Iowa - The cramped used bookstore off Main Street in Cedar Falls is not just home to shelves of old novels and magazines (and probably a mass gathering of rats behind the walls), but also to Ishtar’s Tarot Reading.

The man who runs the store is not actually called Ishtar, but I guess Bob just doesn’t sound as otherworldly and mythical. 

Nor does the man dress up in traditional African garb, like Miss Cleo.Instead, he wears sweatpants, a flat cap, and a long, dark scarf. He drank coffee and smoked cigarettes in between him talking about his past and his high dental bills.

He describes himself as a neo-pagan and believes that if each lives according to one’s beliefs, then good things will turn out for them. I didn’t ask about radical terrorists.

When he told a psychic friend in the mid 1980s that only an earthquake in Iowa would convince him to pay attention to tarot readings, the world responded by moving the New Madrid fault line in Iowa enough to cause a small stir (two squirrels died) that very night.

So he started getting into readings, and does it more for an entertaining side job, than for other reasons. Occasionally, he’ll do it for free at birthday parties. When told him my interest, a deal was made.

He stressed to me that some of the tarot readers and psychics are just full of crap. Some just want your money - like the type that say, “Oh! I see something drastic in your future. You need to come back every two weeks.”

This reminded me of when I was looking up Ishtar’s Tarot Reading on magicyellow.com and noticed a review for Psychic Readings by Donna (in Coralville). The review gives this as a summary: “Horrible communication skills, dishonest, & unorganized. She still has $2500 of MY money; money that I was assured would be returned to me in a timely manner…for my “benefit”. My credit is now ruined and my calls are not being returned by Donna. Be Warned: Keep your money!” There are definitely a couple things interesting with that description.

The deck of cards he uses was made by the psychic friend he knew. She even made the book that goes along with the cards, which he tells me is a rare thing. As he cleared off the wooden table (it had to be wooden) he told me to think of a couple of questions.

“You have to be honest, and the cards have to make sense to you, in order for it to work,” he told me. For instance, you can’t ask, “Will I find my long lost brother?” when you’ve never even had a brother. Not even Miss Cleo could truthfully say “YOU LYIN’, BABY!” about that.When he hands you the cards, your task is to shuffle them as much as you would like, all the time concentrating on your question. My first question was “Will I get all A’s this semester?” Then he puts the cards in a line in front of you. You pick out three and place them face down in front of you.

He flips over the cards and explains their significance. The first card flipped over was the six cups, which is good. The other two cards also showed some positive elements, such as the hermit (that’s me) on one card seeking truth and the angel (also me, of course) on the other card balancing life in a smooth flow. By all indications, I am getting a 4.0 this spring. But unfortunately, Ishtar noted that the cards don’t take your exams for you, so it was really still up to me.

My next question was if I would get at least one of the two jobs I applied for this past week. Again, there was the same process as before.

When he flipped over the first card revealing a dark background with nine swords ramming through a bent up body, I knew this wouldn’t be too good.

The other two cards were of women. He explained this indicated a feminist side that most men rarely get to experience. I then made it a point to watch Goodfellas and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as soon as I got home.

So it appeared that the job outlook was negative, probably because of what he called a “bitchy influence”, which I guess counts for a lot of things being negative in life. But at least I got those grades going for me.

After going through the tarot reading, I had to really wonder about those people that spend a lot of money on readings and other psychic activities. Gullibility isn’t confined to Coralville, Iowa, as we can see through the Miss Cleo days and by typing ’tarot reading’ into Google, which gets you over a million and a half responses from all over the country.

What’s the excuse for this? Do some people think they’re actually too helpless to take matters into their own hands? Maybe the business is just spurred by college kids writing an article for their newspaper, and it’s all some crazy cycle. Or maybe people just think it’s fun. I don’t think so, but then, I kept waiting for the mass gathering of rats to come out and attack me. Now there’s a bitchy influence.

Source

• Jenson, Luke. Miss Cleo’s influence reaches Cedar Falls. (2007, February 16). UNI Northern Iowan, IA. Retrieved February 16, 2007

This entry was posted on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Divination, Opposing Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.