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Diverted Question

TheDiverted Question is a very subtle and effective technique. The psychic takes apiece of information, one which has already arisen in the course of thereading, and finds ways to feed it back to the client in a modified form.

Tosee how this works, let us consider our default example of a one-on-one tarotreading. Suppose that during an early part of the reading, an exchange takesplace which involves a Direct Question:

"Now,just to help me interpret this correctly, do you work in teaching or a similarfield?"

"NoI don't."

"Okay,that's fine, in fact what is it you actually do for a living?"

"Irun my own design service."

Thequestion was asked and answered, so the psychic now has a piece of solidinformation. She continues with the reading, making no reference at all to thiscrumb of factual data. As she does so, at the back of her mind she makes someeducated guesses based on this information, and considers how to weave theseguesses into the reading.

Sincethe client is involved in design, she is probably creative and artistic. Sinceshe has taken on the challenge of running her own business, she must be fairlyself-confident, and probably in very good heath (people with serious healthconcerns do not choose to start up their own company). She probably facesplenty of stress, and long hours of work. It is also safe to assume that, likemost people running small businesses, she has some clients who cause cash flowproblems by not paying her on time.

Allof these reasonable guesses can be fed into a later part of the reading whichis about health, like this:

"Turningto health matters, the cards indicate that you have generally had very littlecause for concern. You have a good temperament, and may also find creative orartistic outlets for stress and tension, which you find very therapeutic. Thisis making sense to you isn't it? There are indications here of recurringanxiety, and the presence of the Ten of Coins suggests that this may be relatedto finance.

Thisis quite interesting, since this card - the Falling Tower - always guides us toreverse the normal way of looking at things. Hence, while for the majority ofpeople the problem with money is that they just don't have enough, yourparticular anxiety may be slightly different. It's as if the cards are sayingthere is money coming towards you, but it often remains tantalisingly out ofyour grasp for some reason."

Hencea simple fact about the client's career provides the basis for an extendedsequence about health. The bonus here is that the psychic can honestly claimnever to have asked a single question about health since the reading began!

TheDiverted Question requires the psychic to extrapolate from a piece ofinformation, and try to reach some plausible conclusions. These conclusions canpertain to the same subject area (in this example 'career') or to a completelydifferent one (in this example 'health'). The latter approach is moredeceptive.

The'sporty' client

Totake another example, suppose that during an early part of the reading thepsychic asks a Direct Question about leisure interests. Imagine the client saysshe likes sports and games. The psychic extrapolates from this information, andmakes some educated guesses based on it.

Sincethe client is the 'sporty' type, she probably takes health issues quiteseriously. She is probably disinclined to smoke, drink too much, or eat junkfood. Her social life is unlikely to involve many people who have these vices,or the places they go to. She is probably attracted to, or involved with,partners who also keep themselves in reasonably good shape - or, if they donot, she may well have made some attempts to encourage them to do so! Keepingfit also takes a lot of time and commitment. Hence it is fair to assume theclient has good mental discipline, but may miss out on a lot of popular cultureand trivia. While the couch potatoes are watching TV, she is down at the gym orenjoying a 5 mile jog. Hence she may well be less familiar with the latest hitTV shows, movies and songs than most people. She probably plans rather activeand adventurous vacations for herself. And so on.

Whenthe extrapolation and educated guesswork works well, it can deliver astonishingresults. Since it is educated guesswork, it can go wrong and lead to thepsychic offering some statements that are incorrect. However, to strike arefrain which will be getting more familiar as you progress through this book,being wrong is not a problem if the psychic knows how to cope. More on this later,in 'The Win-Win Game'.