There is a belief that Tarot readers are not allowed to predict death. There is no law that says they cannot. It is all in the context. Over the years I have found myself making such a prediction, and the prediction comes true.
Probably the most dramatic was many years ago for a heavily pregnant rather large blonde woman – even I could tell she was pregnant. I was in platitude mode for about ten minutes when the woman interjected “You have not told me anything yet!” I asked her if she really wanted to know something. She yes. I asked several more times, and she was insistent. I took a deep breath.
“I don’t think your baby will live long…” Naturally she questioned me deeper. All I could say that it was something to do with water. By now of course she was not best pleased, and she went out rather upset.
It is the nature of reading the tarot on Brighton seafront that I do not always get follow ups, but that reading stuck with me. Some years later, a slim brunette walked into my office for a reading. She said, “I don’t suppose you remember me…” and I had to admit I did not. Then she told me she was heavily pregnant at the time “And you were blonde…?” I asked. She nodded. A shiver went through me. She was nothing like the pregnant woman. She sat down and told me the story of what transpired.
After making the prediction she went out very upset and told her friends. She went to the doctor for a checkup, and everything was fine. She gave birth to a healthy boy, no complications. 18 months later she went to a party at a friend’s house, taking her son. She said there was a swimming pool. Her son fell in and drowned. He was rescuscitated at the poolside, and taken to hospital. He did not die, but he was in a persistent vegitative state, and required 24 hour nursing. She reassured me that she was not angry or anything towards me. After a while I got back my composure. The professional part of me was pleased that my prediction had basically come true, and I was of course very sorry for what the woman had gone through. Then she said to me, “I have come back to find out what you see for my future!”
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I was still in an agitated state that I could not do a reading for her, and she understood. What had happened? Sometimes tarot readers have to make a pronouncement about the future, even if they are not as dramatic as this case, and when the prediction comes true, it makes the querent realise that there is so much to life that they do not know or understand. The querent has to take a deeper, more spiritual or philosophical outlook to life.
If this woman had not come to me so early in my career, I would have been in a better place to help her when she returned. So why am I telling you this story? I came across a report in a newspaper about a prediction of murder that came true. Her interpretation of the Ace of Swords is extreme – I have not seen it predict a stabbing, even with the 10 of Swords a violent card. However, as I said at the start, context is everything. The woman doing the reading is the wife of a notorious gangster.
Oh how intense! That would have upset me greatly to have that knowledge. Hell, I feel bad enough when I know that someone’s boyfriend just ain’t the prince she wants him to be. These clients always end up pissed off at me for telling it like it is too.
How sad for this lady, to have such a terrible thing happen to her child. And how difficult for you to have to tell her.
Having to deal with situations is all part of the Tarot Reader’s lot. The death of the baby happened many years ago, and I have a suspicion that in some way it was a lesson for me.
Recently I have done a number of readings involving life-threatening conditions, including a woman who had been diagnosed somewhat insensitively by her doctor as terminally ill. When I looked at her cards, all I could see were joyous scenes involving people in her life – and nothing else. Despite the joy, I found it impossible to express what I saw. After a while the woman told me her story. She told me that the doctors had bungled the treatment. The day before she had a party with many of her family, and it was a joyous occasion. She was told she had weeks to live, but to me I thought she would live until around February 2010.