I’m a skeptic, but I’m also an authentic reader who wants to help my clients and I find that by using techniques like cold reading I’m often more able to help them because they take good solid sound advice more seriously than if I just told them I’d guessed it and being able to guess it allows me to tailor my reading into their situation more accurately which enables me to give better advice (and I do give dang good solid sound, common sense, motherly advice if I do say so myself).  Also, tarot cards are a wonderful tool for a sort of psychological analysis, a sort of Rorschach test you and the client can work out together, you can really see where someone’s at interpreting the cards.  I care very deeply about the well-being of my clients and interpret cards with an eye to their situation and needs, and I won’t read on matters of health, legal issues or contact recently deceased loved ones as I believe it’s unethical.  

Of course, I do also want to make money doing what I love, but what I love is helping others, I just think I do it with good old-fashioned common sense, a little psychological know-how and an empathetic ear instead of magic.  They come to me for sound advice and help and for someone to talk to, and I do my darndest to make sure they leave feeling better and equipped to handle whatever life throws at them.  I’d probably just be a therapist, but frankly, I have a weakness for the props and the ritual and the theatrics of the whole thing and looking a bit gothy is a help rather than a hindrance being a tarot reader rather than a therapist, so really it’s sort of a nice fit to me.

I also think that aesthetics, and atmosphere and what not can have a profound effect on psychological states, which is why for example using crystals makes perfect sense to me, if holding a pretty rock makes you feel better (and feeling better is a real and important thing) you hold onto that pretty dang rock, y’ know what I mean?

Magical ritual has a profound effect on psychological state and like I feel like we often underestimate just how much psychological state can do for a person.  

Or maybe I do believe in magic, but it’s just the kind that’s inside you all along

Additionally, to me at least, cold reading and all of that is a kind of magic in and of itself, and it can be used for good or ill. You can build a rapport with someone, get them to open up to you, and help them a lot more efficiently than you could without it.

Of course I could also just actually be a psychic and refuse to acknowledge it (as a friend of mine who is a very respected psychic says) but I don’t like the idea of letting myself believe I have magical powers as I fear it’d make me more sure of myself than I like being.

Of course I also quite like the Discordian belief that everything is true through some framework, but some frameworks are just more useful than others, and the Chaos Magick conception of using conscious control over belief for useful purposes (incidentally I met Baphomet projecting astrally last night and I have never met a being of such immense and total compassion and empathy)