Discrediting your own predictions to your sitter

While giving a reading - to a friend or client - do you discredit your predictions right after you make them?

How do you feel about readers who do this?

Predicting things through cards for someone and then right after saying "well, but I could be wrong."....if I got a reading from a reader like that, I'd ask them why the heck they are predicting things with their cards if they can't stand behind the reading.

I'm not expert, but I do read for people and I think it's ok to warn sitters their future is in their hands and not to live by cards. But I don't like wasting time...mine or anyone else's. So, if I don't have faith in my predictions, then I shouldn't be reading for people who want them.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I do..

I feel tarot only shows energies that are in the past, present and what can potentially be in the future. I explain tarot to my non tarot reading sitters like this. Getting a tarot reading is very much like watching a river. If nothing obstructs the flow, the cards will predict what you get at that moment. We all know that things can become very different with the same flow later on down the way. Nature comes along and effects the "river" in some way so the flow is not likely to come out as it starts. Especially if you are trying to do futuristic predictions. So think, you have the water flowing nicely but then a beaver comes along and builds a damn. Or an earthquake happens and moves the rocks to where they shift the flow. People have free will and change their minds all the time. When this happens, it changes the outcome. This is why I always tell my sitters, "As the way things are progressing NOW, blah blah blah blah."

Tarot is great with past and present but not completely accurate with the future.


ETA: Something else I've learned in my short few years of reading tarot is that sometimes, tarot reflects what we are feeling about a situation versus what is really happening. I saw it over and over again with a friend who wanted to reconcile with someone who no longer wanted to be in her life. I witnessed her getting positive "love" cards over and over regarding what he felt and what he would do next. It turned out that he was either feeling this way about someone else or it was reflecting what she was feeling about him.

GotH said:

I do..

I feel tarot only shows energies that are in the past, present and what can potentially be in the future. I explain tarot to my non tarot reading sitters like this. Getting a tarot reading is very much like watching a river. If nothing obstructs the flow, the cards will predict what you get at that moment. We all know that things can become very different with the same flow later on down the way. Nature comes along and effects the "river" in some way so the flow is not likely to come out as it starts. Especially if you are trying to do futuristic predictions. So think, you have the water flowing nicely but then a beaver comes along and builds a damn. Or an earthquake happens and moves the rocks to where they shift the flow. People have free will and change their minds all the time. When this happens, it changes the outcome. This is why I always tell my sitters, "As the way things are progressing NOW, blah blah blah blah."

Tarot is great with past and present but not completely accurate with the future.

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I definitely agree with you that tarot is mutable. To stay with your great analogy, I think the cards show you the path the river has already molded into the earth with it's energy that is already in motion.

So, when I give future predictions with tarot, I feel the energy is already set in place. I can predict the future and it should come true. It takes more energy to change the direction of a wheel already spinning in motion, which is why the predictions will usually come about.


What I think is bad practice is if you did a reading for someone with tarot and predicted something, then you tell them "but don't put any faith in my predictions. They are only predictions." Well, why did I just ask you for a future reading? You know what I mean?

ETA: I witnessed her getting positive "love" cards over and over regarding what he felt and what he would do next. It turned out that he was either feeling this way about someone else or it was reflecting what she was feeling about him.

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Ok, so this is a personal issue for me with consistency and over-reading. I've done this and bad things result.

If you want to know how your test will go, and you ask the cards the same question over and over during the course of several weeks, then you end up confusing yourself with differing CCs. I realized...at least for my accuracy...I had to stick with the first reading. If I changed the course (took the advice of my cards) then I would do a new read after I took the effort to change the course..and see if I had been productive. That's how the mutability of the readings really helps those change the course.

MissNine said:

What I think is bad practice is if you did a reading for someone with tarot and predicted something, then you tell them "but don't put any faith in my predictions. They are only predictions." Well, why did I just ask you for a future reading?

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MissNine - I totally agree with you on this. It's one thing to say 'All Readings are For Entertainment Purposes Only,' or say 'Remember - Tarot is not written in Stone.' It is QUITE another thing to read the cards for someone and then tell them 'Don't believe a thing I just said because it might not be True.' Why - Did you just make this up off the cuff or something? Why should anyone believe anything you say when you turn around and tell everyone NOT to believe in you?

Protecting your butt from being sued off is one thing; by discrediting yourself you are basically saying that you are lying.

tarotbear said:

MissNine - I totally agree with you on this. It's one thing to say 'All Readings are For Entertainment Purposes Only,' or say 'Remember - Tarot is not written in Stone.' It is QUITE another thing to read the cards for someone and then tell them 'Don't believe a thing I just said because it might not be True.' Why - Did you just make this up off the cuff or something? Why should anyone believe anything you say when you turn around and tell everyone NOT to believe in you?

Protecting your butt from being sued off is one thing; by discrediting yourself you are basically saying that you are lying.

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Thank you for that.
Well lying or not needing cards to predict because you can't do it in the first place!

I agree with GotH that things come up, but stress that the cards don't joke around on the future, so what my cards tell me about the future will likely happen because the wheels are already in motion.

I think most of us got into cards for the mystery of reading the future. When I have people come to me for readings, it's never because they are curious about the past or what is happening at present. Unless someone is stabbing them in the back and they want validation.

It's always always, always insight to the future. How they can improve themselves or the situation to unfold well. Or how will things go with so and so. All predictive.
I've only had sitters return (family and friends) when my future predictions are accurate. And I don't end a reading saying "but who knows what the future holds. It's just a prediction and I could be wrong." That's not really making your sitter feel you are credible as a card reader.

I usually say that a reading is like a photo. Everything is in motion again after the picture is taken. Nothing is static, and it just might change. The reading is a snapshot of that moment in time when they asked the question and I laid out the cards.

Here's one of the more recent debates on whether tarot is capable of foretelling the future or not. My question came in at post 15.

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=225763

MissNine said:

While giving a reading - to a friend or client - do you discredit your predictions right after you make them??

Now , I'm not expert, but I do read for people and I think it's ok to warn sitters their future is in their hands and not to live by cards. But I don't like wasting time...mine or anyone else's. So, if I don't have faith in my predictions, then I shouldn't be reading for people who want them.

BUT, predicting things through cards for someone and then right after saying "well, but I could be wrong."....if I got a reading from a reader like that, I'd ask them why the heck they are predicting things with their cards if they can't stand behind the reading.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

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I don't discredit, but I do know the cards, the person, and the future, as well as fate, have a way of doing things/making things happen that we as readers are not always party to.

I would call myself arrogant (and deluded!) if I claimed to know everything. I just try to make sense of the messages the cards give. It would be hubris to claim I was always correct, and it would be a lack of self-confidence to dwell on being wrong. Maybe somewhere in the middle is best - to say something like "this is what I am seeing, I think this is how it will work out, other things may be at play". Because it is true - other things are always at play, many ripples run though the Universe, and to claim you know what they all are would be...yeah, hubris. Sometimes we ARE wrong.

I have faith in my abilities, but I also understand that the Universe's plan is far bigger than my eyes can perceive.

MaryHeather said:

I usually say that a reading is like a photo. Everything is in motion again after the picture is taken. Nothing is static, and it just might change. The reading is a snapshot of that moment in time when they asked the question and I laid out the cards.

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This. 110%. It's basically what I tell people as well. If people don't like what I see in the cards, it's within their power to change it. I just say what I see.