To Reveal or Not To Reveal
an article on the ethics of predicting death
by Gina M. Pace
  Many people are afraid of getting a tarot card reading because they are afraid that the Death card will be turned over and then they will die.  Of course we have seen this in *way* too many cheesy Hollywood movies, but the fact remains that many readers are, in fact, predicting doom and gloom when they perform readings.
 
First of all, I'd like to stress that there is *nothing*, no way, no how, no card in the tarot that can lead a responsible reader to an outcome that specific, that certain, that deadly.  Any tarot reader, or any other kind of reader, who tells a client that they are going to die is being completely unethical, irresponsible, and is likely attempting to in some way control or manipulate the client.  There is such a thing as self-fulfilling prophecy, you know.  What if this poor man, on his 40th birthday, is so freaked out by this prediction that he drives his car off a cliff to his death?  That would be the reader's fault.
 
I can't emphasize this strenuously enough.  The Death card does *not* mean literal death.  There are no cards in the tarot that mean literal death in and of themselves.  In order for someone to get that from a reading, they would have to get combinations of three or more cards indicating this type of end.  I personally want to see six cards before I would look at it in terms of death.  And none of those cards would actually be the Death card.  Additionally, nothing is ever set in stone.  You can tell a client "You will be offered a new job" and if they, upon leaving your shop, decide on a whim to get ice cream on the way home instead of going to the supermarket, well hey, all bets are off now as far as your prediction goes.
 
I shudder at the thought of people out there in the real world who end up going to these unethical readers and are told they are going to die.  It frightens me, too, because there is no really reliable way to get the world educated as to how to determine an ethical reader from a scam artist.  I had a client recently who went to one of these persons for a reading.  The man looked at her, said to her (I still can't believe this part!) "You are surrounded by death, why don't you just go and kill yourself already and get it over with?  I can't read for you, get out!"  and he threw her out of the shop.  This girl was a college student who was depressed at the time.  The implications here are astounding.  I can't believe how recklessly unethical that was, and he didn't even read her cards (probably didn't see how he could make any money off her cause of her depression).
 
What is the point of all this? A person doesn't go to get a tarot reading because they want to know if they're going to die or not.  Well, not in most cases.  The people I see coming for readings are people who want to know what challenges they will be facing (so they can be prepared), what growth patterns they are working through (so they can see how they are doing), and what their strengths are (so they can learn to like themselves and focus on the good in their lives instead of the bad).  Since there is no such thing as predestination, obviously no outcome is set in stone, therefore the predictive quality of the tarot is less important than the emphasis on patterns, energies, focus and direction.  I always see that a little spirituality comes into play as well.
 
A sense of ethics in tarot reading is not only good business, it's good karma!
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