Collaborative Reading
As I explained in the introduction, there are two models of divination: the transmission model and the construction model. In the transmission model, the diviner gets the message from the Anima Mundi and passes it on, as if it is a package or box of information. Errors, if they occur, are attributed to a failure to properly protect the contents in transmission.
In this model, the diviner is a channel and the querent is the receiver.
As models go, this fits our instinct about how we deal with information, how we communicate it and manipulate it. We conceive of information as a substance that can be poured into containers—our heads, a book, a computer, a set of cards—and extracted from those containers if you just know how to squeeze them the right way. We fill up our heads on information, pour it out of mouths and into our ears, as if we are complex vases.
The problem with this model is that it doesn’t fit reality. No model does, really, but this one leaves some big gaps. For example, if information is a substance we pour into containers, where does it come from? Is there just a sea of information somewhere out there that we dip into? If so, where does that sea come from? And if we can simply transfer information from one head to another, why—even in mundane situations of communication—does that transmission end up garbled, not some of the time, but all of the time? Why is something always “missing in translation?” If, every time we sent a package of cookies to a friend, three of the cookies were missing and one had been replaced with a piece of fried calamari, we’d be darned suspicious of the company we hired to deliver the package. We might even suspect that they didn’t deliver the package we sent at all, but replaced it with something else. Yet this equivalent thing happens nearly every time we communicate: something always goes missing, something always goes wrong. This happens so often we have built communicative strategies to correct for such errors—“I’m sorry.” “Pardon me?” “Come again?” “I missed that.” “Did you mean … ?”
The second model of communication, one more useful in some cases than the transmission model, is the constructivist model. In this model, instead of sending a box of cookies to my friend, I send a recipe for cookies. The exact shape and even flavor of the cookies my friend gets are up to him. Maybe I call for raw cocoa, but the brand I use and the brand my friend has in his pantry are different. Maybe I suggest a cup of whole milk, but all he’s got is skim. I can’t know what’s in his fridge before I send the recipe: I can just hope that he’ll figure it out and come up with something like my cookies.
And, usually, he does. The differences are not errors in transmission, but a function of having differently stocked fridges. Our heads are kitchens, stocked with different goods. I can never know what ingredients are in your mental fridge, nor can I know how hot your mental oven runs. But I can give you a recipe that constructs a particular idea in my head, and hope that you can bake a similar, although never the same, idea in your head. I am not communicating a thing to my friend at all: not sending a box of cookies, but the directions for making such a box of cookies. Perhaps my friend’s cookies will not turn out like mine, but if so, that’s not a failure on either of our parts: it might just be because his kitchen is different.
I desperately want to make cookies right now, but let’s continue with our theorizing and we can eat dessert later.
When we use a transmission model of divination, we create a hierarchy in which the diviner reads and the querent listens. Sure, the querent may ask questions, but those questions provoke not discussion, but lecture. This is a top-down model of divination; the message comes from on high, and trickles through the diviner to the querent. It is, to continue our metaphor, as if the Anima Mundi hands a package of information off to the diviner, who hands it over to the querent.
I don’t mean to condemn such a model. It has, after all, served most diviners well, including the famous Mlle. Lenormand. And it can be helpful for the querent to hear the past, present, and future analyzed and given a voice. There’s also some emotional benefit, I believe, to the experience of having an authority to go to for advice, one who speaks ex cathedra. However, this model of top-down lecturing isn’t always the most appropriate, and it also is open to abuse. It’s easy for an unscrupulous diviner, for example, to pull a hoax or fraud on a receptive querent. If I tell you there’s a “dark cloud” (a favorite phrase of frauds) around you, and I must burn a specially blessed candle worth several hundred dollars to get rid of it, perhaps you will believe me if you’re disposed to accept me as an authority who speaks for the Anima Mundi. That would be a pity.
A constructivist view of divination looks a bit different. Here, instead of a top-down line of transmission from the Anima Mundi, as if the Anima Mundi is passing cookies down the line, the querent and diviner come together around the cards. And suddenly, the terms “querent” and “diviner” cease to mean much, because both are asking the questions, both are giving the answers. Here we have a center-out model: the recipe lies on the table, and both people collaborate on constructing meanings from it.
Notice the plural, too: meanings. Because now we have twice the fridge space, twice the counter space, and two ovens. We can make many different batches of cookies where once there was one. Where once a single authority spoke the meaning of the cards, now two voices come together in dialogue to construct meanings, some of which might fit, some of which might not.
The master of this constructivist method of reading is Mary K. Greer, and her book 21 Ways of Reading Tarot Cards is a sine qua non for cartomancers of all stripes, not just tarot card readers.26 I can’t duplicate her work here, or even do full justice to it. But to attempt a summary, her general tendency is to look at the cards as building blocks of meaning, rather than set signs with definite meanings. We can do something similar with other divination systems, such as the Lenormand.
Once you lay out the cards for a querent, instead of saying what the cards mean, simply name and describe them. For example, a traditional simple reading for a querent might go like this:
Q: I want to know if this investment will work out.
Cards: 23–Mouse, 33–Key, 5–Tree
R: I think probably so. I see a little worry and concern, but it’s sort of fated: that’s what Key followed by Tree usually means.
A constructivist reading would look different, in that the reader would ask as many questions as the querent.
Q: I want to know if this investment will work out.
Cards: 23–Mouse, 33–Key, 5–Tree
R: These are Mouse, Key, and Tree. What do you think of when you see Mouse?
Q: I guess I have to laugh. We call our accountant “Mouse.” He’s little and squirrelly.
R: And Key?
Q: Well, he’s kind of key to the whole thing, I suppose. It was his suggestion we do this thing.
R: What about Tree?
Q: That’s actually funny. I was concerned about the environmental impact. Do you think this is saying it’s going to be okay, or not?
R: Sometimes, Key is like an exclamation point.
Q: So it’s saying that the environmental impact will be really important?
R: Maybe.
As you can see, there are fewer certainties, but it’s a lot more interesting of a reading. The most interesting thing is when a querent says “I have no idea what that might mean.” At that point, a reader might prod gently by offering one or two possible meaning of the cards. But notice the reader isn’t so much reading the cards as he or she is taking the querent’s hand and teaching him or her to read.
One of the things I like a lot about this constructivist approach is that it empowers the querent and can be life-changing. Yet not every reading is appropriate for such a thing. I sometimes read at parties, and I wouldn’t want to do it there: after all, who wants to have a life-changing insight at a dinner party? But at other times, when people come to me specifically for readings about events that concern them, it can be a great way to empower people to understand and maybe change their own lives.
Be prepared to deal with real issues when you read cards this way for other people. At this point, you’ve left behind the “psychic” label and become a sort of ancillary lay therapist. However, keep in mind that you’re probably not qualified (unless, of course, you are) to be a therapist. You probably lack the training, and should therefore resist the temptation to step in and “help” someone work through their ideas and issues. It’s their job to do so, not yours, and you mustn’t rob them of the opportunity once you give it to them.
Also, be ready to offer sympathy and support; after all, most people don’t come to a reader because everything is fine. They often come because things are not fine, and they need to work through those problems. They may even beg you for advice; the best and kindest thing you can do is just lead them through the cards, as a way for them to work through their own problems. At this point, you’re engaging more in a kind of counseling than psychic prediction, and that’s fine. Most people need quite a bit less prediction than introspection. Just make sure you don’t call yourself a counselor unless you’re legally qualified to do so in your jurisdiction.
And if you aren’t prepared to help querents in difficult situations like this, you should probably give up the idea of reading for others, at least professionally. There’s no shame in that, and reading for oneself and one’s circle of friends is also rewarding.
So the constructivist approach is useful when reading for others. What about when reading for oneself? How can you guide yourself through the cards in a similar way? After all, you obviously see only what you see. But there are several techniques you can use that will help you approach the cards more constructively.
For example, a common practice among cartomancers is to draw “a card for the day.” I recommend this practice, both as a way to learn the deck as well as a way to prepare for the day. It also helps get over the fear of some cards that some readers have (I loathe drawing 36–Cross, to this day—but really, the misery it predicts is really never all that bad). But its real use comes when you regard the cards in a constructivist way rather than as transmissions of packaged information.
It helps to do this with a written journal of some kind, even if it’s informal. Begin by drawing a single card and writing the name at the top of a page of your journal. You’ll want to make two columns. On the left, list the meaning as you understand it, and then free-associate a bit. Fill this side with ideas of how the card might fit your life: the names of people whom it might indicate or describe, the kinds of situations that it might be relevant to. Then, on the right-hand side of the page, write the date you drew it. At the end of the day, write any events that fit the card on the right.
If you do this regularly, you’ll eventually have pages for most if not all of the cards in the deck. You’ll also have a lot of material from which you can construct meanings. Much more importantly, you’ll have practiced the process again and again, and can use it even on yourself when you need it.
The real trick to doing a constructivist reading with yourself is to talk to yourself and write to yourself. You need both. Writing down your interpretations, even in outline form, keeps you honest. It’s harder to self-deceive if you have the reading laid out before you in black and white. Similarly, if you can bring yourself to talk to yourself out loud, even when alone (especially when alone), you’ll be less likely to gloss over details that would otherwise catch your eye.
When reading for yourself, you’re likely to run into the issue of self-deception. When reading for someone else, it’s easier to say “this card means a difficult time is coming,” or even “this card means good news” but when reading for yourself, it’s easy to try to gloss over the bad cards, or worse, catastrophize them.
The simplest way I’ve found to overcome these self-deceptive tendencies is to pretend that you’re not reading for yourself. You’re reading for a querent much like you; would you tell that querent that this card is unmitigated disaster? Probably not. And would you tell the querent to ignore that unpleasant-looking card? Probably not. Why treat yourself differently from a querent? If you read the cards aloud, and speak your meanings so that you can hear them, it’s easier to do this: to separate yourself from your reading long enough to be objective.
The process of constructivist reading for oneself looks like this:
1. Lay out the cards after your usual ritual.
2. Then focus on the first card, name it, and ask aloud, “What could this card mean? How might it be relevant?”
3. Speak a few possibilities, even if they aren’t altogether motivated by the card alone: “It’s the Hierophant. It seems he’s trying to teach, but the acolytes before him aren’t really listening. They’re paying more attention to who is he than what he’s saying. I wonder if that describes the situation at work . . .”
4. Brainstorm possibilities, jotting them down as you go.
5. You can check them by focusing on them, finding which of them offers a “felt sense” of rightness and which do not.
6. Alternately, or in addition, you can use the pendulum as a way to check your body’s reaction to possible interpretations.
The goal of constructivist reading, whether for yourself or others, is not to predict the future or arrive at accurate facts, but to gain insight and meaning from the current situation. Described that way, perhaps it sounds less flashy or impressive than prediction, but one of the insights we are inclined to glean is insight into the future. Moreover, what’s more impressive? Predicting the future or understanding oneself? One can maybe help you plan for future advantages; the other can help you grow into a better person in every sense.
26. Mary K. Greer, 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2007).