We’re at the end of Ethics Month. It feels right to close it by looking at what tarot can’t actually do, because part of an ethical practice is knowing where your tool ends and something else begins. The whole point of having a month on this is that none of it is regulated. There’s no official body telling us how to operate. Which means we have to think about this stuff ourselves, decide for ourselves how we want to do it, and then actually hold ourselves to it.
Tarot wasn’t created as a divination tool. When it was made, it was a card game. So arguably nothing we’re doing with it now is what it was intended for. But that’s a whole other conversation. The point I want to make is that tarot is a tool, and like any tool it has a job it’s good at and jobs it’s not.
Supplement, Not Substitute
Tarot can sit alongside professional support. Therapy, medical care, legal advice, financial advice. The cards can run in parallel with any of those things. What they can’t do is replace them.
If a client is using readings as a substitute for going to therapy or getting medical care, I’d say that’s not a good thing. Personally, if I’ve got a client who seems to be using readings instead of seeing a professional, I’ll refuse to read for them on that issue. I’ve done it a number of times. Especially with medical questions. People come in asking, am I pregnant, will my cancer screening come back positive. That isn’t a healthy way to use the cards, and it isn’t a healthy way for me to treat my role.
If somebody is coming to the cards with a question about their health, it’s far more beneficial and far more responsible to recommend they speak to a doctor or a medical professional rather than a reader. Often the reason they’re at the cards in the first place is that they can’t tolerate the uncertainty. They’ve been to the doctor and they’re waiting for results. They’ve got a legal situation that hasn’t resolved. They’re trying to decide whether to buy a house and don’t know if their mortgage will get approved. The cards aren’t going to give them certainty. But somebody hoping for a yes will hear yes if you let them.
What Tarot Can Offer
We have to be honest about what tarot can do and what it can’t. And I don’t think it can give certainty. What it can do is help somebody understand what’s going on for them, and reflect on how they feel about it. I’ve done plenty of readings where somebody’s brought a legal situation, and I’ve said, I can’t tell you how this trial is going to go or what’s going to happen in that. But I can give you some guidance on how you should be thinking about it, how you should be responding to it right now, while it’s unresolved.
That isn’t a replacement for legal advice. By any stretch. But if somebody needs help navigating the uncertainty of a situation, the cards can be a fantastic tool for that, so long as you’re not handing them a carrot on the end of a stick. So long as you’re not offering false hope you’re not qualified to offer.
The Weight of What People Share
People say and share things in readings that can be incredibly vulnerable. The number of times someone in the chair opposite me has told me something they’ve never said out loud, that they haven’t told their partner or anybody else, is a large number. That happens. The responsibility on someone like me, or on you if you’re the one doing the reading, is real. What we do with it matters.
For Entertainment Purposes Only
I spoke last week about the phrase ‘for entertainment purposes only’. Historically a lot of readers have felt that’s a requirement. In some places it is, kind of. I think in America it’s generally encouraged. Here in the UK, less so. But even if it is required, it’s still just a legal formality. It isn’t some kind of shield against ethical issues. It doesn’t mean you can say whatever the fuck you want with these cards and get away with it.
Causing somebody genuine psychological distress isn’t going to be excused by a disclaimer on a booking page. And offering people concerning advice about legal, financial or medical decisions, I don’t think can be handwaved away because you’ve said, oh, but it was for entertainment purposes only. Whether or not you’ve got that on your website or in your disclaimer doesn’t mean that people are coming to you for entertainment. I don’t really know many people who book a tarot reading hoping to be entertained. They’re looking for clarity, or they’re looking for guidance. What we can’t do is give them the impression that we’re going to tell them exactly what’s going to happen, or that we can hand them some kind of guaranteed outcome.
When Somebody Is in Crisis
So if you have somebody in the chair in front of you, or across the screen from you, who’s in genuine crisis. If their mental health isn’t doing okay. If they’re not in a place where they’re able to actually reflect. You need to stop the reading. Because the reflection that happens during a reading, the clarity that happens in a reading, has to come from the client. It can’t come from you. And if the client isn’t in a place to hear it, even something genuinely useful is going to fall on receptive ears that aren’t actually receiving. It isn’t going to transform anything.
When you do need to refer somebody elsewhere, which isn’t something I’ve had to do that often personally. Actually, one time there was somebody on a TikTok live stream I was doing where we did refer them. I’d forgotten about that until now. We were doing the reading and it became clear that they were a danger to themselves and they weren’t in a good place. They were suicidal and all of that. So my moderators found some resources for them. I don’t think they were from the UK, I think they were from somewhere else. So we found the resources online, the numbers they could call, where they could go, and we referred that on. For a while I did have, I think in my link in bio, a list of resources that people could use.
How to Refer Without It Feeling Like Rejection
It’s something we need to do responsibly. You don’t want to just say, I’m not dealing with this, you need to speak to a professional. That’s quite cold. It can make the client feel like they’re being rejected. We need to make sure we’re doing this in a way that makes them feel supported. And that means not delivering really frightening predictions to somebody who’s already in distress.
It also means that if you do make a referral, it’s usually advised that you document it. Make a note of it. This person came, this is what happened, this is what I recommended. Keep that document for yourself. Yeah, Barry came, he was in a bit of a bad way, I referred him to this number, or I called 999 with him and handed him over to the paramedics. Hopefully it won’t ever be that serious. But you want to make sure you’re keeping a record of it. Not for the protection of the client necessarily, or for the benefit of the client necessarily. For your protection. Because if that person in crisis later makes a complaint saying you didn’t do what you should have, that your duty of care was substandard or what have you, then you’ve got a record. You can say, this person came to me, I actually refused to read for them, I recommended in a compelling way, and I made sure they got the support they needed.
This is something that, as I’ve said in previous weeks, tarot isn’t a practice that’s regulated in any formal way. So none of this is something we’re legally required to do. But it’s a good practice to get into. To protect yourself, and to protect the people having readings from you.
Why Clear Limits Make You Better, Not Worse
This is the whole point of me wanting to talk about ethics this month. If you’re clear on your ethics, if you’re clear on your boundaries, if you’re clear that, okay, I’m not going to accept readings that dabble into things I’m not qualified to talk to. I’m not a medical provider, so I’m not going to do readings where I’m commenting on somebody’s medical situation. I’m not a financial adviser, so I’m not going to do readings where I’m recommending people make financial investments. I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not going to do readings that offer certainty or advice on how to handle a legal situation. In those situations, it’s far better for you and for the person in front of you for you to recommend, or refer them directly, to somebody that is qualified to support them. Same with mental health. If somebody’s coming and they’re clearly very psychologically distressed, we need to make sure we’re doing what we can to protect them.
Clear limits make you more useful, not less. They make you safer to come to. They make the work you do mean more, because what you’re offering is what you’re actually qualified to offer. Not a watered-down imitation of something you’re not.
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