Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Tarot: Can Knowing the Future Alter the Future?

As a professional tarot reader I am often asked questions by first time clients. A while back I was asked if getting a tarot reading can change the future simply by revealing the future.

I damn well hope so!

My goal in reading tarot is to allow the client to see things in a new light. More often than not I suggest steps for them to take to achieve their goals. It is my hope that they will take those steps and create their own future rather than being blown around by the winds of fate. Also when I tell a client something about the negative aspects of their own thinking and behaviour I hope that they will change these for the better. An example of this would be telling a client that she is creating anxiety in her daughter by expressing her own unfounded concerns. Ideally the client will catch herself doing that in future, or become aware of her daughter’s body language, and stop. Even if the client does not immediately to buy into what I say, the reading might cause them to notice a problem later and address it.

As an aside, as a reader I may hope they follow the advice of the universe but it is none of my business if they do or not. I own nothing from the reading. Often I do not even remember what was said to any particular client.

That really wasn’t the answer my questioner was looking for, however. His question is actually incredibly complex, and smarter people than I have opined upon possible answers. I will take a stab at addressing the subjectas generations of philosophers roll over in their graves.

First of all the question presupposes that the future has not already taken your new arcane knowledge into account. Why would one suppose that? The future is a product of its own past even if that past is still in your future. At least one of the client’s potential future paths already take whatever knowledge I provide into account.  After the reading, all of his future paths will have that knowledge as part of their make up.

My editor says this relates to string theory and parallel universes. While she cautions that all occult phenomena cannot be explained by that theory, for those interested she recommends  Kaku's Hyperspace.

Secondly, we do things to alter the future all the time. We have savings accounts to move away from a future of poverty. We get health check-ups to hopefully avoid a future with an early death. We date in hopes of having a future full of love rather than being left alone with nothing for company but a couple of old sock puppets and a kazoo. Getting a tarot reading to help plan the future is right in line with these activities and likely less risky than online dating!

Basically this question is the result of the fear of a loss of an unknown thing. Maybe in one of those futures I met they guy that will employ me to my highest potential and income but if a tarot reading leads me down another path I will miss that opportunity. That could happen. For example, I work at a very well paying job for my community. This job makes me miserable or I make myself miserable doing it. Had I had a tarot reading before accepting the job that advised me that I would be happy working with my hands and restoring furniture I may have done that. I would therefore have missed my highest potential income but likely lived happier for at least eight hours a day. Would I miss this job? No. I would never have known it was a possibility anyway. Would I have known I was happier there than in another job? Maybe. Given that the opportunity lost would always be unknown and fearing a reading based on that is responding to a fear of the unknown I would screw up the courage and get a reading. You are always welcome to ignore it.

As for my readings, sometimes I miss the mark. I normally know that right away and refundthe person’s money. This has happened roughly 10 times since I've started reading tarot professionally. Several times clients told me that I was exactly right, but on a totally different question than what they were intending to ask. It is as if the universe put forward a question and I read the answer to that instead of what the client wanted. It still feels like a miss to me until the client tells me otherwise. This indicates that there is an element of divine providence occurring when I read. The client gets what they need, though at times it isn’t what they think they want.

Lastly, there are indeed ways of seeing the future. I am not saying the idea is preposterous. For example  I have glimpsed the future in dreams but I have never had one in a tarot reading. The glimpses from dreams involving friends, coworkers or others that I see in life more frequently than I tarot client do not lend themselves to being avoided in ‘real life’. They typically involve meeting someone unexpectedly, or are more focused on the emotion of a future event paired with a metaphorical context.

As the question wondered if the future would be altered it implies the asker does not want his unknown future changed. I therefore offer this. In order to avoid the specific event glimpsed in my dreams one would have to be pretty good at sussing out the metaphor and matching it to enough preceding life events to provide a solid insight to act upon. This is not likely. Sometimes I pick up on random information, like the fact that two people I know will sleep together. This is emphatically none of my business and  I have no idea why the universe shares that information with me.
I have no doubt there are people that have experienced deeper recognitions of the future than I. That may give them a different perspective on the answer than my own. Until I obtain that sort of ability this will have to do.

In closing, I really do not think foreknowledge of the future is something to worry about. I would much rather know the energies I am dealing with and finding a wise way to navigate through them than worry about what possible future I would miss out on in doing so.





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