Sometimes people ask me, “What happens if I ask you a deceptive question?” to which the honest answer is, “I’ll be more likely to get the answer wrong” The underlying assumption is that I either pull answers out of my ass or I get them through some infallible magical process, so that either my getting the answer wrong is proof that divination is bogus or a querent’s deceptive behavior should have no bearing on my ability to answer.

Neither of these assumptions is true. Divination is a process of symbol-reading that equates the combinations of a given comprehensive set of symbols with certain states of being in the past, present or future.

A symbol is not some arbitrary squiggle. Keep in mind that symbolic means “that throws together”. It’s the opposite of diabolic, which means “that throws apart”. Our whole perception is symbolic, as we equate X with Y at every turn, linking various states of being together (“we throw them together”) in our perception. Car approaching means danger of becoming crayon smears on the asphalt. If our mind didn’t work symbolically it wouldn’t be able to link facts together, and we’d already be dead.

As I said somewhere else, if you show up at the doctor’s insisting your leg hurts even if it doesn’t, sooner or later you are going to get a diagnosis and a prescription. If the doctor touches you where it hurts but you say it doesn’t hurt, that also changes the diagnosis. The doctor is reading you and your behavior as symbols that he “throws together”, i.e., connects with certain predictions about the past, present or future. An honest and cooperative querent is as valuable as an honest and cooperative patient, except that patients understand this, querents sometimes don’t.

Detecting a querent’s lies is not impossible, just as it’s not impossible for a perceptive doctor to call a patient’s bluff, but it’s damn hard. It is especially hard with divination, because unlike a doctor visit, a divination will always give an outcome, that is, its symbols will always come up in a certain order. If a married querent asks you “will I get married?”, you are still going to have a spread of cards or a chart or some other set of symbols in front of you saying something.

In my (fortunately limited) experience with deceptive querents, the divination always contains the truth of the matter. In the example of the married querent, there should be indications of an existing marriage. Unfortunately, it is extremely easy to misread the symbols as meaning something else on the backdrop of what the querent said.

But a question is not deceptive just when the querent is maliciously trying to call you out as a fraud. Well-meaning querents can inadvertently frame their questions deceptively. Here’s an example.

Case Study

I’m currently gathering recommendations as a reader, in case I decide to offer paid readings from the blog in the future. I was reading for a young woman in her late thirties in exchange for her recommendation a couple of days ago. She asked me about her love life, but asked nothing specific.

We’ve talked about querents’ assumptions, but readers have assumptions, too. One of the typical assumptions of many readers is that if someone is getting a reading, the person must be a mess in need of major help, so readers tend to give a less favorable reading of any outcome. In this case, this assumption would have led me to make a mistake.

Here’s the spread that came out in response to the question (I know I haven’t talked about tarot on this blog yet, but I’ll explain my approach another time. Note that the querent has given me permission to talk about the reading)

The cards of the cut were the Empress (the querent) and the Moon. The Moon can have a huge variety of meanings, from deception to silence to maternity to influence on people to many, many more. Mostly it is a bit of a red flag when it falls next to a significator. But the rest of the cards were wonderful.

Mqs: “You’re in a relationship, right?”
Querent: “yes”
Mqs: “it’s a longstanding one, though. Marriage?” (Hermit at the beginning showing slowness/long time, plus Sun and Justice showing a union of love)
Querent: “yes!”
Mqs: “It’s a good marriage. It has settled into its rhythms (Justice and Wheel) but there is still a great deal of love (Sun)”
Querent: “yes, we love each other.”
Mqs: “there is a clean, pure (Stars) energy (Devil) around this union (Justice above). You have different characters (Justice and Devil) but it doesn’t seem to matter, and any obstacle (Devil) is overcome (Chariot).”
Querent: “it’s true”
Mqs: “Is he older than you? (He’s represented by the Pope)
Querent: ” Quite a bit”
Mqs: “But he’s very dynamic (Juggler next to Pope)”
Querent: “Definitely. He does a lot of sport.”

At this point I was a bit startled. The cards were wonderful. There didn’t seem to be any issue. This is relatively common when the querent doesn’t ask a very specific question (she only told me the topic). Still that Moon next to her bothered me. Why was it there? The cards didn’t point to any cheating or issue.

Mqs: “Are you somewhat taciturn?”
Querent: “Yes, I tend to keep to myself.”

That was an explanation, but it still wasn’t satisfying. It was an odd thing for the cards to point out in the cut.

Mqs: “Are you dissatified?” (The Moon can mean sadness)
Querent: “A bit”
Mqs: “But not with your marriage”
Querent: “No, I’m happy with my husband”
Mqs: (looking at the Juggler next to the husband, which is the significator card for work) “Does he work?”
Querent: “yes”
Mqs: “do you work?”
Querent: “I don’t”
Mqs: “Are you dissatisfied that your husband works but you don’t?”
Querent: “yes! I think that’s how I feel”
Mqs: (laughing) “So the question is about work, not love”

Her face lit up with understanding, as if she hadn’t thought about it. “That’s right!” she said enthusiastically, “I wanna know about work!”

I think this interaction shows very well how, even if not meaning to, querents can veil one issue by wrapping a different topic around it. The querent in this case wasn’t trying to deceive me. Her subconscious mind simply used the topic of her love life to lead me to her real issue. This, by the way, is why it’s important to be able to have a frank conversation with querents.

MQS