Who's perception is right?

So many of us post our readings up to see what other people think of the cards...to see if we are right...or whatever reason we may have.
But, alot of the time, the person who drew the cards originally has an idea as to their meaning, while other people feel differently. So who is right? It seems that if tarot is something our higher self is directing, shouldnt our perception be correct as opposed to others? Just something I am wondering.

Being so close to our own readings there are sometimes things we don't (want to) see or that we overlook. Getting someone else to interpret the cards alongside what we ourself have read from them can give us further insight and understanding (or reassurance or even help if we get 'stuck)- and if the 'other' interpretation is completely different, I guess we reassess the messages we received in the first place. SO the whole process is a GREAT (self) learning exercise.

sometimes it helps to see things clearer, if we get a second viewpoint...
get clarification on a card or spread...
one of those "oh, yeah" moments help with learning by the book and by intuition...

At the end of the day I believe that the tarot shows the reader the appropriate cards to come to the answer that the tarot wants the reader to see. Using the same deck, the tarot will most likely show a different reader one or more different cards in order to get the same message.

So when umpteen different readers post in a Your Readings thread with their interpretations, most of them won't resonate with the person who started the thread. But some of them will. And even those that don't may provide the reader with another way of looking at a card or combination of cards that adds to their own personal tarot knowledgebase.

I don't think it really boils down to being "right" or "wrong" though. Remember, Aeclectic is a learning forum. And the best way to learn with tarot is to do - read, interpret, fall on your face, dust yourself off and do more readings. A new reader is often unsure of themselves and their ability to give a good reading (however one wants to define "good"), so many folks post readings for validation. Others post readings that they're too close to to see clearly and want to see other (neutral) viewpoints to see if they're missing something obvious because they can't see the forest for the trees.

So I think that posting in Your Readings (whether as original reader or giving an alternate interpretation) helps to build both confidence and one's personal tarot knowledgebase.

Rodney

sometimes we see what we want to see, sometimes we simply have an inkling and someone will point something out that makes things 'click'. Occassionally we have no clue. remember we are still human, still fallible......

An outside interpretation can be more accurate, because the other person can be more objective. However, your own interpretation is valuable because it's a reflection of how you perceive the situation. Readings where you tap into the wisdom of your higher self are the most valuable, but we all sometimes drown out those messages with our more mundane concerns. In any case, I think it's always instructive to see how someone else interprets the cards. It's not a question of who's right, but of different perceptions. It's up to you to decide which interpretation is most useful to you.

Usually people post their readings because they either aren't sure how to interpret some of the cards in context of the question or want a validation of what we hope to see. We all want to be sure we are interpreting the real message correctly, but when it's too close to our hopes and fears, can't. RW Carter said about everything I was thinking already, but ...my thoughts include this:

One of the reasons we read, especially for love & relationships is we don't trust our gut feelings or have real faith in that Other. Clue #1 something isn't right, because if it was, would you have all those questions and doubts or even feel like doing a reading on it? I discovered I only read for myself when I'm feeling insecure.

We grasp for anything that can be construed as "good cards" and spin the positive and often delude ourselves in the process. Almost everyone is guilty of reading cards they way we want to see them, I have learned the hard way, many times over, that sometimes when cards seem to be saying one thing to me, the reality was not even close... and ignored it to my peril. It seems like the ones that seemed so positive and wonderful were more likely to mean something I didn't want to hear at all and so would not hear it.

I don't think anyone can be completely objective, we still bring our own biases along when we read and give our own interpretations. I can see that in responses to questions in Using Tarot Cards and Your Readings... oh, that person has had bad experiences and no faith in love... oh, that one is a dreamer... this one has their blinders firmly in place.

But it's still up to the person who did the reading in the first place to decide what those cards mean for them. Asking for insights & opinions is opening yourself up to a plethora of differing views, but if the majority of responders are seeing similar things, then perhaps the reader might want to pay attention to that.

What you guys are saying makes alot of sense. I was just thinking today about how we post our readings...thinking of all the ones Ive posted... then wondering to myself at how odd it is that our higher self, or wherever these messages come from, are giving us messages that are so hard to grasp!

SunriseDesire said:

What you guys are saying makes alot of sense. I was just thinking today about how we post our readings...thinking of all the ones Ive posted... then wondering to myself at how odd it is that our higher self, or wherever these messages come from, are giving us messages that are so hard to grasp!

Click to expand...

Ahh, but your higher self is using the foreign language of tarot to give you those messages. Assuming you don't know French, you become better at understanding it the more you study it and become familiar with it. So after studying French for 5 or 10 years, you'll be much more fluent in the language than you were after a week or two. The same with tarot. Just because you've picked up the cards and started using them doesn't mean that you're going to get every message that the cards give you right off the bat. You're going to have to work at it.

That's where other folk's interpretations can help you (generic) to add more data points to your own tarot knowledgebase.

Rodney

Very, very good way of putting it!