Is making predictions simply a way to try to control life?

I believe we are all co-creators of our lives. Tarot is a way to understand a potential outcome of the energy one is putting out. If one doesn't like the energy, change the thoughts, energy. This is different than seeing an event as fate or cast in stone.
Tarot used in this way is a form of empowerment.

I read your post about predictions on the thread about professional reader experiences closerwalking and the follow on start of this thread and you did make me think about this topic.

I also agree in my belief system that life has elements of free will and also a bit of destined events as well. It's a mix. Not all readers see themselves as psychic though but you go to see one and they make some predictions. They might have predicted some destined events or not or maybe got them totally wrong but the suggestion is made. I think a good tarot reader explains about free will. It's really bad in tarot when someone says you will be employed or you will meet someone at this time, in this place and they are like this and then the person doesn't have to do anything, destiny will fix everything. But it doesn't! I think also people pay for readers far more often when they are in a bad place in their lives, of course not always and some people are regulars but I know I pay for more readings when feeling down. Predictions give me hope and I always think "this could happen". For me this is not about control though, maybe about comfort, the future is scary!

However at one stage in my life I was extremely anxious and started to use tarot in decision making all the time. I stopped making my own decisions and was using tarot to control life. I lost my decision making process. Now I try to prevent this and not use it for every decision. I sometimes use tarot now for major decisions as a guidance but the final decision must come from my own process and thinking. So that for me was about controlling life. But predictions I think are about hope but should be taken as a bit of fun that might not come true and we must always maintain free will

If I see something in a reading I want to make a prediction about for someone else, I will! But I will add the stuff I wrote about it here.

I find readings in general tend to be a mish-mash of advice and predictions, but both halves tend to be enmeshed in the "This is where you are now, this is where you are heading with your question and actions, this is what happens if you change nothing" - only very rarely do I get a "this will happen regardless of what you do" voice in my readings.

I always explain myself thoroughly to my sitters, and about how the tarot tends to work as a map...I don't see that as controlling anything, and both sitter and I talk everything through until everyone is satisfied with what it means, and/or how it may be changed. We talk about some of the fun aspects of the predictions, too

Having said that, I do find most divination systems freakishly correct! And if they weren't, then why bother, anyways...? Anyone can give you advice. (imo)

Lotus Padma said:

Anyone can give you advice. (imo)

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This is actually why I tend to rarely give readings for others. Even when I have the cards out in front of me, I'm still me, and can't really "believe" in Tarot to the extent that I suddenly gain some freakish superpower of prescience. It is still little old me trying to make sense of life, and I'm not very good at that (my life is a mess!). But people don't know or understand that, and tend to listen to me with greater gravity than I think is healthy, and I don't like influencing people's free will just because I have some semblance of "authority."

This isn't to say I think predictions are attempts to control life. There are many threads dealing with the responsibilities of readers, but I have yet to find a really responsible querent (unless they are readers themselves) and so I read only for "model querents," which is why I do it so rarely, if at all.

I read your reservations about this topic on the other thread and I truly understand where you're coming from and like I mentioned previously, you bring up an interesting topic and one many people I'm sure have dilemmas with. The power of suggestion can be very powerful and can plant many seeds that grow in our weak, scared and somewhat ignorant minds. The power of suggestion is everywhere we turn and is hard to escape no matter how hard we resist. Medical practitioners have such a great influence on people because they basically hold the answers of life and death in their hands and death is a very frightening thing to many people. It reminds me of a close friend of my family. He was a 50 something year old man in top form. Into clean eating/living and just overall living a healthy and happy lifestyle. Then one day he was admitted to hospital for something insignificant. But on closer observation they found that he had acute cancer where the doctors predicted he only had about a year of life left. Well he died 3 days later. Power of suggestion on a delicate mind can have disastrous effects. But in saying all that, I in no way think that there is a link between medical practitioners and psychics. If anything more people take a psychics advice with a grain a salt where they take the doctors advice as law. I've also never heard of any psychic reading predicting someone's death and telling their querent they only have a year left to live. Like someone already mentioned, life and the future are scary. If there are people out there whom are truly gifted and can help give us gain clarity and hope through certain future predictions then that's very comforting and in turn we gain strength in order to face the things that we might of shied away from.

You know how people sometimes wonder what they would do differently if they could go back and do their lives over? When I think of this question, I think that despite all the mistakes I've made and the regrets I may have, I would not go back and do things differently because every decision and every misstep has led me to where I am and I believe that this is where I am meant to be. Rather than pitting free choice against predetermination, I prefer to believe in serendipity.

I don't view the tarot as predictive. I don't identify as a psychic (and I distrust people who do). For me, the tarot is a tool that more often reflects your inner state and can shed more light on a situation or a stage of your life. When I do readings for others, I talk about influences, fears, desires, options, and choices.

Life control may be one way to see it. The idea of the tarot is to confirm something someone already believes, sort of? I think it's kind of up to where the person is in their mind as to what it means.

closrapexa said:

Of course, it was a metaphor, I didn't mean they are exactly the same thing. But the point is, you can either choose to stay out of the rain (in essence, not participate in life) or you can choose to go out with an umbrella (take whatever precautions are necessary).

Tarot does not make the future, it merely tries to predict it subject to the reader's background and biases, so you have in any case a murky picture. It isn't a fool proof oracle, and your own personal responsibility is always paramount. As with any other predictive tool, be it a weather report or economic model, what you do and decide is always your responsibility, as are the ramifications of your decisions.

Some querents don't understand that, but that's their problem (although I do stress that point when reading).

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closrapexa said:

Well I don't believe in reassuring people, my readings tend to be about issues that need to be taken care of. They unearth problems, something that on one hand might give the impression of a negative reading, but only because certain issues are addressed and not a person's whole life.

I generally don't do predictions either.

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I agree with both these posts.
Sure, when we are told for certain sure (some people here absolutely know that their predictions are set in stone, which scares me, but ANYWAY) that we will be run over by a bus on Thursday, we can stay home and avoid that. Avoid living, as Closrapexa says.

But let us never forget Appointment in Samara. Not every message is as it first appears.

closerwalking said:

So can we truly predict the future or is that simply a human need, attempt to know what is going to happen, when in truth, life is not predictable. perhaps the only thing predictable about it, is that it is not predictable. esp. when one allows room for the Invisible realm to participate. Predictions are slippery slope. tricky wicket. I don't want to take that risk with someone's else's life, do you? Everyone has got to live their life. Do I have the right to move them in a certain direction? or am I trying to control them? If I attempt to set myself up as authority figure in their life, am I not attempting to take over control of their life? This is what i am struggling with right now as reader. and starting this to hear from other folks. together we maybe can get a handle on this elephant.

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If you allow in your belief system for the "Invisible Realm" as you coined it, then you have to allow for some degree of predictive measures, no?

I would also suggest that life is very much predictable, without the need for any kind of divination, either. People have a high degree of tendency to behave and make choices within a narrow range of options. If you take the time to understand the individual and what makes them "tick", you can in most circumstances predict the behavior with alarming accuracy.

The unpredictable part of life may very well be the intervention of the "Invisible Realm"...

You will never get the handle on the elephant. There is no way for any of us to ever truly understand the nature of life and what is or is not beyond the veil of human consciousness. The only thing you can do is frame your own belief and work within the parameters. No matter what you believe, you, I or anybody else can be completely wrong. Intention is key and as the saying goes "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

If you are uncomfortable with reading, perhaps reading is not for you.

gregory, your posting of Appointment in Samara is something I have come to understand quite well twice in my life. Luckily, it had nothing to do with Death . Every message is indeed not as it first appears, something I did not belief myself when I first starting reading, but have come to understand fully.

Ironically enough, the Samara tale also makes the point that you cannot outrun or avoid your fate...and that your actions taken to avoid it will lead you directly to it.