The following article was written after a couple of interviews with Ashley, a Staff reporter at the Imprint Student Newspaper at the University of Waterloo.

The Cards Told Me So

by Ashley Csanady
Staff reporter

From a youth spent obsessing about Buffy, and subsequently Wicca, to a chance purchase of a Tarot deck along the banks of the Seine to a relatively recent obsession with Astrology, various forms of divination and the occult have always fascinated me. Perpetually oscillating between skepticism and mystification, I’ve always found it hard to remedy my spiritual explorations and ideas with my more cynical, analytical, and practical side.

It was with this mix of trepidation, skepticism, curiosity, and even a little bit of hope that I went to my first tarot card reading a few weeks ago.

I found myself riding the bus to Kitchener, trying to prep my face into poker-like blankness and thinking of what I really expected to get out of the experience. I had found my tarotist online. Her name is Kathleen Meadows, and it was her academic, and not her psychic credentials, that pulled me in.

According to her website, Meadows “holds an M.A. Degree in Religion and Culture with special emphasis on the Sacred Feminine and the writings of Carl Jung from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.” I thought this academic background would give her a very interesting perspective on the insights and effectiveness of tarot and was proven more than right when I finally met her.

I went to Meadows’ apartment for the reading. I found her instantly likeable, not something that I commonly admit, and the incense-scented room was far from the kitschy psychic dens in pop culture.

One side of the well-lit room was covered in pencil-case like purses that I later learned were filled with dozens of different tarot decks, a computer buzzed away in one corner where Meadows must manage all her online bookings, and the lace-covered table complete with crystal ball seemed mildly out-of-place in the other-wise unassuming home office.

The reading began with Meadows asking me what I wanted and whether or not I had any specific questions. With all my preparation and attempts to enter into this experience as neutrally as possible, this was the last thing to have crossed my mind.

Thrown off for a second, I switched into journalist mode and began asking her what a typical reading entailed. She explained that some people like to ask a specific question, while others just want a longer, more elaborate spread, and it really depends on the person. With this in mind, I asked whether I could have three separate readings that cover the traditional divination trifecta: love life, career, and family.

I was soon in for another surprise once Meadows started turning over the cards. I realized that the medieval imagery I was used to seeing was far from what she used. Colourful artwork featuring everything from aboriginal to feminist to post-colonial interpretations of traditional tarot decks were what greeted me with each new spread.

Meadows explained that there are thousands, if not millions, of different tarot decks, but that the one people are most familiar with is called “The Waite.” The origins of this deck, and tarot itself, are incredibly complex and easily debatable.

Traditionally, however, most tarot decks include 22 major arcana cards and 56 minor arcana cards. Nowadays there are many many re-interpretations of the tarot and every artist puts their own spin on the archetypes to produce their unique deck.

Meadows explained that she likes to support independent tarot artists as opposed to the mass-marketed ones you may find at Chapters. She said that these artists often spend years reworking and infusing the major and minor arcana with their own interpretations, and the results are both beautiful and provide a unique reading. She showed me many decks beyond the three she used for my readings, and they were all beautifully painted or drawn, the effort that went into then was clear. Every tarot deck is unique to the artist, and the reader must learn to interpret each deck as its own entity, explained Meadows.

“My re-introduction with Tarot actually coincided with … the first Jung book that I read,” said Meadows. “That engulfed me … and then I found the Motherpeace [a feminist deck that brought her back into tarot], and I started to feel it at a very intuitive level that the archetypal story in Tarot is the same as the archetypal psychology Jung discusses.”

We began the reading with my love life, and with the South Park close-reading episode fresh in my mind, I tried my best to give as few details as possible and respond to her reading as little as possible. What began as a very general reading of my love life, quickly became eerily accurate, and almost too honest for comfort.

As the reading progressed, through each of my questions the details about my past, my present, and my personality became more and more accurate. Her description of my family was dead on, and she revealed things about my personality that even I had been previously unaware of but were definitely accurate. I was blown away. Whether or not her predictions hold true remains to be seen — and, no, I’m not going to go into the details here, which is probably the first time I’ve dubbed anything too personal to put into print.

By the End I Was Covered in Goosebumps!

By the end of the reading I was covered in goosebumps and almost in tears. A card and a mention of my deceased grandmother had touched too close to home, and a few bits of unwelcome advice from Meadows’ reading have since proved to be more than correct. So was this “fortune telling” or some other form of divination? Or was I reaching to find answers I so desperately sought? Having previously rejected all forms of traditional faith, maybe I was scrambling to find something, anything to believe in? But, then again, maybe not…

“Often people do come looking for validation of what they’re feeling,” said Meadows when asked about people who try to make the answers fit to them, but she added that if it validates a suspicion or helps with a difficult decision, “how’s that harmful?”
“I generally avoid reading for skeptics,” she replied when asked how she responds to people who call psychics shysters. She explained that if you don’t believe in it, what are you going to get out of it anyway?

“I think people are vulnerable,” she added, and “I think you do have to be cautious.”
She said that when choosing a tarotist, look for their credentials from the Canadian Tarot Network, and that will hopefully prevent being taken advantage of.

For Meadows, tarot cards work because they tell a “an ever-changing story.” The images are archetypal representations of the human condition, and are thusly universally applicable and embody a “perennial storyline that could tell us the truth.” By shuffling and spreading out the cards in different ways, we get a different story every time and, hopefully, a relevant answer to a question.

“The power of story to heal, to reveal is unbelievable,” elaborated Meadows. “People hear things in a reading that’s their story and they hadn’t really thought about it before [and] when they do hear it, it gives them a very objective perspective.”

When asked whether tarot cards tell the future, Meadows replied, “my clients tell me it does,” but added “I think what tarot cards do is reveal a pattern” that we can then choose to interpret as we wish.”

I spoke with UW philosophy Prof. Doreen Fraser about the human tendency to try to find patterns in everyday life, something she said “we naturally try to do.”
Fraser, who specializes in philosophy and science, explained that many people may think that tarot cards tell the future because they turn the results into a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“If you’re told something in a highly suggestive way, you may have the ability to bring about an event,” she added, “that might not have much to do with the ability of the tarot card reader to tell the future.”

Happier & Calmer Than I’d Been in Weeks!

Whether or not Meadows was able to predict my future (and some things she predicted could not possibly be fulfilled through self-fulfilling prophecy) remains to be seen. Either way, I walked out of that reading happier and calmer than I’d been in weeks. So maybe that’s all any divination is, another form of therapy. Someone to give you some perspective on your life and tell you a tale that may or may not match up with your life, but is relevant none the less.

In the end, I think it’s up to everyone to decide for themselves. That reading touched me, and I will definitely go back in the future. Whether I’m reaching to find meaning or not, it was money well spent and advice well-received.