with Mary K. Greer

In this episode of The Hermit Lamp Podcast, tarot legends Andrew McGregor and Mary K. Greer unravel the art, ethics, and evolution of tarot reading. Whether you’re a beginner shuffling your first deck or a seasoned reader refining your craft, this conversation is packed with wisdom and guidance to elevate your practice.

The key?

Choose a deck that resonates with you. Dive in. Start using your deck immediately. Let the images speak to you. Have a conversation with the cards. Bring in your personal associations and experience.

Andrew and Mary share how to structure a reading. A well-crafted question guides the reading, shaping the narrative that unfolds in the cards. Start with a Three-card spreads. It is a simple way to start building story, and comfort with the cards. Tarot isn’t just about predictions; it’s about weaving meaning, insight, and personal truth.

The discussion also ventures into deeper territory. Covering ethics, legal responsibilities, and setting boundaries. Readers should always try to empower. Engaging clients in the process strengthens understanding, especially when working with court cards, which often mirror real people in a querent’s life.

They explore the evolving nature of tarot, reminding us that meanings shift and grow over time. Book definitions and keywords are helpful, but intuition and experience can play a vital role too.

Mary and Andrew also tackle the emotional side reading of tarot. Anxiety and obsession can creep into practice, and managing them is essential for a healthy relationship with the cards. Boundaries matter—not just with querents, but also with ourselves.

Ultimately, this episode is an invitation to explore, experiment, and trust your own connection with the cards. Tarot isn’t about getting it “right”—it’s about discovery, transformation, and the magic that happens when you truly listen.

Listen to the episode on all the platforms. Or use the player below.

You can download the audio here.

You can find us on the socials. Or Mary is here and Andrew is here.

Episodes with drop biweekly going forward. Help me let the world know I’m back by sharing on socials and leaving review on the platform on which you listen to us.

Much love

Andrew

PS Mary’s favourite late cretaceous animal is the ???.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Tarot and Its Journey
02:02 Getting Started with Tarot
08:51 Choosing Your Tarot Deck
11:46 Understanding Tarot Spreads
20:39 The Importance of Questions in Tarot Reading
27:19 Legal and Ethical Considerations in Tarot Reading
28:12 Engaging with Court Cards: A Collaborative Approach
30:40 The Evolving Nature of Tarot Interpretations
33:43 Utilizing Book Meanings and Keywords for Readings
37:02Cautionary Notes: Pitfalls in Tarot Reading
40:11 Finding Your Unique Voice in Tarot Reading
44:52 Precision of Lenormand vs. Tarot
46:39 Managing Anxiety and Obsession in Tarot Practice
47:21Practical Steps for Tarot Practice and Learning

Transcript

Andrew McGregor (00:01)
Hello folks, welcome to another episode of the Hermit Lamp Podcast. I am here today with Mary Greer and we’re gonna be talking about how to get started in tarot. We’re gonna go over some ideas that will help you orientate yourself and know where to get started so you’re not too overwhelmed. And we’re gonna just talk about some great practices that will help you learn the cards and get to having fun and engaging and just getting to do readings for your friends or yourself or whatever.

because that’s where the real magic is when we’re starting. In my mind, everybody knows who Mary is, but you know, maybe that’s not so. So why don’t you give us the quick introduction to yourself, Mary.

Mary K. Greer (00:45)
So I’ve been doing tarot for 56 years. I want to say to those people out there that the first seven years I had practically no human contact with anybody else who was doing tarot at a greater level or background than I was. So everything came from books and practice, just reading for other people, trying it out. And we have so many more resources now.

In the meantime, I’ve written about 12, 13 books on tarot and biographies of magical women, and I teach around the world. I discovered that I can teach in a weekend workshop basically what took me those first seven years to learn, at least in terms of practice. So that’s my background.

Andrew McGregor (01:32)
Yeah.

Nice. Yeah, I have the same experience. You know, I’ve been reading Tarot for 38 years this year, and I spent the first 15 mostly alone with the Toth Tarot and Crowley’s book on the Toth Tarot, reading it and rereading it and banging my head against the wall. And, you know, and now we live in an age where everything is available. And I think, you know, both sides have their pros and their cons, right?

Mary K. Greer (01:53)
Yeah.

Andrew McGregor (02:02)
I think it’s really good to dig into something for a while and I think it’s so nice to have points of connection and people to have conversations with and all that kind of stuff. But so tell me, what’s your first thing that you might suggest to somebody who’s looking at the cards and looking to get into the cards? How does somebody get started?

Mary K. Greer (02:26)
If you’ve already got your deck and either the little white book that comes with it or a basic book on tarot, just start using it. So, you know, draw a card a day or even better, I think, three cards a day because you begin to see their interactions. Note down what your impressions are and focus especially at first on whenever you turn a card over on simply describing the card.

Don’t worry about what it means. First, get into just looking at it and speak out loud or even record yourself because you can do a transcript of it. But if you’ll notice in the books, almost every book that has the meanings for cards starts out with a short paragraph of pure description. Your description will be different than anybody else’s and so it’s learning to trust what you see and perceive in the moment.

and then building on from that into the traditional meanings.

Andrew McGregor (03:33)
Yeah, I really like that. think that that’s definitely, you know, how do you feel? What emotion does it bring up? What are you seeing? Does it remind you of something? You know, and I think one of the advantages that we get with this kind of approach as we build some kind of sharing or practice with ourselves or maybe with friends is we also then start to build a mental bank of, when the emperor showed up one time,

Mary K. Greer (03:41)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew McGregor (04:02)
talked about Betty’s boss at work and he was this kind of person. when it showed up in this other reading, it reminded this person of their dad and they had these qualities. And all of those things can be true and it starts to give us that sort of living experience to it. And I find that for many people having a specific point of memory is so fruitful as you go forward because you start to build a bank of things that you actually know.

as opposed to somebody’s words that you read but don’t necessarily have a direct connection to.

Mary K. Greer (04:39)
Yeah,

and I think there’s a couple of things that are really important in what you said. One of them is that, you you talked about somebody saw the emperor like this and another person saw it like that, is that there’s not a fixed meaning, but there’s the meaning in the moment. And the more important one is for the querent, the client. And so that’s that interaction that we have. If you’re your own querent, you’re the one asking the questions.

Andrew McGregor (05:04)
Hmm.

Mary K. Greer (05:09)
then it’s your association in the moment because with so many of the cards, what you see on one day might be very different than what you see on another day. And I think it’s good to balance it then with traditional meanings. you know, that’s the important part is that there’s many variations in what a card can mean, especially in terms of your question, the position in the spread.

So don’t get absolutely fixed that it’s always this way because it was the perfect meaning in some other spread that is not quite working in this one. Let go and be in the moment.

Andrew McGregor (05:56)
for sure. Yeah, people, I don’t get this quite as much as I used to, but I used to get folks walking into my store and they’d be like, Andrew, am I having a hard time understanding what the hierophant means or what this means or what that means? Can you tell me what this card means? And for a long time, I would give people answers. I would tell them, well, this and that and this system, Taurus and the nut system, this thing, and look at what his hands are doing. And I would give them all this information. And

You know, I spent a chunk of time trying to understand the mechanisms of how tarot works and being able to sort of articulate that to people. And what I kind of came to is people would come and ask me and I’d be like, no, I can’t tell you what it means. I mean, it means a million things. It could mean a variety of things in different contexts. Now, if you want to sit me down with a question and a person in a specific time with a specific deck,

then maybe I can tell you exactly what it means. But, you know, again, it comes back to the idea of practice. And I really want people to take away from this conversation the idea that you don’t need to know everything. You don’t need to understand a million things of it or necessarily memorize a pile of things before you get going. But as we’re discussing this idea of engaging in conversation and dialogue and process with the cards,

is really going to help you build that practice and absolutely if you’re excited about it, acquire knowledge, right? Study one system or every system or all these kinds of things, but really be mindful that they’re all pieces to be picked up or put down depending on what’s happening in the reading, depending on what you feel, depending what inspiration might surface for you in those moments.

Mary K. Greer (07:54)
Yeah, and I think it’s really important to honor where you are because whatever drew you to the tarot, whatever made you curious about it, is actually your best starting point. So there’s some people who get into the history. Other people want to know how does this work? Other people want to maybe looking to it because somebody said it was great for meditation and they’re going, wow, now how do I do that?

Andrew McGregor (08:09)
Yes.

Mary K. Greer (08:22)
So we have so many resources now that you can go online, you can go to an artificial intelligence thing, you can go to a million places as a teacher to further that interest that you have. So your starting point is the best starting point. At the same time, interacting with the cards is essential.

And so what you were talking about was the absolute most essential thing, which is whatever you’re interested in, whatever you’re doing, pick up the deck, look at it, you know, look at the cards, interact with them, describe them. You know, they can teach you if you open yourself up to it, but if you’re interested in the history, there’s all kinds of resources now that will give you that background, or you want to do the esoteric study and practice.

and create magic. you know, go for that and focus on that.

Andrew McGregor (09:24)
Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, I also think it’s when people come into this, to the shop and ask me like, which deck should I buy? Right. And there’s many stories that we hear about it around, right. And I say, I generally say two things, three things to people. I’m like further to your comment. Is there a thing that you like? Are you really into Wicca? Great. We got a deck for that.

Mary K. Greer (09:36)
Ha

Andrew McGregor (09:54)
Do you really like cats? We got a deck for that. Are you very esoteric? Right? No problem, right? We’ve got whatever you’re into. If there’s a thing that you really are motivated by, check out the decks that are like that. Number two, do you like the artwork? Right? Does the artwork grab you and inspire you? Right? And if that’s, you know, if something grabs you and inspires you, work with it.

Mary K. Greer (09:58)
dozens.

Andrew McGregor (10:23)
And you don’t even necessarily have to deal with everything that that person writes or know every symbol. Like many people are drawn to the Toth deck and they don’t like Aleister Crowley so much. I’m like, great. Freda Harris was an amazing artist and you could work with these beautiful decks and you don’t have to worry about what he had to say about it as such. You could or you could, you don’t need to. And then the last thing I often say to people is,

If you like tarot, it is really unlikely that you will only ever own one deck. Quite likely you will own many decks over time. And so, don’t be too precious about it. Pick one, play with it, work with it, engage with it for a period of time. And then when you feel like you want something else, grab something else. Move on to a different area. Grab a deck that, know, six months in you realize, you know what, I really actually love…

you know the Italian style and the old Italian decks and now I’m really motivated by this wonderful there’s a lot we live in a golden age of historical tarot decks if that’s your jam you know but yeah just be open to it and don’t think that no matter what anybody says that there is a single definitive deck or the best deck or the ideal deck or the starter deck any deck can be your starter deck if you’re engaged

Mary K. Greer (11:46)
Yeah, and while I agree with you totally, I also have a slightly different perspective, and it’s perfectly fine to pick up a deck that really speaks to you, calls to you, and work with that your entire life and never touch another deck. But if you want to understand Tarot and get a sense of the theories and ideas around it, what do numbers mean, what are the suits all about?

I do suggest you choose either a Marseille Continental European style deck or the Rider-Waite-Smith deck or one of the ones strongly based off of that. Because to speak to it, in the English speaking world, so many of the decks are based on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. And so you get some of the best books that will help you through that and understanding the symbolism in it. We’ll open up a whole

world of understanding of symbol and metaphor that you can use and draw on for almost any other deck. So I would say the ideal is to have either a Marseille style deck, which does not have scenes on the minor arcana cards, so it’s more like learning the senses of the suits and the numbers, or a Rider-Waite-Smith style deck that has scenes on

all of the cards, and so it’s more storytelling in terms of picture book for a child, where you’re looking at the picture and going, what’s happening here? And then the deck that really calls to you, that you were talking about, that really speaks to you, so that you can kind of study Tarot if that’s the direction you want to go in, as well as having your personal partner in all of your inner work.

Andrew McGregor (13:45)
For sure. Yeah, and I think that you’re also pointing at something which I often think of as that there’s generally speaking, three pillars of tarot. There’s the continental Marseille type stuff, which is my personal favorite these days. There’s the rider weight and all the derivatives and extrapolations and beautiful creations surrounding that. And then there’s the esoteric stream. And I think that one of the things

for folks who maybe, you know, sort of gone down the road a good stretch on a particular one of those roads, sometimes you get to a place where shifting gears can really broaden your practice, you know, and if you’re like, you’ve been a rider weight person for a good stretch of time and you’re finding you’re not quite sure where you’re going with it anymore or have questions, consider picking up one of those different streams and working with that for a while, because ultimately they all dance in and out of each other.

And there is a sort of series of circles with overlap in the middle. And it can be really a great way to sort of further practice as well. So I guess my question for you is, person’s got a deck. They’ve got a resource that they’re gonna work from, first their own senses, and then also some kind of written material or a teacher or whatever.

Mary K. Greer (14:58)
So.

Andrew McGregor (15:14)
What spread do you like for beginners?

Mary K. Greer (15:18)
three card spreads. And that’s because an important part of tarot is the integration of the different cards so that one card can be very important at a particular moment to give you a hit of something or to study. But if you’re talking about the dynamics of life, there are these different aspects that are all trying to work together. So,

And the three card spreads are the most flexible because those three cards, what we call positions in a spread, you lay down one on the left, one on the right, one in the middle or in pyramid format or however you want to do this. You have something like past, present and future, body, mind, spirit, person A, person B and

how you integrate those two or choice A, choice B, and something else, you know, a third choice you hadn’t thought of. So the three-card spread is the most flexible and a lot of those things that I’ve just mentioned are positions in larger spreads. So you’re kind of building up the understanding of how they work together in

you know, set, know, body, mind, spirit, or past, present, future. And then when you go to a spread that has something similar to that, you already have a sense of how to start integrating. So integrating meanings is one of the, it’s not the first skill you develop, but it should be one of the very early ones that you begin to understand and respect and get to value.

Andrew McGregor (17:08)
Yeah, and I think that it really facilitates building one of the key processes of reading tarot, especially for other people, but certainly for ourselves too, I guess, is storytelling. Because when we are working on the reading, we are telling a personal story.

Mary K. Greer (17:21)
Yes.

Andrew McGregor (17:28)
We are telling them something about themselves maybe. We’re telling them something about the characters in the card. We’re, as you say, delineating these themes and patterns and relationships between the different cards, and it’s all storytelling. And so if we start small, then we can tell a story that is comprehensible to us and to them. We can hold it all in our mind. We can explore those interrelationships. It becomes much more obvious. It’s like,

You know, I was doing a Marci reading with my friend today. We get together every week and read each other’s cards. And he was like, look at how much of the dark blue is in all these cards today. And we’re like, oh, look at that pattern. Okay, now let’s talk about that. And when we’re dealing with just a few cards, that becomes much more apparent, which is why I also really like doing something very relatively small to start. You know.

as opposed to what is so often featured in all the little white books and historically, at least in every beginner’s book ever, which would be the Celtic Cross. And you know, for me, those other bigger spreads, probably because of where I started in tarot, I’ve never really gotten into them that much. I’ve spent time with them, but I just find it’s so many cards and so many positions that for a beginner,

I think it can be very overwhelming, you know, at least in my experience.

Mary K. Greer (18:59)
Well, I love the Celtic Cross. That’s my main go-to spread. If I’m doing very short readings at a fair that are only 15 minutes, then, or, you know, 15 to 20 minutes, I’ll do a short version of the Celtic Cross with just the first six cards. But the Celtic Cross is really a series of three-card spreads, three or four-card spreads. And so once you get a handle on those smaller units,

And you can, you know, if you get lost in the Celtic Cross, you can go down to, well, there’s three cards, or four cards actually, because the first two cards are crossed, so that center card becomes actually a dynamic of two cards that create the central tension. And every story has to have a central tension. You will not have, you know, a play, a movie without that. So…

So you’ve got the past, the central tension, and the future. Or you have what’s conscious, that central tension, and what’s unconscious. So there you’ve got two, three card spreads, and now you’ve got six cards, and then you can work on that path. Yeah.

Andrew McGregor (20:09)
Yeah, you get a lot to talk about. For

sure. I think that’s, yeah, I think it’s true, We, and I think that getting to the tension is, is always a really good eye to keep out for that. What is going on? What is the tension? And I think that that sort of leads us to maybe another part of getting into tarot reading, which is the all important question, right?

We should, when you’re starting especially, mean depending on your style of reading and whatever, I think that being clear and starting with a question is really beneficial, you know? And I worked, when I first started working as a professional reader, I worked for a place where the clientele was like somewhere between 80 and 90 % Caribbean. And I would sit down with those folks.

And I’d be like, how are you doing today? And they would cross their arms and look at me and say, I don’t pay you to say anything. You tell me why I’m here. And I would read for them. And I don’t recommend that. I don’t particularly enjoy that. And despite spending a bunch of time doing it because it was the expectation, I think that it’s its own thing. It’s a very culturally specific thing.

But I think that for most people, saying, well, why are you here? What’s on your mind? What’s the focus? What are you looking for? Or what am I looking for? What is it I have my question about? And then I think one of the most important things about that, especially when you’re beginning, is write down your question. So you can look at your question and say, am I answering my question? Am I directing at this? And I think that that’s such a great place to start.

What’s your approach to getting to a question with folks?

Mary K. Greer (22:13)
Couple of things one about writing it down is that that’s your beginning point but it can also be your ending point because in a summing up of what was seen in the cards The question should be part of that, you know, should I take this job or that job? So at the end it’s you know, your question was should I take this or should I take that and we can see that you know, it’s really up to you because

This is what is happening for you in this area from the cards, and this is what’s happening for you in this area of the cards. Which one do you prefer? So transforming the should into where you want them to go, it’s not this, who’s the should? Where’s that should coming from? And some people can believe that, and work with the idea that it’s coming directly from spirit or angels or whatever.

or for me, it’s coming from yourself. What should I do from myself? But, you know, I’m open to them, you know, people seeing it for their guidance, but the point was that the question should be part of the answer. Now, my favorite question is, what do I most need to look at in my life right now? To which I can add,

around my situation with a problematic person at work. What do I most need to look at in my life right now around getting a job?

So you can just stop with the, do I most need to look at in my life right now if you’re doing daily readings? Or you can append whatever the issue is. So that’s what I call an issue-oriented spread when you append that piece. And it focuses, what do I most need to look at in my life right now around this? Rather than, will I get this job? Will he come back to me?

Andrew McGregor (24:14)
Thank

And we have those questions and feels, right? Is it gonna be okay? Please tell me it’s gonna be okay. Is it gonna work? We all have those feelings and questions. But yeah, you’re right. They are not nearly as fruitful and often maybe kind of problematic if we’re digging too deep into them. You know? Yeah.

Mary K. Greer (24:26)
You

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well one example that I always go back to was a woman came in for reading I was doing at a bookstore, which I rarely do them in that kind of context where people are expecting to get an answer to move forward or a prediction. And she wanted to know if her daughter was going to be getting out of jail at the next review. Was her husband after three years of no job going to get a job? And something else about them.

And I just looked at her and I said, I’m sorry, I can’t do this because I’m here for you. Let’s look at how you’re handling these situations because it must be really difficult for you. She started crying and she said, nobody’s ever asked me that before.

So for me, being present for the person is the number one thing I’m reading for them. And if they’re concerned about something, we’ll look at their concern, what they can do about it. Because if they’re in the best possible place, they’re gonna be in the best place to help or be present for whatever, their husband, their child, whatever.

Andrew McGregor (25:54)
And I think there’s a really good point in there too that you’re not obliged to answer any question. Like you don’t have to know everything. You can and absolutely should say, you know what, I don’t feel comfortable reading for that. That’s not my area of expertise. I feel like maybe you should talk to somebody else about that, like a professional. You know, I mean, I think there are so many things that…

that everybody should feel free to delineate their own boundaries around that, you know? And I think that there’s necessarily right or wrong around those choices. I think those choices are relatively amoral ultimately, so long as we are handling them with the right kind of respect and so on. But I do think that a lot of questions very quickly get very problematic.

issues around health, around legal matters, issues around like, you know, telling somebody something tragic, issues around people’s mental health. You know, I think all of those things are potentially very problematic for folks to drift into. And, you know, I think you just because tarot could say something about everything doesn’t mean that it should or that it’s helpful or healthy for us to be involved in those levels with folks.

Mary K. Greer (27:19)
and you can run into legal problems because a lot of those things like law, medicine, and psychological counseling, there are legal consequences to saying that you can answer those questions. So there’s both moral, legal, ethical responsibility that you need to be aware of when you’re reading for other people that also apply to yourself too.

Andrew McGregor (27:43)
For sure,

Of course, yeah. I also think there’s one more thing that I wanna say about questions though, to circle back to that for a moment. I also think it’s completely fair and such a great practice to not necessarily assume that you know the answers. And by that what I mean is, know, how often, like one of my favorite court card techniques,

is for folks who are just kind of getting into it, maybe struggling with the court cards, which is often where people get a little stuck, is to say, don’t assume that you know anything about this. Point at the card and say to the person getting the reading, this card has this quality, who is that in this situation? Who does this card remind you of, right? What is it that you already know or feel about this? Because…

Unlike those folks who would just sit like a stone for the whole 30 minutes of my readings when I was getting started I think it’s so much better and Helpful for everybody to be actively participating and to ask them for those things that we don’t know and we don’t have to pull them out of a hat You know, I mean if that’s your thing great enjoy it, but it’s not required at all We don’t need to be psychic see everything know everything

and so on, we can have this conversation with the person and that can provide us with a chunk of the information. And by us, I mean the cards and the person getting the reading and us, all three of us. I think that’s a wonderful way for folks to move forward as well.

Mary K. Greer (29:24)
Yeah, on court cards, I find that if a court card comes up and I feel it might be a person, say a king or a queen, it could be a parent, it could be a boss, somebody in charge in some way. If I simply describe the characteristics of that particular, know, if it’s a king of wands, what that might be versus a king of pentacles, that so often somebody will say,

For the king of wands, let’s say, that’s my mother. Or for a queen, they’ll say, that’s my father, or that’s my boss. Or sometimes in larger questions about where their issues are coming from with somebody, that there’s a pattern to being involved in that kind of person.

Andrew McGregor (29:57)
That’s it.

Mary K. Greer (30:17)
It is your father, it is your boss, it is your ex-boyfriend. You are drawing to you certain characteristics that you keep finding in a person, or you find a person to fulfill those until you finally resolve that for yourself, whatever the issue behind it is. So yeah, there’s levels and layers of all of this.

Andrew McGregor (30:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean,

that’s the wonderful thing about it, right? You know, I mean, we’ve both been at this quite some time and we’re both learning all the time still. We’re both growing, you know? I saw recently you posted something where you’re like, you’re like, I don’t think I ever saw this in this card before, you know? And it’s wonderful. I think that’s one of the utter delights of reading the tarot, you know, and having something like this. It is open-ended and…

seemingly infinite,

Mary K. Greer (31:14)
Yeah, one of my

favorite things is that sometimes a meaning comes up in a particular reading and you go, that’s the true meaning of this card. I’ve discovered it. And you try to use it in the next reading and it just isn’t working. So one of the things for me is break all the rules, go against all the taboos.

And don’t feel that anything has to be the way it was in the previous reading or the way it was in the book you just read, because it’s going to completely surprise you. The example that came up was when the Ace of Wands came up for a person in the position of what his wife was giving to him, and he was wanting to leave the relationship. So here was this beautiful Ace of Wands.

I kept asking him to simply describe the card and he’d go, I can’t, I can’t. And finally he said, it’s a carrot on a stick, which, you know, the wand is being grasped in the hand, held upright, you know, perfect. looked at it went, my gosh, it is, it’s a carrot on a stick. And then he looked at me and he yelled, and I don’t want it. Whoa. So, and it’s never worked that way for anybody else since then.

Andrew McGregor (32:31)
Yeah.

So good.

Yeah,

yeah. And I think being very aware that those moments of specific moments in time, interpretations are super helpful and super valid and not necessarily universal at all. And I think that’s really great. I think, was there anything else that you wanted to share in terms of getting going? I think that we’ve sort of…

talked about the learning the cards, talked about spread ideas, we’ve talked about some question stuff. Is there anything sort of lingering? Hit me with it.

Mary K. Greer (33:13)
Yeah. Book meanings.

I happen to love book meanings. And one thing when you’re, if you’re starting out and you aren’t sure what a card means, you look at it in a book, as you read through the meanings, kind of notice in yourself, is there a moment where you kind of go, or you sort of feel a shiver, or it’s like you hear a little bell ringing, not really hearing, but it feels like that.

Andrew McGregor (33:20)
Yeah.

Thank

Mary K. Greer (33:43)
pay attention to that and kind of feeding off of that as you start picking up the meanings that really resonate with you from the books is over time, I think it’s worth devising keywords. A lot of people put down keywords, but for me having one to three and preferably about three keywords for each card, each suit, each number is a checklist.

So if you’ve said and had gone through the cards and the spread, one of the things you can do is before you close everything out, is check real quickly through the keywords to see is there anything you missed. Was there something obvious that was there staring at you all the time, but you missed up? And those keywords, and you can continue to revise those through your entire life with Tarot.

But having ones that you can kind of count on as being those good double checks is worth it all. It can also help when you’re looking at the cards and you go, what does that card mean? it’s an ace, it’s a beginning. It’s a yes energy. Or pentacles, worth value and security. How does it fit with that? Or for pentacles, it could be money, home, and work.

You know, so whatever your keywords are, they’re a real quick, you you build these over time. But they’ll come from books, they’ll come from your experience. Yeah, would you just say something quick about that? Because I think that’s important to acknowledge.

Andrew McGregor (35:24)
Yeah, I think it’s really great. I think it’s a super helpful thing. And one of the things that I often advocate and I think in my talk about in my beginner’s book is like the idea that try and be able to have one thing that you know about the cards. And that could be a key word and it could be specific like, maybe you know that you are aware now that this particular card speaks of love in this way, right?

Two of cups speaks a playful off, you know? Whatever, right? Like depending on your cards and your system. And just, yeah, as you say, gradually building up those sort of like, I know one thing about each card or a couple things. And be mindful too as you’re building that up. Like if you’re keeping it in a notebook or whatever, flip through and see what’s missing, right? you know what? I’ve never written one for the six of wands. Then maybe spend some time with that. See what those gaps are, right?

they won’t always come up or they may not come up very often. And you can just continue to build and flush out your knowledge and your practice from that.

Mary K. Greer (36:31)
Yeah, I think we covered a lot.

Andrew McGregor (36:33)
Thank you.

Yeah, so let’s talk about a couple things maybe that we could give as cautionary notes as well. Pitfalls that people might fall into, you know, because I think there are things that we have, I have done, I’m sure you’ve done at some point, or we see other people doing, that are maybe not so fruitful, you know, in terms of…

Practices and in terms of like reading cards for ourself and others You know, I’ll go first

Mary K. Greer (37:08)
Can you give an example? So just to get me started.

Andrew McGregor (37:12)
Well, I mean, I think that the one of the things that I think is really important as a tarot reader is to not insist on being right. People come to us for a reading and we see something and it might be true. We might be a hundred percent correct, right? Or we might be wrong. We don’t know. Time will tell. But if we’re doing a reading for somebody and we offer them something,

you know, this card here looks like it speaks about an issue with your father. And then the person’s like, I’m fine. I don’t have any issues with my dad. And we can leave it. We don’t have to push. We don’t have to lean in. it doesn’t benefit anybody to be pushy about those things. And it doesn’t even benefit us as a reader to hold on to that and like, well, maybe they’ll want to talk about it some other time. Maybe they won’t. Maybe I’m wrong.

But if we’re really pushy about it, then it can have a really negative impact on the other person, either by opening up things that they’re not ready for, by creating a dynamic where they think we’re right and they should defer to us and not make their own decisions. There’s lots of weird ways that that can go. So that’s one of the things that I’m kind of caution people when they’re getting into the cards. The cards are not always right. And even if we are right, we don’t need to worry about it. We can just…

Trust the process, do the reading, offer things up to people and allow them to take them or leave them because it’s their life, not our life.

Mary K. Greer (38:49)
Yeah, that kind of fits in with what has become a major thing for me and it probably came out of those pitfalls. I never wanted somebody to walk away from a reading going, she saw everything, this is exactly what I need to do, I’m going to come back to her next week, next month, because she’s got the answers for me. I never want that to happen, ever.

And so what I came to in part through a lot of work in different new age metaphysical fields and working with groups is I think everyone has the answer for themselves within themselves. And if I start thinking that I know the answer,

Like you said, I could be wrong, it could be something that they can’t hear right now, it’s only going to create more issues or problems for them, any number of reasons, it doesn’t matter. So how can I get out of the way? And one thing I’ve come to is I try to use their language as much as possible, which is why I like my readings to be interactive. And so that I’m helping them hear themselves.

as much as I can. So I think, you know, this becomes a bit of an issue in that there are different kinds of readers. There are readers who, I’ve got one friend who’s got advices for people around the world about what to invest in, and she has people coming back regularly to her. I could never, ever do that. The one time I had somebody wanting to know about investment and I tried to do it.

To this day, I feel shame for even trying because for me it doesn’t work. Now I know I can send them to her. So, know, one of the pitfalls is thinking you can do everything for everybody, which is basically what you’re saying.

Andrew McGregor (40:55)
Yeah, and I think that really, yeah,

really finding your voice with that too, right, you know, is interesting as a very quick side note, you know, so I mean, I’ve been reading cards for quite a long time before I ran into Lenormant, you know, and Tarot in general had been very psychologically focused in a lot of stuff through like the 80s and into the 90s and so on, but I didn’t have anything to do with any of that.

I was just in my own little esoteric corner of the world, doing magic and studying that thing. And then I moved into reading in a Marseille style, sort of, know, pretty far ahead of when it really started to kind of reach out again. So when I ran into people who were getting into the law of norm, and they’re like, oh, you can tell the future with this. You can do all these things. I’m like, cool, can’t you just do that with tarot? And I think it really highlights that.

People have very different styles and finding your style, maybe you will be a very predictive reader, great. Maybe you will advise billionaires on what to do with their money. Side note, the answer is always help other people. or maybe you will read like Mary or somewhere in the middle. Like there’s so many different people and different ways of reading. And I think that finding your voice with that is really beneficial for sure.

Mary K. Greer (42:06)
Yeah.

Andrew McGregor (42:19)
There’s no singular way and there’s no singular style. But the thing that I always find quite amazing is for the folks that I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with, know, who’ve got a lot of experience, there’s always an overlap, you know? There’s always like a clear sense of agreement about things in a general sense. Now we might have different approaches and we might do different things and we might…

feel different questions. But nonetheless, there is that sort of generally core overlap of things, which I think is very interesting as well.

Mary K. Greer (42:59)
Yeah, and mentioning Lin-Aman, it’s a cardamom sea fortune telling deck that was developed out of coffee ground readings from the 18th century and then somebody built it into a deck. And it does get very precise. I spent about two, three years learning the system, memorizing the meanings, which I’ve never done with Tarot, sitting there and memorizing because it’s very precise if you want precise answers.

And recently my daughter couldn’t find some very important family jewelry and was all upset and she said, mom, I don’t know what to do. She was visiting here and so she couldn’t go look for it and it was getting in the way of our having our time together. And so I did a Lenorman reading because there’s very specific meanings for finding objects in the Lenorman system.

And so I gave her these like five or six points that she should, you know, kind of integrate it into identifying hopefully a point for her. She went home, went right to that spot and there it was. And I’ve seen that happen a couple of times. So I don’t do tarot for that because I want tarot to be this more insightful process.

Andrew McGregor (44:08)
amazing.

Mary K. Greer (44:21)
Whereas Lin Le Man, if you need something absolutely factual and you just follow the standard meanings very precisely, you’re going to get a precise answer. I don’t use it nearly as much as I use tarot. I pull it out for only very special things because I don’t really value as much, except in the case of this jewelry.

Andrew McGregor (44:44)
Exactly. Well, I’m glad

to have Erica Robinson on later in the season and talk more about Lenormandt and stuff as well. There’ll definitely be some more conversation. I think there’s one last point that I would love to underscore to people. And of course, I’m welcome if you have any more points to bring up too. But I think it’s really mindful for us not to be obsessive or to be mindful of our obsessions and our anxiety.

Mary K. Greer (44:52)
Yeah, yep.

Andrew McGregor (45:13)
and to, you know, when my kids were little, we developed this phrase where they’d be like, can we do this, can we do this, can we do this? It was the same thing over and over again. And eventually it just turned to them and be like, ask and answer, this conversation’s over, we’re done. And I think that, you know, if we start being like, well, you know, if I’m like, but how does Bob feel about me? Do they love me? Are they thinking of me right now? Well, what if I did this, would they love me? You know, and we can…

We’re human, right? And our hearts are messy and our feelings are messy at times, you know? And there’s no shade against that. But I think it’s really helpful for us in reading for ourselves or others to be like, well, you know what? We’ve covered that question and asking it in different ways isn’t really gonna benefit us at this time. So let’s take a break and then maybe we read again later or maybe the person has a different experience.

But I think it’s so easy to just kind of get in that loop of bargaining with the cards in the universe towards getting what we would like or towards managing our anxieties. And I think that’s one of those times where we’re like, okay, why am I so anxious about this? What do I do about my anxiety? And just going somewhere else and attending to ourselves more becomes so beneficial.

Mary K. Greer (46:39)
Yeah, yeah, take a walk and sit under a tree. Yeah.

Andrew McGregor (46:44)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Were there any other things that you wanted to mention before we wrap up today? I know we could talk for hours and hours and hours about this.

Mary K. Greer (46:56)
Yeah, I know, learn about symbols and how

to see them as metaphors, ending with a call to action of where can you take this that both symbolizes what you learned as well as sets you in the right direction. You know, there’s all kinds of things, but those are actually things that you learn as you get into it more.

Andrew McGregor (47:16)
.

for sure.

Mary K. Greer (47:21)
So

we covered the really beginning stages and things to watch out for, think really well.

Andrew McGregor (47:29)
Yeah, I think if folks listen to this and spend, you know, six months just practicing these things and working on these things, you’re gonna be in a really solid place. It’s really gonna give you a serious foundation which you can build into whatever directions you’re excited about from there. So, yeah.

Mary K. Greer (47:49)
and a

practical one because I think we really emphasize practice.

Andrew McGregor (47:53)
sure yeah

so for folks who want to hang out with you more Mary I mean obviously there’s all your amazing books but where are you hanging out these days where might people come and engage with you more on the internet

Mary K. Greer (48:10)
Mostly I’m on Facebook. I started getting back into my blog a little, is marykagrier.com. Facebook, it’s marykagrier.com. It’s pretty easy to find me. And I’ll be doing some more with, I think, some YouTube videos and things in the near future.

which I’m working on. Also this summer at the Omega Institute in July, you can go to eomega.org, excuse me, eomega.org, and just look up Tarot and you’ll find little mini conferences and I think one of the best places to actually practice the Tarot, the theories that we’ve been talking about.

Andrew McGregor (48:35)
awesome.

If you have the opportunity to spend a chunk of time at something like that, it’s so great. Not just the lessons and the teaching, which are obviously amazing too, but just the opportunity to dialogue and hang out, compare notes and share experiences with other people who are on that journey. I think it’s super fruitful. And further to that, if you happen to be in Toronto, I run two free tarot hangouts at the shop. One is…

Queer Terror Hangout, which is for queer identified folks of whatever stripes only, and the other is a more general terror lovers hangout. You can find them on the website and stuff. It’s also a great space to just come and spend some time with some other people. Everybody’s lovely and welcoming of whatever level you’re at. yeah, and all of that’s on my site at thehermitslamp.com. yeah, thank you so much, Mary. It’s been a real pleasure.

Mary K. Greer (49:54)
Yeah.

thank you.

Yeah, I really appreciate being invited. Thanks.