When tarot tells you not to meddle with tarot

I feel a bit shy about posting this, but am interested in your opinion, so here goes:

A short while ago I found an interesting yes/no spread, and when I applied it to other people, it was really accurate and insightful. When, however, I asked a question about my own interest in tarot, the reply was negative. I tried several ways of phrasing it, but I always get a very clear NO!, do not read tarot, either for yourself or others.

Do you think there is something to it? Should I really forget about tarot because it tells me so itself? Is it disrespectful to continue? Or is it silly of me to have ever asked such a question? Can the tarot be fooling around with me?

Hope this doesn't sound too pathetic Would love some help.

Maybe it was just that the cards knew perfectly well that you were doing fine and were just saying don't be silly, you KNOW the answer ???

My opinion only, I do not do Yes/No questions with tarot, it's way too confusing, no matter how much I wish for a clear yes or no to a question, so am stuck with being like Sherlock Holmes asking How, Why, What questions until I figure it out.

So the next question I might ask is Why did it give you the answers you thought it did. Ask How it would be bad for you to read for yourself or others? How might it be good for you? What do you need to know?

What is the general feeling about tarot in your area, could that attitude be dangerous to you in some way? There seems to be a growing conservative religious backlash against the things people fear and do not understand... women being stoned for 'witchcraft' in the Middle East, things like that.

Thanks, Gregory, that sounds comforting
I hope you're right.

But sometimes it happens, doesn't it, that in spite of knowing the answer, we want someone (or something) to confirm that we are right... only this time it didn't happen.

WalesWoman said:

So the next question I might ask is Why did it give you the answers you thought it did. Ask How it would be bad for you to read for yourself or others? How might it be good for you? What do you need to know?

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Ok, great advice! Perhaps I should use some more general spreads for such questions... something like positive and negative sides, what I should learn from tarot or what to use it for. I suppose asking questions is just as great an art as answering them.

What is the general feeling about tarot in your area, could that attitude be dangerous to you in some way? There seems to be a growing conservative religious backlash against the things people fear and do not understand... women being stoned for 'witchcraft' in the Middle East, things like that.

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No problem there... my country is among those with the greatest number of tarot help-lines per capita or so they tell me. (Must admit, though, I've never called one myself, even before getting into it myself.)

Argenta said:

Thanks, Gregory, that sounds comforting
I hope you're right.

But sometimes it happens, doesn't it, that in spite of knowing the answer, we want someone (or something) to confirm that we are right... only this time it didn't happen.

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I understand where that feeling comes from, so maybe tarot isn't wanting to be used as a crutch... that you need to become more confident in what you feel, believe and the actions you take and not look to things outside of yourself for affirmation or confirmation.

Welcome to AT!
Without knowing which cards from what deck (sometimes that helps immensely!)
perhaps your insight is reading the cards as you are very well able to set personal feelings aside and read clearly for others, but you aren't quite able to do that for yourself, therefore don't try for now.

Sounds like a clear sign to keep reading for others, and if you have a question for yourself come here and offer an exchange in the readings exchange forum.
And again, welcome to AT ~

Reading for ourselves is tricky. I think many people tend to read either the cards as overly optimistic or overly pessimistic. If you enjoy reading for others and/or yourself, there's your answer right there.

Maybe the first reading *was* a sly way of saying "You already know so why ask about it?" In any event, asking the same question over and over is never very productive and is likely to end up with the cards giving you gibberish answers. Personally, I would let it go and just enjoy reading. Following up on Waleswoman's post, is there something in your background or your attitudes that would make you think even in the very back of your mind that you should not be doing tarot readings for any reason? I have known other readers who have qualms at least subconsciously that they may be doing something wrong by reading Tarot. So you may want to think one that because that might be skewing this reading.

GoldenWolf said:

Reading for ourselves is tricky. I think many people tend to read either the cards as overly optimistic or overly pessimistic. If you enjoy reading for others and/or yourself, there's your answer right there.

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Yes, I've heard about the tricky part... but I do want to practice readings, and this seemed a good way to do it. I'm not on-line that much, and don't have many people around to practice it with, so I thought doing it on my own at least would be a step forward from almost exclusively theorizing h I've been engrossed in for the past year or so.

GoldenWolf said:

In any event, asking the same question over and over is never very productive and is likely to end up with the cards giving you gibberish answers.

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Well, I didn't really think those were the same questions. When I got a "no" about reading tarot in general, I tried to get some more detailed insight, ie. "Would another deck be right?" or "Would reading only for others/myself work?" Are they actually the same question?

GoldenWolf said:

Following up on Waleswoman's post, is there something in your background or your attitudes that would make you think even in the very back of your mind that you should not be doing tarot readings for any reason?

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I've been thinking this one through ever since she mentioned it, but I really don't know what it could be... I might be a bit sceptic, but I am so with just about anything in my life, so it isn't really that different from my approach to other things. The only thing that did cross my mind is that I tend to take things a bit too seriously at times, and am therefore apprehensive whether I have as much time to devote to tarot as I feel it deserves. I might be concerned that I shouldn't do it just for fun, in my free time.

In any case, we've had a bunch of friends over yesterday and several wanted me to read for them, so I did, and they were all exceptionally pleased with what I've told them. So, I guess, if tarot wasn't really for me, it simply wouldn't "work" when I tried to use it, right?

Right !

If you want to practice - a lot of people like to read for storybook or TV characters - it is a great way to read without ANY risk to ANYONE ! Ricklef's books deal with this a lot, with examples...

Maybe the original message was something along the lines of "if you have so little confidence that you have to ask - then don't read till you are over that ?"

So - get over that ! As you are doing.