Reclaiming 'Fortune Telling'

[Saturn Celeste]

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=40062

by Kiama

This is a fascinating discussion about this topic.  I could not refuse to include it!

I've thought long and hard about this over the years, and Aeclectic members who have known me for a while will probably also remember by vehement dislike of the term 'fortune teller' when used for Tarot readers such as myself.

 

For some reason, so many of us see the term 'fortune telling' as one of money-grabbing; as one of petty questions; as one used to describe a back-street amateur or con artist. Either way, it is often seen negatively by the Tarot community in general. Approach most readers and say "Are you a fortune teller then?" and you can expect a good-natured rant on the purpose of the Tarot, the nature of the future, and the importance of both the Tarot and freewill.

 

Now, there's nothing wrong with this at all. I enjoy listening to these good-natured rants, and I would not call myself a fortune teller necessarily.

 

But I realized today - I do tell fortunes.

 

Most people would say that 'fortune telling' signifies telling people about the future and what is going to happen, whereas Tarot delves deeper than that. Why do I read Tarot? Many reasons, but one reason is that I can benefit and help others make the right choices as they travel their paths through life. I can help them shed light on this confusing world.

 

And because that is the purpose I put Tarot to, I often expect my clients to come to me with deep, spiritual issues to discuss - I expect to do readings about a spiritual crisis; about where somebody's spiritual path is headed at this time; about how they can grow and move away from something; about what they need to learn right now.

 

But that's not life, is it? It's not all that we have to cope with in life, and certainly most people don't even think of it. So instead, I get readings about somebody's car, their sex life, where their business is going, and if their current relationship is going to work out.

 

And I do the readings, and just hope that a 'real' reading will come along later.

 

But I kid myself. They are all real readings, even the ones where I just tell people whether or not so-and-so is interested in them. Even if they do come under the heading of *gasp* fortune-telling.

 

But y'know, I keep reminding myself that I do Tarot to help others. And if the best way to help them is to tell them about their business, or their car, or their job - if the best way to help them is to tell their fortune, then hell I'm a fortune-teller. I tell fortunes with Tarot. And every now and then, for the more spiritually-minded clients, I use Tarot as a means of self-development, a counselling tool, or an advisory tool.

 

But mostly, I like to mix the two - tell fortunes and possible futures, and give advice and look at the more inner aspects of life that often affect fortunes and possible futures.

 

So, I admit - I am a fortune-teller, and a Tarot reader. But ultimately I'm just somebody who has a couple of tools that can help others along the way.

 

Blessings,

 

Kiama

[Metafizzypop]

I like the term Fortune-Teller. I love the whole "You will meet a tall dark stranger" school of thought. I've always found it exotic and wonderfully mysterious.

 

I agree that most people typically go to tarot readers for the issues of their daily lives. Love and money, mostly. I read tarot professionally, and I would say that 99 percent of the questions I get can fall into one or the other of those categories. I can't recall even once getting a question that involved spirituality. It isn't something that people usually think about. They have enough to worry about already. They hope that the kid doesn't drop out of school, that they can make the mortgage payment that month, and that their spouse doesn't file for divorce. That's what they ask tarot readers about. Spirituality? Who has time for that when they're struggling at a minimum wage job?

 

I've been reading tarot a long time, and even I can't imagine what a "spiritual crisis" could be. But a financial crisis, yes.

 

When people are interested in the spiritual, they turn to religion in some form, not tarot.

 

 

 

[Raggydoll]

I get (lovingly) called a "fortune teller" all the time by family and friends. And I don't care, but its not something that I would ever call myself. But then again I would never call myself a witch either, and I struggle with using the word 'psychic' too. I'm just generally a bit scared of labels I guess!!  ;D

[PageOfCups]

I get (lovingly) called a "fortune teller" all the time by family and friends. And I don't care, but its not something that I would ever call myself. But then again I would never call myself a witch either, and I struggle with using the word 'psychic' too. I'm just generally a bit scared of labels I guess!!  ;D

 

LOL. My friends affectionately call me a “dukun” (word for “witch doctor” in Indonesian) when I start rambling about the astrological weather or start drawing tarot parallels and métaphores about... EVERYTHING. 😂🔮🤣✨

 

It just sounds so kitschy and funny because Indonesian witch doctors are... Witch doctors. They’re hilarious.

 

I don’t mind labels as long as they’re not serious ones like “feminist” or something. The only one I bravely embrace is “cat lady”. 🐈🤷🏻‍♀️🕶🥤

[DownUnderNZer]

 

 

Never seen my readings as "fortune telling" or "predictive" - just what the cards reveal at the time whether in a time frame or not. Still do not see them that way either even if things do happen quickly following those readings or months down the track.

 

What is certain - is nothing is set in stone and free will prevails.

 

I self-learned really and was not taught that what I was doing was the above and so I do not really get caught up with all the labeling.

 

It is what it is!

 

"If it happens it happens - if it does not-it does not".

 

 

[DownUnderNZer]

 

 

I self-learned "playing cards" first and used them for years before discovering the Lenormand. The Tarot I did try not so long after the playing cards (2 to 4 yrs after), but the experiences I had with them were too much and I was not ready for those kinds of revelations. So, that was not for very long and all from a book!

 

Eg Deaths and Infidelities.

 

 

 

 

 

Never seen my readings as "fortune telling" or "predictive" - just what the cards reveal at the time whether in a time frame or not. Still do not see them that way either even if things do happen quickly following those readings or months down the track.

 

What is certain - is nothing is set in stone and free will prevails.

 

I self-learned really and was not taught that what I was doing was the above and so I do not really get caught up with all the labeling.

 

It is what it is!

 

"If it happens it happens - if it does not-it does not".

[Grizabella]

I like the term Fortune-Teller. I love the whole "You will meet a tall dark stranger" school of thought. I've always found it exotic and wonderfully mysterious.

 

I agree that most people typically go to tarot readers for the issues of their daily lives. Love and money, mostly. I read tarot professionally, and I would say that 99 percent of the questions I get can fall into one or the other of those categories. I can't recall even once getting a question that involved spirituality. It isn't something that people usually think about. They have enough to worry about already. They hope that the kid doesn't drop out of school, that they can make the mortgage payment that month, and that their spouse doesn't file for divorce. That's what they ask tarot readers about. Spirituality? Who has time for that when they're struggling at a minimum wage job?

 

I've been reading tarot a long time, and even I can't imagine what a "spiritual crisis" could be. But a financial crisis, yes.

 

When people are interested in the spiritual, they turn to religion in some form, not tarot.

 

I'm with you, Fizzy on many points.

 

Spiritual stuff is what we always deal with, though. We're not humans trying to be spiritual even though we seem to see it that way. We're spirits undergoing a human life and trying to get through it the best we can. That means that when we ask about our life concerns, we're really dealing with spiritual concerns.

 

Lots of readers prefer to say they just deal with the present issues. But look at it this way. What is anything that happens in the next minute? It's the future! Fortunetellers tell you about your future and that's a "fortune". Even if you tell someone about how to make their relationship better or their day better, you're telling their future because the cards will tell you "this will happen" next week if you do whatever the cards say. Or this will happen when you leave here---or whatever.

 

I'm not afraid or ashamed  to say I'm a fortune teller. I'm an old-fashioned fortune teller and I don't mind what kind of bones people try to pick with me about it. :thumbsup:

[Grizabella]

In ancient times, people called someone who made and/or repaired shoes was called a "cobbler". That's an old-fashioned term for a shoemaker. Calling someone who divines with cards or other tools of choice a "fortuneteller" is just using an old-time term for what we do with the cards.

 

As for counseling---I'm not educated to be one of those so I've got a problem with that. Counseling somebody is serious business. i'll read the cards and tell your fortune, but i'm not arrogant enough to believe that just because I have that skill, it qualifies me to counsel others. I'll let the cards speak and once in awhile I might share my own experiences but I don't profess to be a counselor.

 

 

[Raggydoll]

Grizabella: I love your confidence and hopes that it rubs off on me so I can embrace these traditional titles too. And I agree with everything you said  :bok:

[Grizabella]

Thank you, Raggydoll. You made my night. For a long time, it seemed as though I was low on the totem pole in the eyes of other readers who didn't like being thought of as a fortuneteller. They just wanted to be seen as a counselor or something like that.And they didn't like to dress in anything but "business casual" attire. I love dressing the part now and then and I always dress in what I guess would be called "fat old lady who can't afford business casual" or something like that when I'm not dressing the part for Halloween or a party.  X-D

[Raggydoll]

Thank you, Raggydoll. You made my night. For a long time, it seemed as though I was low on the totem pole in the eyes of other readers who didn't like being thought of as a fortuneteller. They just wanted to be seen as a counselor or something like that.And they didn't like to dress in anything but "business casual" attire. I love dressing the part now and then and I always dress in what I guess would be called "fat old lady who can't afford business casual" or something like that when I'm not dressing the part for Halloween or a party.  X-D

 

<3

[Metafizzypop]

Spiritual stuff is what we always deal with, though. We're not humans trying to be spiritual even though we seem to see it that way. We're spirits undergoing a human life and trying to get through it the best we can. That means that when we ask about our life concerns, we're really dealing with spiritual concerns.

 

Well, I think that some things are going to be more spiritual than others. Letting one's imagination wander through the Jungian Collective Unconscious would be a highly spiritual experience. But writing a check to pay the electric bill? I put that a little bit lower on the spirituality scale.

 

I'm not afraid or ashamed  to say I'm a fortune teller.

 

Neither am I. I have no shame at all, lol.

 

[DanielJUK]

nice to see you have found us on this forum Metafizzypop[/member]  <3 we used your amazing spread at Halloween in a group X/ glad you joined here! 8)

------

 

I think this is really about fashions and trends, in recent years it has become untrendy to say you are a fortune teller or are going to one, now you go to a life coach / spiritual development guru and all the new names we call things. It is more fashionable at the moment (or it was) for using tarot for the present and development in yourself but I worry about the line where many of the professional people are coaching and giving advice with no psychological qualifications whatsoever! Some charge a lot of money for people desperate to change their lives. Divination cards are used for development and analysis in the present in this scenario, not predictions.

 

It's totally fine to use the tarot or go to readers who use however they want. But I remember some people online on blogs and stuff starting to judge people who use it predictively and fortune telling, like oh no I wouldn't do that. People use it in different ways and that is cool!

 

However I think there is a change now in the self-development / self-help usage, I think Fortune Telling is making a come back with the fashion for astrology and people (especially young people) are buying tarot and oracle decks at a really high rate. I posted a thread a few months ago but in the last year, 2017 to 2018, RWS has sold better than any year since it's creation. Whilst people are using it for self-help, I think there is a move to predictive, especially as it's a scary time in many countries and people are more uncertain about their future security, that's my personal theory why.

 

It did become a dirty term in divination but it is coming back! I don't personally believe you can do a reading in the present and not get predictive messages coming in, they always come into my readings and so I just hope that one outcome is we just let people use it however they feel comfortable with! I love telling my fortunes for me and others, it doesn't always come true but it's great when it does  8) I am not ashamed to say I am a fortune teller and do predictive readings and I can do development readings for people as well but I can't coach their lives because I am not qualified in that area, that is my line  8)

 

[Metafizzypop]

Hey hey, Dan, it's great seeing you, too.  X/ I hope that my Halloween spread gave you some delectably ghoulish readings.

 

But I remember some people online on blogs and stuff starting to judge people who use it predictively and fortune telling, like oh no I wouldn't do that.

 

This is something I really don't understand. Aside from card games, tarot had been used for decades, even centuries, for fortune-telling. Now all of a sudden it's not supposed to be for that. It's for psychological analysis. How did that happen? I can see the psychology angle being added to the original divinatory use of tarot, but not replacing it. Had people been wrong about tarot for hundreds of years?

 

Maybe the people who make this claim today are trying to be taken more seriously than they would be if they labeled themselves fortune-tellers. But unless a person has a degree in psychology, or at least has read a ton of books on the topic, they have no business saying that they can handle stuff in that area.

 

[Jewel]

I have honestly not given this much thought.  But honestly I do not care what people want to call me in regards to my tarot usage lol.  Granted I do not read tarot professionally ... though I have considered it as something I may want to do when I retire, but for now I read for friends and for free.  I think of it as giving them a snap shop of the moment, with the understanding that outcomes can be changed through personal will and action, but I suppose it is predictive as well.  But I would not be offended by being a called a fortune teller, or having more cool bohemian looking skirts and being surrounded by crystals.  In fact I would most likely just embrace it with good humor and go on about my business  :biggrin:  The cards say what they say .... and yes I suppose my approach is a bit more in the psychological realm but I am no counselor either.

[Sar]

I have never done anything else but reading the querents future. Using the cards as psykoanalysis has never been it for me. I am a fortune teller, a damn good one and proud of it. 

[katrinka]

On 12/8/2018 at 5:29 PM, Metafizzypop said:

This is something I really don't understand. Aside from card games, tarot had been used for decades, even centuries, for fortune-telling. Now all of a sudden it's not supposed to be for that. It's for psychological analysis. How did that happen? I can see the psychology angle being added to the original divinatory use of tarot, but not replacing it. Had people been wrong about tarot for hundreds of years?

 

It's an attempt to discredit the competition,
According to these folks, "fortunetellers" are not "ethical" because you "can't predict the future with cards," ergo, we're "lying to people."
That raises the question of whether they ever actually learned to read cards, since much of card reading is predictive. We're not the ones lying to clients, they are. People pay us to tell them what the cards say, and we do that. Now who's lying? Not the fortunetellers.

 

On 12/8/2018 at 5:29 PM, Metafizzypop said:

Maybe the people who make this claim today are trying to be taken more seriously than they would be if they labeled themselves fortune-tellers. But unless a person has a degree in psychology, or at least has read a ton of books on the topic, they have no business saying that they can handle stuff in that area.

 

Agreed. An unlicensed psyche doctor is a dangerous thing, indeed.

[Sar]

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

It's an attempt to discredit the competition,
According to these folks, "fortunetellers" are not "ethical" because you "can't predict the future with cards," ergo, we're "lying to people."
That raises the question of whether they ever actually learned to read cards, since much of card reading is predictive. We're not the ones lying to clients, they are. People pay us to tell them what the cards say, and we do that. Now who's lying? Not the fortunetellers.

Weather people on television are predicting the weather every single day too.

 

 

[katrinka]

1 hour ago, Sar said:

Weather people on television are predicting the weather every single day too.

 

Yes. And they're arguably less accurate than we are. 😁
But nobody tries to tell them "You can't predict the weather with Doppler radar."

[Sar]

7 hours ago, katrinka said:

 

Yes. And they're arguably less accurate than we are. 😁
But nobody tries to tell them "You can't predict the weather with Doppler radar."

Exactly.

[katrinka]

Some of our weather channels have gotten absurd in recent years. When there's a mild storm, they have a reporter out in the rain with some wind blowing, pretending to hang to a post or something. And there's sensationalistic graphics to make it more "interesting."

[gregory]

Hm. One of ours blew right over into a huge puddle. He didn't look pleased, so I don't think it was for effect...

[katrinka]

It sounds like your TV is more entertaining than ours.

[gregory]

I think probably our weather is simply - odder and our reporters a bit sillier. (there were complaints when reporters were seen on screen in the middle of Desmond, when we had all been told to stay indoors and not be silly !)

[katrinka]

LOL. It's just the opposite here. Dan Rather made a name for himself wading through the post-Carla floodwaters to interview survivors - Walter Cronkite described him as "@ss deep in cottonmouths." Americans like to see danger for some reason.
Now everybody wants to look like Dan Rather did. But you need a hurricane for that.

Edited August 2, 2021 by katrinka