Technique: Missing Cards

This posting was first written for Douglas Gibb's blog, Taroteon. Incidentally, his blog is a brilliant resource for Tarotists - nip over and subscribe yourself to it. Follow Doug on Twitter: @Taroteon.

But hey....remember and come back here!

On 27 January, I was fortunate enough to be invited on to the Knight's Temple section of Michele Knight's forums to do a video presentation to her members who are interested in Tarot. I promised the attendees that I would magic-up the content to a blog for them to read at their leisure - so here it is.

I haven't managed to come up with a snappy title for this technique yet; I just call it Missing Cards.

Discover Hidden Depths Within Your Tarot readings

As Tarotists, what do we focus on when we read for our sitters? Speaking from my own experience, I focus on providing a flowing narrative based on the cards in front of me. At all times, I aim to provide accessible, meaningful interpretations of the cards in the spread for my sitter so that by the time they leave, the sitter has a greater understanding of their situation.

However, for the last few years, I’ve been using another useful technique and one, hopefully, help add depth to your readings too.

Focus On The Cards That Aren’t There

I know, it sounds a bit bizarre, but when I explain when and how to implement this tip, it will make perfect sense. I hope.

When we provide a reading, think of it as an ice-berg (thanks to taroteon for the mental image!) The cards that are present in the reading are the portion of the iceberg that we can see, and under the surface are millions of intuitive connections all pinging into place. This technique will add to those little pings! :-)

The time to use it is when you are nearing the end of your reading and you are in the summary stage. At the point where you don’t need to refer to the layout of the spread any more, simply take the spread cards – and this technique works for large spreads and small ones too – and flip them into Majors and suit piles.

A balanced reading will be one that contains a smattering of Major Arcana readings and some cards from each of the Minor suits. What you will tend to find is that there are inequalities in the piles – perhaps a surfeit of Swords; perhaps no Wands, perhaps no Majors.

You can point out these imbalances to your sitter – an excess of a particular suit may indicate an over reliance on that suit’s qualities. To extend the above example – lots of Swords might indicate an over reliance on the mental faculties; the sitter trying to solve the problem inside their head; over-thinking a situation.

For me the really interesting part is where you look at what is missing or low in quantity. This ‘missing’ technique indicates areas of weakness in the client’s approach to solving the problem/handling the issue.

To get you started, here are the associations that I use for the suits when they are missing or only present in small amounts in a reading.

* Swords – the client is not engaging their natural mental abilities for some reason (perhaps the suit that shows a surfeit might explain why)
* Cups – the client is not allowing their emotional seat or any significant emotional input into solving the issue.
* Pentacles – the client lacks grounding. Again, refer to the suits that appear in excess to perhaps explain this.
* Wands – the client is not taking action or being as expansive/outward looking as they could be regarding the situation.

For the areas that are weak or missing altogether from the reading, you can suggest incorporating some of these low energies into your sitter’s life to help bring in a better balance.

* Swords: your client would benefit from engaging more with his/her rational side. THINK more.
* Wands: your client would benefit from being more pro-active and outward looking. DO more.
* Cups: your client would benefit from allowing/acknowledging greater emotional input. FEEL more.
* Pentacles: your client would benefit from grounding activities. BE PRESENT more.

It is vital to remember that you are not telling your client what decision to make here. You are, however, encouraging them to draw upon their other natural resources so that when they do make a decision, it is from the most balanced position available to them.

I have found it useful to develop a short mental list on suggested ways on how they can introduce those missing or weak energies into their lives – just as a fall-back resource for yourself. For example – someone with lots of Swords and few Pentacles might be encouraged to get ‘out of their head’ and into their bodies by undertaking something that really grounds them – gardening, meditation, walking in the park…. you get the idea. Get your client to suggest activities?

I’ve focused purely on the suits and their appearance or non-appearance. However, you can, if you wish, gather the cards together and flip them into number piles and gain an additional dimension….are all the twos present bar one? What might that missing two bring to the client’s table? Can they see a way to introduce that missing energy in a helpful way? What about a missing Queen? What could she bring if her energies were adopted?

If it transpires that your sitter has loads of Majors and hardly any minors – what might that mean? Is there one suit that is completely missing? How might the introduction of those energies help your client.

I hope that this blog post has now got you buzzing with the possibilities of this technique into your own reading style. Good luck!