For most of my journey with tarot, I always assumed the that the cards told us the truth. As a reader who does predictive readings, I know one of the reasons people often don’t predict is that the future isn’t written in stone and that things can change, by our own actions and those of others. I also know that we can be wrong.

Putting those things aside for a moment, just for the sake of discussion, I wonder if the Divine (through tarot or any other divination method) doesn’t always or even ever tell us the truth. Maybe it tells us what we need to hear, for whatever in fathomable reasons. Using a very concrete and simplistic example, what if someone asks if they will ever get back together with their boyfriend and the cards say very clearly that no, getting back together isn’t really a probability. So the querent goes on, living her life, moving on, healing, all of that sort of thing. Then they do get back together.

I suppose then we could say, well, by her actions of getting on with her life and healing, she changed the future and created circumstances whereby they did reunite. But if the cards don’t indicate “if you do x, y, and z, you will get back together,” then did the cards tell the only part of the truth? If the cards told the “whole” truth, maybe she wouldn’t have healed and moved on in an authentic way but in a surface way, a kind of biding her time kind of way. Then they probably wouldn’t have gotten back together.

Do you see what I mean? This question has been rattling around in my head for a while now. I’d love to know what you think. Does the tarot always tell the complete truth or does it tell what we need to know, and I suppose by extension, believe, even if it isn’t “true”?

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Written by Barbara Moore
The tarot has been a part of Barbara Moore’s personal and professional lives for over a decade. In college, the tarot intrigued her with its marvelous blending of mythology, psychology, art, and history. Later, she served as the tarot specialist for Llewellyn Publications. Over the years, she has ...