energy" has a precise, mathematical meaning in physics that has nothing to do with the way some people use it in reference to Tarot cards.


>>>It's down to the person to help themselves, so in that sense I really don't feel like I'm helping anyone,<<<

OK, I get your point. I must explain, however, that I never said anything about telling people what to do with their lives. So far as I am concerned, helping the querent means giving them information that will help them make their own decisions about their life and circumstances. Sometimes, a bit of additional perspective on the problems can make all the difference. And If I'm not helping someone handle their problem, I am reading just to show off what I think I know, which accomplishes nothing whatever. In fact, I try to avoid telling something that will not help them, even though sometimes I turns out that I was not understanding the full situation.

Once a woman came to me to ask about her parents' health. When I laid out the cards, I felt a bit of a shiver since what I was seeing was that her mother would soon be dying and her father would follow a bit later. Such news is seldom welcome. So, I beat around the bush a little, stalling, and finally suggested that her mother seemed possibly to be near death. "Oh, thank God," the querent replied.

This startled me quite a lot. She quickly explained that her aging mother had been seriously ill for a years, in constant pain and the doctors were pessimistic about any chance of recovery. No treatment seemed to be available that would provide a cure or even much relief. And meanwhile, my querent had put her life on hold to care for her mother--without being able to offer her much real assistance. She felt helpless and somewhat depressed at the prospect of seeing her mother suffer without being able to help her. So she really felt that death would be the best result possible to end the suffering her mom endured.

I was surprised to find that the reading I had dreaded delivering turned out the be exactly the forecast the querent had been hoping for and that rather than burdening her, I had brought her comfort. She also revealed that since her parents had been so close, she was resigned to the idea that her father would probably pass on soon after her mother. So, instead of bad news, the reading was helpful.

On another occasion, I was doing a reading for a coworker at the restaurant where I worked. I laid out the cards and experienced a bit of panic when it seemed to me the cards were recommending that she have an affair. I knew that she was married and felt dismayed at having to deliver such disreputable advice. Finally, I suggested cautiously that there seemed to be a chance she might soon have another romantic interest. She blushed and lowering her eyes, replied, "Well, yes, as of this morning, in fact." The reading snapped into clear focus at once. Rather than giving her advice that had seemed unethical to me, I found myself advising her how to handle an accomplished fact, to be very cautious, to keep this new romance from her husband and not to expect anything lasting. She made it clear that this advice was helpful and very welcome, that it confirmed her own feelings about the matter and that she would follow the advice carefully. So I consider that the reading helped.

That's what I mean about being helpful. It does little good to accuse or to scold the querent. If they come to a reader, they are generally looking for advice with whatever problems they are having; if they get advice that they find useful, they have been helped.

A rather young women came to me for a reading once, my very first client when I started reading professionally. Her only question was, "Will I be getting married in the next year?" After searching the cards, I reluctantly told her that I saw nothing to indicate a wedding in the near future, though there might be an opportunity that I was simply not seeing. Imagine my surprise when she, too, said, "Oh, thank God!" It turned out that she had been to another reader who had told her that she would be married by this time next year. She didn't feel ready for marriage, she explained, and had been worried that the reading foretold something that was fated to happen whether she wanted it or not. So I told her that the previous reader had acted very unprofessionally if she had given that impression. What she did with her life, I said, was her business; no one could force such a decision on her if she was against it. In fact, the most that any reader or psychic could tell her was that she might have the opportunity to wed soon, if that was her choice. She was quite relieved to hear that her freedom of choice was not impaired and thanked me profusely for the reading. So I figure she got her money's worth. That's what I mean by helping--advising, not commanding.

I've never felt called on to do the "you will meet a handsome stranger" bit. That's not advice, it's a cliche suitable only for hack writers who know little or nothing about Tarot readings.

By the way, if you are an astrologer, I'm surprised you haven't looked more into the astrological correspondences in Tarot. With a little study, It's easy to tell the querent about when a future expectation will materialize, to at least a span of ten days, one decanate. And the position of a given card within the wheel of the year, will often speak eloquently about the nature of a future event.

With love under will,

Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville

>>>How long have you been reading? What else have you studied?<<<

I have been reading for over forty years, but lately I restrict myself to doing only free readings for friends who request them. Initially, back in the seventies, people I knew who found out that I had a Tarot deck used to insist that I read for them. I tried telling them that I didn't do readings, that I used the cards only for study and meditation and, further, that I thought Tarot readings were nothing but a ridiculous superstition. Then I told them that I didn't have the meanings of the cards memorized and that I would just have to read them out of the book (One of the very simple Eden Gray paperbacks at that time). They insisted anyway.

So, eventually I would read for them. I read the meanings out of the book and did my best to draw as much information as I could from the cards. I was always hoping to hear them say, "No, tha'ts completely wrong", but it never happened. The querent was always quite pleased with my reluctant readings and told me that it was quite accurate. At one point, for example, I did a reading for a young woman who wanted to know whether she should move out of her parents' house and get a place of her own. I told her that there was a young man in her current house who was about age such and such, who had hair of this color and eyes of that color and who was advising her to move out. To my total astonishment, she answered that this was a very accurate description of her younger brother and that, not only had he advised her that she'd be happier in her own place, but that he was the only one in the family who felt that way. And this was fairly typical, back then. No matter how often I tried to push the reading to the point where I felt I was treading on very thin ice in terms of accuracy, the ice always held and the querent was pleased. Peculiar, but interesting in addition to being a bit frustrating, since my views of a rational world were being challenged.

Much later, when I let some friends talk me into taking a beginning course on Tarot reading, I found that I was a better reader than anyone else in the class, including the teacher. Sorry, I don't mean to boast, but it was evident to me at the time. The point became clear when I was able to give an accurate reading of a spread that no one else could make any sense of. The subject of the reading sat there and agreed with everything I told him, including the fact (unknown to me before) that he had grown up on his father's farm and had had an uneasy relationship with his Dad, who had been a rather distant, uncommunicative parent. Much of what I told him seemed to embarrass him, but he had agreed with the cards. In my own defense here, I had tried to get out of doing the reading on the ground that what I saw in the spread was somewhat negative, but he insisted that he was a "big boy" and could handle it. More power to him, he did handle it, blushing a bit in places, but nodding his head. It may have helped that whenever I described something that he found difficult all his friends in the class would call out, "Yes, that's John exactly."--or similar comments. I was nearly as embarrassed as he was, I suspect, since I don't enjoy embarrassing my querents. I try to avoid giving people bad news or criticism, though when I find I can't avoid it, I discover that the querent was happy to receive it, as I've mentioned in some of the events I've described before.

When I approached the teacher after class one evening and told her that I had always thought Tarot reading was a bunch of superstitious nonsense, she astonished me by saying, "Of course; that's why you're so good at it. It's always the skeptics that make the best readers; true believers never seem to have the knack." Then, she added, "Although the skeptics don't stay skeptics very long." Which made sense to me.

As for what else I have studied, I will assume you mean in the psychic and mystical fields since it would take forever to list all of my interests. So on that basis, I have studied: Tarot, Thelema, ceremonial magick, QBL, chaos magick, Enochian magick, sigils, candle magick, Goetia. rune magick, meditation, channeling, "spirit guides", crystals, incenses, oils, Huna, Santeria, Candomble, Voudon, Reikl, Egyptian magick and religion, Greek, Roman, Hindu, Celtic, Japanese, Sumerian and other myth systems, etc. And I have taught on Tarot, ceremonial magick, QBL, Christian and other types of mysticism, et alia. Lest I give too much of an impressive, but exaggerated resume, several of these were no more than a passing, often rather shallow investigation. I have done most of my real work in Tarot, Thelema, ceremonial magick, QBL and meditation.

I hope that will answer satisfactorily what you wanted to know about my background. So long as we understand the list is more exhaustive than strictly necessary. I have had a long and fervent interest in such related topics as comparative mythology and various flavors of mystical studies, especially Taoism, Zen Buddhism and Hindu religious philosophy. If you have other questions, I will do my best to answer them.

With love under will,

Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville