Alcohol, Illness, and Fatigue
 
As a full time intuitive, I have found other strange things to oddly helpful, too. Against what many ‘New Age How to Be Psychic’ articles on the internet might say; being buzzed, ill, or extremely tired makes me a better clairvoyant. On the surface, I feel like crap. I don't feel like playing nice, or being a good host or pretending I'm pleasant when I feel gross. However, these times can often be the most powerful readings I ever conduct. 


In my full time practice, I noticed that, strangely, when I feel like crap, I am often the strongest intuitive. My best guess is that these three things exhaust the conscious, judicial mind. My rational, linear, judgmental, logical mind, the ego, is laid low by any one of these  things and when that happens, the clairvoyant aspect of my mind can rise more clearly. In fact, I have joked to friends that to have the best possibly reading with me is when I feel absolutely crummy. Or, if I have had 2-3 glasses of wine. Now, drinking and reading in most circles is actively frowned upon big time, but for me it totally allows me to relax inhibitions, not worry about the message, don't focus overly on social approval, and I just allow that nonlinear space to come in and reveal great things.


You also see traditional Shamans using these techniques to increase clairvoyance; from taking substances that alter consciousness: not eating, not sleeping, doing rigorous performances that subdue the ego and allow the vision–all of these actions were hacked by Shamans millennia ago. They also noticed that when we find ways to lay the conscious mind down, amazing things can be seen. So when I am ill, under the influence, tired, I give great readings.


To have an intuitive session is to be slightly out of mind. For some reason, the shift has to be outside of the general work a day. Have you ever, when in deeply in love, felt that other person’s energy so strongly you knew if they were having a bad day? The extreme chemicals of falling in love create a small ‘madness’ thereby allowing that clairvoyant mind to rise up more keenly.

What Doesn’t Work:

Anger and Anxiety– If I am angry, or anxious, these are both emotions firmly rooted in the ego. “How dare you treat ME this way” or “What if they don’t like ME?” These emotions come from that busy monkey mind and that mind is not where clairvoyance lives. I try very hard to eliminate these emotions from my practice. For me, this is why I rarely do last minute readings and need things scheduled well in advance. I find that last minute changes, demands, or abrupt shifts in my schedule to be anxiety-producing and I know that anxiety shuts me down. Every intuitive is different in terms of what causes anxiety, for me, last minute changes produces it!


This is also why, when a skeptic comes in with the, “No, YOU tell Me! YOU’RE the psychic!” kind of energy, I don’t do well, either. Clairvoyance does not respond to challenges, anxiety, or testing; these are all places of the ego and if I am worried about pleasing you, or meeting your challenge, or proving myself right then that actually makes the work I need to do (quiet my ego to hear the message) much, much harder to do. Then when of course the skeptic, after filling their reader with anxiety, doesn’t get a good reading it only reinforces their belief. It is like standing over an artist, pointing a finger at the canvas and yelling at them, “You better paint perfectly or you are no artist!” Who can work under those kinds of conditions?


Prior to my reading day, I have to keep things calm, I have to be in a very receptive place. When booking tarot parties I am now very careful in what I accept. I know that I will not be a strong intuitive if I just battled heavy traffic to get to you. I also try to keep my personal life as calm as possible. Being angry at someone will effectively kill my ability to read for you.


If I tell you I am sick, overworked and tired. Book a reading with me. I won't promise to be pleasant, but you will get something more often than not, extraordinary. And, if I tell you a phone reading will be just as good, please believe me. And, if you are the type to demand last minute things, to want to test me, know that that works against you, too.

Most people would say that Tarot reading is foretelling of what will come to pass. A Tarot card reader is someone with mysterious supernatural powers that enable her to see what lies ahead in someone's life, often this foretelling involves the ideas of fate and soul mates. For many, Tarot is synonymous with the understanding that things are fated to be and there is an order to how each life unfolds.

Our basic idea for how Tarot may work has evolved out of a medieval understanding of how time works. I posit that Tarot does not tell the future in the way we traditionally understand it because what we understand about time is fundamentally wrong. In order for us to truly be able to use the gift of Tarot, we need to update what we understand about cause and effect.

Rather than ask, "does tarot see the future?" how about, what do we know about time?

The traditional western perception of time (not universal, culturally) is a line always moving forward:

past---> present -->future

Like a rollercoaster we are strapped in for the continual ride forward. Physics calls this the Arrow of Time. But, mathematically, we cannot prove that the Arrow of Time exists.

                         
                              So if the Arrow of Time does not exist, then what does?

 
Instead of a line moving forward on a rollercoaster, (time is not linear or even directional) it is more like a boiling pot (it is helpful to see the picture above as if you are looking down into a pot of water) in 4 dimensional space with complex interrealities constantly shifting, moving, colliding and being affected by other things.


So if there is no arrow of time… how can we use Tarot to see the future?


We can’t. At least, not in a concrete 100% right on the money kind of way. I believe that when we use Tarot as a predictive method we are not seeing the future; we are plotting a probability. A probability (one of many that exist) based on current causality and as soon as those causes change the many effects, the future changes right along with them and not always in a one directional-linear kind of way. 


The power of Tarot lies not in the understanding of what will be, but rather to understand a most likely probability based on many different factors. A probability that may change as soon as you have become aware of it. Or, a probability that is actually happening at the same time as your present-time. (See Eternalism, see Wave-Particle theory, see Chaos theory for more info on these concepts). We are alive in a multidimensional causal reality that is astoundingly complex, inter-dynamic and beautiful.


Understanding that Tarot is plotting a probability is immensely helpful when looking for clarity on any given situation. Changing the Arrow of Time question like, “Will I get fired from my job?” evolves into the causal, “How can I either keep my job because I feel insecure about it” or “How can I best weather the instability I am feeling in my position right now?” The latter questions are more useful in terms of creating an empowered life while keeping in mind that the future as we understand it is fluid and complex.

So, can Tarot tell the future as we have traditionally understood it? No.
Can Tarot help us create rational decisions and give us important information to create the lives we want to live? Oh yes, very much so.