access to a higher source of information, empathy and love?

Grizabella said:

I've said this a lot of times so it's going to be repetitive for a lot of people, maybe. But I think of it like this:

If you're a parent, especially of teenagers, you'll undoubtedly experience the phenomenon at least once in raising your kids that they can take advice from somebody else that they'd never accept from you. For instance, you try to talk to your daughter about a boy who is interested in her but you sense that he's not going to treat her well. She has a fit and continues to date him, not believing you. But just let her girlfriend say, "Eww, he's kinda gross." and she's off him in a flash.

I believe the same dynamic is at work all through our lives. As for Tarot, there are just some sitters who can assimilate information from one Tarot reader that they might totally disregard from another one.

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Thanks Grizabella, I have never heard that story so far

I agree that sometimes, we disregard what other people say, even when they are right. However, I feel that sometimes we believe the reader, but he can be wrong. Again, it could be because we don't have affinities with every reader

Saskia said:

For a judgemental or purely analytical reader.....

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The crux.

If you are judgemental, you shouldn't be reading. You owe it to your sitter to present what the cards say dispassionately. What you feel about their situation has NOTHING to do with it. I will not read for friends, as I tend to have a view, and that could colour what I say. I may even have actually information that they don't, that I am not in a position to share (for whatever reason - not least the kind of situation where a friend is unwise to interfere anyway.)

Griz is right too - and is another reason not to read for friends. People will willingly accept from one person what they will totally resist from another. Partly down to the way it is put over, and partly just because the other person may not have an agenda. Griz' mother wants her daughter to stop seeing this guy. The girl's FRIEND is simply perceiving him as the current boyfriend, one she thinks is "kinda gross". She isn't trying to put an end to it, just questioning a matter of taste !

I had to think about this for a couple of days before replying, and I'm replying directly to the original post, not the subsequent discussion.

Much of the answer depends on your view of how tarot works. Some think all valid insights come directly from a divine source, and the reader is only a humble conduit. Others think that they arise in the reader's or the querent's subconscious (or a combination of the two), and are echoed in the cards drawn. Another group believes effective reading is an entirely intuitive/imaginative/inspirational affair achieved associatively via the subconscious stimulus of the images on the cards (perhaps stoked by a little "keyword" awareness). The first group believes that they are already in touch with "the highest" and there is little chance for misleading impressions to enter. The others take pains to ensure their own objectivity and integrity in various ways.

Purity of intent has more to do with unbiased access to a higher or more subtle order of consciousness than the mere presence or absence of skill, or a "true and loving heart," in my opinion. Assuming the sincere intention is to provide meaningful insights that the querent can use, and the reader is sufficiently perceptive, fair-minded, considerate, sensitive and discriminating, I see no cause to doubt his or her spiritual credibility. On the other hand, if the goal is to hustle a string of sitters through the queue and out the other side of the booth, I would be less confident; even if circumstances conspire to back such readers into a corner, the mercenary nature of such affairs would have to loom large in the equation. Perhaps an apparent lack of warmth and empathy is just a result of the "pressures of production." Not that such readers are inherently cynical, they're just situationally challenged.

Saskia said:

Say, break ups and reconciliations are very common questions for a reader. For a judgemental or purely analytical reader this might be a silly or unnecessary question - just move on, stop pining, done and dusted. Whereas for a more compassionate reader it could be a "you have a chance to learn from this, for example through ways a, b, and c, even if you got your heart broken and won't reconcile" type of a question.

The same cards get different hues and flavors depending on the reader's worldview and communication style. It doesn't mean either one of them is wrong (or right), it simply means that pretty much everything in life can be looked at through different surfaces of a prism and one angle works best for one person, a different angle works best for another.

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I don't fully agree with this. The point of giving a reading is reporting what the cards have to say, not what the reader personally believes. To take the breakup example, I could be a logical/analytical reader and someone comes to me for breakup advice and the cards could very well advise that this was a lesson to learn and grow from in a,b,c ways. It would be dishonest for me as the reader to then twist what the cards are saying to fit my own worldview. My personality might influence how I choose to phrase the core message BUT it shouldn't distort the message entirely.

As to the original question, I don't see tarot as a moral/ethical thing so in my opinion, being more compassionate or loving doesn't influence the accuracy of one's readings one way or the other. I actually believe that people who are more detached and uninvested see things clearer b/c they are able to be objective w/o projecting their own ideas onto a reading. Life experience helps too b/c it makes it easier to recognize a wider variety of scenarios in the cards.