cards refusing to answer on, "the past"

has anyone had this experience? you do a reading on the past. something that happened in the past that you are seeking an answer for. and, the cards will not answer on it. they just answer something else, not pertaining to the past, or the answer makes no sense to the question at all. or shuffling, you keep shuffling and you just get the feeling to give up? so, eventually that is what you do. put the cards away. i have had this happen twice. just no cooperation from the cards, at all. if this has happened to anyone else, why do you feel this happened? and, if you tried the question again did you ever suceed to get a rational answer? any and all experiences pertaining to the one welcomed!

IMO - the cards answer it. But narrowness of definition restrict understanding. Wish you'd post the question and cards so we could truly discuss the topic.

Maybe the cards do not "feel" the past is relevant to the question posed. In effect, move on; it has no bearing. They might be skipping ahead to what is relevant to the now.
If you get the feeling the cards "do not want" to be consulted (this happens to me at least once a week), take a breather and allow the energy to clear. Then come back and lay them.

ladyofhearts said:

has anyone had this experience? you do a reading on the past. something that happened in the past that you are seeking an answer for. and, the cards will not answer on it. they just answer something else, not pertaining to the past, or the answer makes no sense to the question at all. or shuffling, you keep shuffling and you just get the feeling to give up? so, eventually that is what you do. put the cards away. i have had this happen twice. just no cooperation from the cards, at all. if this has happened to anyone else, why do you feel this happened? and, if you tried the question again did you ever suceed to get a rational answer? any and all experiences pertaining to the one welcomed!

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Hi Ladyofhearts. Yes, this has happened to me; not just with readings on Past, but various topics. It hasn't happened for a long time, but I've changed the way I read now too. Sometimes we aren't supposed to 'know'. There are some things that won't be revealed to us, no matter how much we press the issue. In fact, pressing it when we've clearly been shown to back off usually leads to frustration and confusion. If you start getting readings that seem to be addressing some other topic, I would pay attention to that and explore the message coming through.
As far as returning to the question at a later time, that is a choice. However, be prepared for the same response if it isn't meant for you to know. Perhaps you can do a reading to understand why the information is blocked from you. This may be more helpful in the long-run and at least give you a direction to go, instead of hitting the same wall.

I don't know how serious the question is, but offer this. I was reading a book on astrology and it was talking about horary astrology. I gather this is to answer questions, but if the chart has a certain configuration, then it means that the question cannot or should not be asked. The author said that a woman came to her and asked about her sister's suicide and this configuration came up. The question should not be asked. Again, depends on the situation of course.

Alta

...and as for shuffling...predetermine in your mind a number, any number, of shuffles you're going to do. Then when that #'s up, you're done; do the reading. I had a post a while back 'The Neverending Shuffle'. I was pretty sick at the time & just wasn't getting that 'done' feeling. So now, most of the time, I shuffle differently. Maybe my way's a bit OCDish, but it's set in my mind & usually verbally stated regarding shuffling before I lay the cards out.

I'm usually skeptical when I see someone say that for any question the cards "refuse" to answer. But I think Alta is also right about there being some questions we just aren't meant to understand the answer to. So I'd say it's one of two possibilities:

1) The reader isn't interpreting correctly -- not that there's a correct way to interpret, but for some reason the reader is blocking or not seeing the answer.

2) The question isn't meant to be answered at this time.

There are events in life that I think we have to work through to find an answer rather than being able to just do a reading and see it. Things happen for a reason, and sometimes even hardship (IMO especially hardship) holds answers for us inside the struggles, the suffering, the work it takes to get to the other side of them.

I've seen this in my life, times when I thought things were just unbearable, and I wanted answers, and I wanted them now. "How do I get out of this, solve this, change this?"

But it's really only in retrospect, years later, that I've been able to recognize some of the patterns of my life and get the real lessons from them. There is just no way a Tarot reading at the time could have shown me what I can see now. Or maybe readings did show me, but because I didn't have the wisdom of retrospect, I thought they were refusing to answer.

It's my belief that we're given the same situations over and over and over again till we learn the lesson that's there for us. I think those lessons are probably meant to be lived because just reading about them from the cards won't be as valuable as "learning the hard way" will be. So maybe that's why the cards would be silent. You have a lesson yet to be learned about that particular area that you have to live in order to really get it.

i have read through all of your answers. the insight was so very helpful to me. grizabella, your take just hit me between the eyes. i say this because in one particular situation things did repeat as in the past, and yes, i did learn a lesson from it, the hard way. actually, when i asked the cards about, " why did things happen the way they did in the past?", i was going through a similiar thing with this person from my past. i think the cards would not answer because i had to learn the lesson for myself, one last time. things played out i guess the way it was meant to be. now, i see why.

I've had answers to the questions I should have asked on several occassions. Maybe the answer is to a question you should be asking.