I had a conversation with a reader of this website, and he told me that the main obstacle in learning how to read the cards is that he can’t put the meanings of the cards together to form a clear picture of the situation. The example he used was that it may be hard to tell a querent that they are at risk of getting fired, when in fact the cards may be predicting a fight with a coworker or a demotion, or some other work-related problem, but not a firing.

Divination is an art in itself, and it does require practice and patience. For the first couple of years after being taught cartomancy, I couldn’t put two card meanings together to save my life, even if it was obvious. I still remember my teacher’s dismayed expression when I couldn’t tell her that “talking” and “work” meant, quite obviously, “talking at work or talking about work”. Yes, it is obvious, just like it’s obvious that you first put one leg forward and then the other in order to walk, yet it takes us time to learn.

There are plenty of reasons why divination is hard, and lack of talent is only rarely an issue. Most of the times, we are simply experiencing the same hardships we would face when learning a new language, and most people can learn a second language if they put their mind to it.

Furthermore, I find that we often feel the need to overperform in order to convince the querent we are not frauds, and we do so by wanting to give them an absolutely accurate, unambiguous and immediately recognizable picture of the future. Of course, it would be nice if every divination session was as clear, but we are limited beings and we must be grateful for what we can do with the hand we are dealt (quite literally).

What do you do if you want to say ‘apple’ in a foreign language but you just can’t remember the name? You get creative and go back to the language’s building blocks: you describe the apple. “A round, red thing to eat.” This may sound weird and it is a bit vague, as there are other round red things we can eat, but it does help you narrow down the thing you want.

The same happens with divination. Sometimes we just can’t put the building blocks together into a single unambiguous picture (“you are at risk of getting fired”). But we can always describe what the cards are telling us: “I see some potentially upsetting circumstances surrounding your career.”

This is very vague, but it’s a start. Once we have narrowed down the topic, we can look for cards and combinations that give us additional clues: “These upsetting circumstances seem to involve a man, possibly a boss, who causes you trouble, and as a result I see the potential for some money problems.”

This is still not unambiguous: there are plenty of events that fit the description, e.g., being fired, being demoted, being assigned to an unrewarding task, a boss being replaced by another one that is so terrible the querent chooses to quit, etc.

Yet in spite of only describing the outline of a situation instead of naming it specifically, this is already very helpful to our querent, because we are giving them rather specific information they can use in preparing for difficult times ahead in their career.

We can also come up with a number of likely scenarios that fit the description as examples for our querent, and often they will help us fill the blanks (“Oh right, there’s that new project coming up no one wants to take on” or “Oh right, my boss has been talking about relocating for some time now”)

Note, also, that it is perfectly acceptable to voice our insecurity to the querent: “It is something between X1 and X10, and it seems to me like X1 to X3 are more problable, but I could be wrong”.

Once the prediction has come to pass, it is always possible to go back and see if perhaps we couldn’t have been more specific. This is a very important part of learning: there’s always something we miss, some turn of phrase of the cards we have misread or some meanings we have misapplied or even forgotten.

Still, the aim of divination is to provide help to people, not to impress them, and we are of service in the measure that we can point them in the right direction. If we can’t give them precise indications on the path ahead, “Between North and West, but more West than North” is good enough.

MQS