In this chapter I offer the “rules” and guidelines by which I operate and maintain a sense of professionalism as a professional psychic. Here, too, are issues too delicate to be ignored in this book but maybe also too delicate to be dealt with in a professional setting. As with all ethical matters, in the end, whether you pay attention here is totally up to you, though I sure hope you will.
On Death and Dying
I’m including this coverage here because too many people have asked me over the years not about their own deaths but about the life spans of people they love and people they totally don’t love. This means that if you learn to do what I do, you may be confronted by the same thing.
You know, every once in a while during a reading I see somebody in the cards who’s in the afterlife. And I usually feel that this person’s mission after death is to watch over a loved one still here on Earth until that loved one’s life is healed or at least under control. Usually these are mothers who weren’t so great to their kids when they were alive and who seem to be sticking around now, after death, to do what they didn’t do before: love and protect their kids (my clients).
And in readings, on rare occasions the dead show up (actually, ten times in 25,000 readings) because they have a message for the client. One time it was a father telling his daughter, “You can do it!” Of course, this may be my fantasy, but when I’ve had these experiences in readings, the clients have confirmed my sense of things. All of them have felt the presence of the particular person who I think has come to say hello and encourage them somehow.
So over time I’ve learned that this little pack of seventy-eight tarot cards can also tell the story of the universe, one person at a time. It can represent the life of a soul, tell the story of a soul. This is also why, maybe once in a thousand readings, I think I’m glimpsing a past life. At such times I literally caution my client to take what I’m saying with a grain of salt. For sure, none of it can be proved. Still, in several cases, the few times this has happened in my career, the client had already sensed a life in the place and time I was describing.
But what is the absolute most important thing I can say about past lives, while I’m on the subject?
If your client claims that life sucks, if the client is always unhappy, if the client is depressed, if the client always seems to be victimized … Whatever the negative situation is, the client needs to know it has not been caused by something in a past life. No! The fact is the problem has been caused by somebody or something in this life.
I’ve had a lot of clients over the years desperately trying to blame previous existences for the pain done to them in this one, especially by denying the reality of their childhood in this life. This is just dangerous, because it means that we’re not looking at our own lives and our own betrayals and our own painful experiences in order to fix them.
Yes, I do believe that we can access information about past lives through hypnotic regression, but I also believe that whatever we find there we will find here too. As others do, I believe we come into this life with unresolved issues from the past. These are then duplicated somehow in this life.
So, look, it’s the stuff of this life that’s the cause of our pain in this life. And this is what needs fixing. You won’t get better in 2020 by “remembering” what may or may not have happened in 1500.
Finally, I didn’t “see” my first spirit in the cards until I’d been reading professionally for maybe fifteen years. And there’s nothing I can do now to make this happen. People “come” or they don’t. And it’s also entirely possible that I’ve missed many along the way besides the ten or so I can be sure of. So if you try to use tarot to contact the dead, it may work because you have a particular gift. But, more likely, it won’t work at all. Everything takes time, and what is ours comes to us. So just work hard and wait to see what comes to you.
Misusing Tarot
Now I need to say something about the criminal aspect, the immoral aspect, the unethical aspect of tarot, or any oracle for that matter, in the wrong hands.
I once overheard a “reader” tell a man, “No, you don’t need to see a doctor; it’s just a little lump.”
Oh my god.
And this is the same “reader” who, it seems, had done some stock market “advising” before that for a different client, who’d ended up losing his shirt following her “psychic” instructions.
Somebody please steal her cards.
My Model
I long ago modeled my practice on that of the psychotherapist when it comes to confidentiality. I tell nobody for any reason who has consulted me. My clients can shout it to the rooftops. But I believe it is my responsibility to keep my mouth shut, and so I do.
On the other hand, I do my own thing when it comes to using my own life as parable. While most psychotherapists are trained to listen and not share, I don’t have to operate under such constraints. In fact, I’ve discovered that being able to explain to a client that I have been a total screw-up in life at times enables me to make a simply human connection. The client doesn’t feel lectured. All good.
Don’t Pretend to Know What You Don’t Know
There are so many people out there billing themselves as “psychics,” it’s kind of scary. As a matter of fact, it took me many years to even admit that maybe I had some kind of gift.
So be humble. Be discreet. Don’t lie to your clients. Don’t pretend you know what you don’t.
If you’re honest and direct and compassionate, you’ll be the kind of reader they’ll want to recommend.