Readings about the deceased

One of my blog readers recently asked this question:

I was recently asked to do a reading on a person who committed suicide and I was wondering what your thoughts are on the whole subject of readings for deceased persons. I realize that when people are grieving, they are searching for answers and I have mixed feelings about this area of reading. Any insight you have would be greatly appreciated. — Mar

I have to say that I can only answer this question from the perspective of my own spiritual beliefs.  As your beliefs differ, so may your perspective on this question differ.

I agree with Mar that when people grieve, they search for answers.  But I also feel that at a deeper level, what they are searching for is closure and a sense of peace about the death of a loved one.  And so the highest purpose for a reading request like this may be to help the querent find that sort of closure and peace. However, we also have to be sensitive to what people are ready to hear and how much they are prepared to grow at this time.  So what follows are suggestions for a few questions that you might want to explore in a reading on the subject of a deceased loved one.  You can use these questions or others that your intuition suggests to create a spread for such a reading. But let your intuition also guide you as you evaluate the situation at hand to see where to go with it.

1  What unfinished business is there between you and the deceased?
… How can you resolve this?

2  Is there something you wish you’d had the chance to say to this person?
… (Note that if there is, this person can still say it now, or whenever s/he is ready.)

3  What do you need to forgive yourself for with regards to your relationship with the deceased?

4  What do you need to know in order to find closure in this relationship?
… What can you do to find that closure?

5  What do you need to know in order to find healing?
… What can you do to heal yourself?

In the specific situation that Mar encountered — where someone took their own life — she may be wondering if it is okay to ask about the thoughts or feelings of someone who is not there for the reading.  That’s a tough question because privacy issues are different if the other person is dead.

On the one hand, shouldn’t we have enough respect for that person’s privacy that we avoid prying into this most confidential of questions, “Why did he kill himself?”  But on the other hand, this may be exactly what the person requesting the reading needs to know in order to find peace.  When dilemmas like this arise, I generally trust the Universe to provide the appropriate answer.  So perhaps we can ask what this person needs to know about the suicide, and then trust that the Universe will send a message that is both healing and suitably discrete.

Finally, I want to share something on the subject of using the Tarot to help heal people who have suffered the loss of a loved one. I have developed a Tarot exercise to help people cope with the death of a loved one, and the following is something that I wrote as part of my introduction to this technique:

Sometimes the hardest part of dealing with the death of a loved one is finding closure for unfinished business in our relationship with them and then getting to a place where we are able to say goodbye. We fear severing that final thread that connects that person to us. But releasing doesn’t mean forgetting; it only means giving up an attachment to someone and to our grief and pain.  Letting go allows us to create a safe place where we can visit our memories of that person whenever and however we choose, rather than being imprisoned by those memories and being at their mercy.  And it enables us to begin to heal the wound created by our loss.

I truly believe that saying goodbye is an essential first step to healing, but I also realize that everyone takes their own time before being able to do that.  We can help them get there, but we certainly can’t push them. 

The image on this post is a card from my RWS 2.0 Tarot deck. 

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