While public stigma exists towards the use of tarot as a divination tool – readings are becoming increasingly popular by the minute! Celebrities like Taylor Swift, Brad Pitt and Bruce Springsteen are known to have had their cards read. More surprisingly, tarot cards are frequently being used alongside therapy and life-coaching sessions for healing or as a self-help tool.
The growing popularity of tarot readings is evident from an abundance of online resources, from various websites, Facebook to Instagram, to Tik-Tok and YouTube, and are often attached with a huge following.
In terms of divination, believing in a devastating outcome of what you think the cards have predicted could negatively affect your wellbeing, and your life. So how can we work with tarot in a positive way?
I’m open to the idea of having a tarot reading, and I’ve found just the person to help me. Founder of Psychic Sciences in Sydney, Paul Fenton-Smith is a clairvoyant, writer and regular media guest, he is the author of eleven books and today I’m going to explore the tarot with him during an interview.
The Right Approach
What mindset would be good to have before a tarot reading? Fenton-Smith says, “To remember you’ve got free will. To remember it’s your life. The [reader] can give you some advice but it’s up to you, you have to live with your decisions.” Sometimes people can worry and obsess over the outcome of the reading – unnecessarily. He says, “The cards are showing you the future right now, but your decisions can change that.”
When tarot is used in a positive way, such as to help inspire you, “It can help you make decisions you’re having difficulties making. It can show you options. Cards can narrow it down for you. If you’re concerned about a job , then you really need to ask specific questions,” says Fenton-Smith.
I explained to him that I realised during my reading, I didn’t ask specific questions. Although he guided me through it, at that time I was unable to find meaningful questions. I think being content with where I was at – I was happy to go with the flow and see what the cards delivered. After reading Fenton-Smith’s book, Activate Your Psychic Ability, he states, “Crystal-clear answers require a range of questions.”
How Do We Know Tarot Works?
I’m curious, how do we know it works? I ask him. “History!” he says, “When a client sits down, for instance, in particular – my pure clairvoyant readings, I start with a current age, and I go back as I did with you, and I tell them some things that have happened in their life, they already know these things have happened. If they don’t, then they need a lot more than a reader [he laughs], they’ve got memory problems.
Fenton-Smith continues, so… we start with the past, and then we move to the present, if I’m telling you what is happening right now, and I get it all wrong, I don’t expect you to believe what I say about the future. And if someone says they only predict the future – that’s not good enough! You’ve got to start with the past, your past is who you are. Your future is who you become!”
Start With the Past
And that’s what makes Fenton-Smith’s readings unique. While I didn’t go into my tarot reading with specific questions, it did identify the topics (clarifying what has happened in the past, and what’s happening now) that were on my mind, for example, career. He had identified options, directions and possible pathways, which I hadn’t thought about, as well as career opportunities.
However, I was astounded during the reading when Paul would stare off into space during a psychic moment and identify what happened at a particular age in my life, which incidentally would happen out of the blue. I didn’t realise at the time, perhaps I was trying to absorb the copious amounts of information, Fenton-Smith speaks at lightning speed, which is value for money here, but the accuracy of the stages of my life he described, was incredible.
While I would personally go into a tarot reading and keep it all light-hearted, and if there were questions that could possibly lead to outcomes you didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t ask it. But used for insight, and as a self-help tool, I can see its value.
To quote Fenton-Smith’s book, “Frequently, people consult clairvoyants to be shown opportunities that they cannot see for themselves.”
Further Reading
Healthline: 8 Ways Tarot Can Help Your Mental Health or Hurt It
The Guardian: When the mystical goes mainstream: how tarot became a self-care phenomenon
Learn Tarot From Paul Fenton-Smith
Paul Fenton-Smith is a tutor in Tarot at The Sun Sign School which teaches sun sign astrology, natal astrology and the Tarot cards. Subscription for 12 months is AUD $100 and tutors include Jessica Adams, Israel Ajose, Tara Buffington, Victoria Davis, Natalie Delahaye, Debbie Frank, Katie-Ellen Hazeldine, Deborah Houlding, Maggie Hyde, Stephanie Johnson, Zane Stein, Penny Thornton and Daisy Waugh.
