The truth is that there is no one deck suitable for a reading or one way to do a reading. Having this in mind, let’s assume that there are two main tendencies, or inclinations towards the characteristics or the type or reading that you may encounter with a professional or with someone who is proficient at reading.

The first is a type or reading that has a strong effect of predicting events or certain results. These are historically speaking the fortune tellers’ type. We all have images from movies of dimly lit spaces, the fortune teller sitting behind the curtain and the questioner in a kind of awe and reverence and wonder is asking the mysterious reader if they are predicting death, sickness and other calamities that will cause great and often sudden distress in their lives.

These predictions are past on us as irreversible, are not able to be undone or altered in any way, and are followed by the appropriate tone in voice, often grim and rigid!

Thankfully the days are gone and one is to wonder if such predictions offered anything at all to the questioner. A better reader, even if they wanted to go down the path of fatalism, would convey if any information perceived about the future event, in a way that it would be beneficial to the person enquiring.

The coaching style of conveying information would have a totally different goal. Regardless of the future outcomes and or the ability of the tarot and the reader to predict the future, information is passed on in a constructive manner that will only benefit the person having a reading or a consultation.

A contemporary reader will paint the full picture of how and why the situation is the way it is, what lead to the present situation and what all these will mean for the possible outcome. A modern reader is likely to communicate effectively and expressively the various facts, the set of circumstances in which the client has found themselves in and all that surround the state of affairs.

A competent reader could go on to help clients understand issues from a different perspective and help them (clearly as a person who is above or not influenced by the situation) find clarity when they feel uncertain. This is does not mean that the reader who is acting as a coach will decide for the client, take responsibility for their future actions or decisions. The reader could help the client understand certain concepts with greater sophistication and depth or simply help the client understand something clearly and distinctly.

So, a reader acting as a coach must help clients to become more aware of their behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs surrounding a certain issue, situation, person and so on. A totally wrong question for a client to ask, would be, for example, “should I divorce my husband?”. Instead of this a tarot coach would paraphrase the question as, “tell me what I need to know about my marriage right now”. A “successful” reading would reveal all the circumstances around the issue, past and contemporary events that create the situation the client is in, and so on. The sum up of all these will show the future outcome – but again it is up to the client to process all these, make changes or not, have their aha moments, etc. We have choices and the future is not fixed.