Reading Intuitively?

What does "reading intuitively" mean to you? Is it just looking at the pictures and deciding the meaning based on that, ignoring the traditional meaning of the card? I grew up reading with RWS, and there was always SOMETHING in the picture that acts as a memory cue for the meaning, though it's usually far from exact. I do, however, own several very beautiful decks whose images have nothing to do with the traditional meaning of the card (nor, I might add, the astrological or qabalistic attribution), and I don't read with them for that reason. Should I start reading with them by just developing a new meaning from what I see? Doesn't that fly in the face of tradition and all the things the cards are associated with? Does it really work? I'm a bit nervous to try it. Feels like heresy.

I almost always read intuitively, but I read mostly for myself.

For me, reading is about accessing my inner world. My deepest desires, strengths, weaknesses and so on. When I draw a card, I'm looking for my natural responses to the card. What first catches my eye? How do I feel about it? When I look more closely, is there anything that stands out? Anything that I didn't notice at first? Are memories bubbling to the surface of my mind? Perhaps I imagine walking into the card and holding a conversation with the being in the card. What do they say to me? How do I feel about it? How do I respond?

For me its about interacting with and feeling the image itself. Sure there are traditional meanings that enter my mind, but the most important thing to me is to see what bubbles up from MY mind. Those things are likely to be what I need to hear at the time.

When reading for others I do something similar. Please note that I am not a professional, and that I do not read for others very often. Once the cards are laid out I ask them to tell me if anything stands out to them. I use the cards as a starting point for a conversation with them, offering other possible interpretations, if relevant. Asking questions based on the cards and/or their responses to them. In other words, it becomes a give and take. A three way conversation if you will, between myself, the querent, and the cards themselves. Its not about me telling them what will happen in their life. Its about us exploring their lives and options and such.

I make it very clear up front that this is the way I do things, and everyone I've done this with has gotten a lot out of the experience.

Intuition is how I read, the number and suit points me in a certain direction, and I let my gut/what pops into my mind guide my interpretation of the reading. The pictures on the card sometimes have an impact, but normally it is the suit and number which guides the way for me. I know readers who only go by the pictures, some by book meanings, and other use regular playing cards. What ever works which is accurate for you, that is the right way.

I avoid reading completely intuitively, except as a last resort. It has the highest failure rate in nature.

Esoteric-intuitions are beliefs, but not necessarily truths, so one has to be careful with them.

An good intuitive response would come using semantic memories garnered over time, the transferring of autobiographical memories ( learning) and using them intuitively (anoetic now) in a situation based on previous experience, the greater the experience within the situation, the better the intuition. You know what to do and do it, like a solider I suppose.

To me all intuitions are knowledge based, you can not intuit something without prior experience, indirect or direct, the less direct, the less likely a successful intuition. I know some say If you intuit something, you guess what it is on the basis of your intuition or feelings, rather than on the basis of knowledge.( this is even a definition) This to me is new age like and a poor definition.

For me it is as Ms. Feilds says: A phenomenon arising naturally from information and the decision-making processes. Individuals using an unpatterned method (the organization of data being input) combined with thought and action modes (the character of the intended output) arrive at decision options not necessarily following any of the standard, logical, and/or existing processes. When this happens an outside observer could tend to attribute the unexpected idea as arising from some sort of insight process based on an intuition capability." I would like to say this is not a "AH-HA!" moment because ah-ha's, after the fact, we understand where they came from, we can derive them,and know them to be true. Intuition, has no way of going back and consciously deriving the exact connection of idea's process. We just have a intuitional judgment, right or wrong time tells.

I think intuition is a important tool in reading, but knowledge is the best one( for me)

Just a couple of months ago I was really nervous to try reading intuitively - yes, heresy is the word. But it works! I kept getting feedback from people, and almost always it turned out that my intuitive take on the cards was the correct one! This is so magical...

For me, reading intuitively is just that - reading intuitively. Sometimes it's the image, sometimes the metaphor, sometimes the name of the card. It could be a certain detail, or the overall 'feeling' of the card, or even something apparently unrelated. And it gets better with practice, so don't give up!

Ipseity said:

What does "reading intuitively" mean to you? Is it just looking at the pictures and deciding the meaning based on that,

Click to expand...

Nope, that's stream-of-consciousness reading, where you look at the card then decide what the image, colours etc might mean based on what you're seeing.

Intuitive thoughts are not stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Intuitive thoughts are the thoughts that pop into your mind without a cue, and without a sequence of thoughts leading up to them.

Most of my readings are a bucket of stream-of-consciousness blended with a cup and a half of intuitive, leavened with a tablespoon of traditional meanings.

Edited to add: if you're reading 100% intuitively, you're taking no account of the images at all. You might as well read, as Griz once talked about, with 78 sugar-packets with card-names written on them.

Every reader uses intuition.

If they didn't, everyone could just look up the meanings in a book.

I think I use intuition, but I sure as heck don't really pay attention to the details of each card ...let alone colors . I go with what forms as a message in my head.

I usually hesitate to read intuitively and I cling to traditional meanings. But that is because I still don't have confidence in my intuition. But I do have one deck that seems to beg me to read intuitively, and so I do with that deck. I still have book meanings in the back of my mind, but I also look at the picture and almost mediate on it to see what feelings or thoughts it inspires. It is almost like having a conversation with the deck. Definitely a rewarding and calming way to read. Now if only I could get to that same level of confidence with my other decks.

I read maybe...40 percent intuitively, with the meanings of the cards as a springboard for my intuition. I also kind of go with the meanings of the cards next to or nearby each card too, and build my reading on those as well.

There are a few decks I read more like, 60 percent intuitively, but those tend to be the decks that don't follow the Golden Dawn traditions either.