Hi Tarot Tribe it’s Ethony and today I am talking some JUICY Destiny and the Tarot.
I am going to be talking about Choice, Fate, Destiny and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, and the New Members of the Tarot’s Destiny’s Child.
All of these topics go across mythologies, cultures and religions. I am not going to be delving deeply into religious beliefs just FYI, but I do honor that peoples’ belief systems will play a part in how they come to these concepts. I also asked the question to the members of the Tarot Readers Academy Facebook Group and I have some really great comments on the topic from our community.
As with everything I share, take what resonates with you and leave the rest. I hope that this topic gets us talking about a Tarot Reader’s role in how people view a Tarot Reading and the role people have in their lives.
Choice Centred Life vs Destiny
Some people believe that we are here as a random act of evolution. Some people believe everything is a divine plan. Some people believe that it is somewhere in between. It is actually a lovely thought that the Divine (however you choose to see it or not) is also learning as it creates and expands. Tarot has no religion and that is one of the beautiful things about it.
You don’t have to belong to one camp or the other when you are a Tarot Reader but it will for sure affect how you do conduct a Tarot Reading. You may see the Tarot as showing you the road that has been prepared for you or that the Tarot is showing you options opened to you.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Tarot
Self-fulfilling prophecies are super fucking interesting and something that Tarot Readers deal with every time we are reading the cards for our Clients. I am sure there are experienced Tarot Readers out there who have had Clients who totally see what they want and make choices in their lives to fit a certain outcome. I have had people come to me and say things like ‘A Tarot reader once told me I was going to be married to a llama farmer by 26 and have three children and I usually ask them something along the lines of ‘well, is that what you want?’
So what is Self-fulfilling Prophecy?
I am going to hand it over to sources that can explain this in a much better way than me for the definition.
“A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior.
The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.
In other words, a positive or negative prophecy, strongly held belief, or delusion—declared as truth when it is actually false—may sufficiently influence people so that their reactions ultimately fulfill the once-false prophecy.
Self-fulfilling prophecy are effects in behavioral confirmation effect, in which behavior, influenced by expectations, causes those expectations to come true. It is complementary to the self-defeating prophecy.” Source
I had a boyfriend for a brief time many moons ago who met me while I was working at a metaphysical store and he was totally against Tarot because of his beliefs about self-fulfilling prophecies. He saw his sister get a Tarot Reading, see what she wanted to see and then take the actions that made that reading come to pass. It is an interesting thing when this happens and while this can be seen as SFP for short, she clearly liked what she saw if she was following the path towards it.
It can totally go the other way, when we see that something is doomed in the cards we can also take the steps towards that. Giving up in a way.
The Tarot can be a tool to help people self fulfil their own prophecies but so can just about anything: palm reading, prayer, meditation. This is another reason I believe that we have choices. Big or small, they are still choices.
My personal practice around this is to remind people in their readings that the Tarot does not predict a fixed or fated future and that they have choices. But again, this is because I believe in the power of choice, even in a magical world with a higher intelligence, which I also believe.
For Tarot Readers who have just started out, I would recommend sitting with these concepts and ensuring that you are clear with your clients about what you believe the Tarot can and cannot predict and show for their lives. It will make your life a lot easier and manage your clients expectations.
