Do you trust a reading only when it -Resonates-?

[tarot_quest]

Hi guys

I was wondering, when you receive a reading from someone (or other type of divination art), do you give more value to a reading when it resonates with you?

You know, that funny feeling inside your belly

This is to differentiate with ''wanting a certain outcome''

Please, feel free to share!

Personally, I had bad readings with professionals tarot readers or astrologer and I could tell that something was off during the reading. The confirmation is that the predictions they gave did not come true at all.

I don't know... If I don't feel anything when receiving a reading (or if it does not ring any bell), I feel that it could be a sign to ''discard'' it.

 

[Citrin]

Hmm I try to not reject any reading, how "off" it may seem. Sometimes it takes time before it starts to resonate, especially predicitive readings! I've read for myself thinking "Pff well, that ain't never gonna happen!" and well, a couple of days or weeks later it does happen...

Then again, I would discard a reading that gave me a feeling of someone trying to scam me, you know "there's a curse on you and for XXX dollars I can help you get rid of it"... Hehe. I also back away if I find someone is very "old school fortune teller", which happens A LOT here in Sweden (to the point I don't get face to face readings here, ever), I just can't stand the whole "You will meet a tall, dark, stranger and he is your soul mate and you will have two children". Ugh.

I don't think I've ever had a tingly feeling reading an online reading though? I had a very powerful shadow reading a while back and it made me cry because it was so powerful and described my background so well, but otherwise I can't say I "feel" a reading will be correct/accurate...

 

[Farzon]

With predictive readings, I think the question "did it resonate" is completely overrated. Because if it does, it only shows that the reading reflects or confirms some hopes and fears of the querent. You'll also see very often, that people reject a reading because there's something in it they don't want to hear. Something about themselves or an advice they don't want to follow.

To put it in a nutshell: no, resonance is no criterion for me to judge the value of a reading, especially when it comes to predictions and advice.

 

[Purplemoonsong]

I also try not to reject any reading, as sometimes the unexpected can happen. However, if the reading is showing a lot of inaccuracy in aspects that I do know (my current state, for example), then I give the reading less weight than I would usually with advice or outcome prediction.

 

[Barleywine]

I struggle with some readings much more than others. I think it's mainly because tarot is almost infinitely flexible and subtle. I went looking on-line to see how many possible permutations of 10 non-repeating cards (the size of my customary Celtic Cross draw) can occur when randomly chosen from a set of 78 (also known as a k-permutation). Although I'm not entirely sure I understand the intricacies of the math correctly (the number may actually be larger), the calculator gave me 4,566,176,969,818,464,000 (4.566176969 E+18) - 4.5 quintillion and change in the US system (UK uses 30 trailing zeros instead of 18), not even including reversals. Those resonances would seem to get vanishingly small!

When I encounter a stubborn situation, I think more deeply and try to come up with alternate avenues of inquiry and a more imaginative and inspired interpretation. (This is where having well-honed insight and a good command of language is critical.) Granted, that seems like a puny effort when faced with such a mind-boggling number of possibilities, especially since any one card can have multiple meanings, and reversals and elemetal dignities, if used, add further shades of complexity. I sometimes wonder how we make any sense out of it at all, but I think it points out that "resonance" may simply be a convenient hedge against an inevitable failure to competently juggle all of the card combinations, in an "I don't know what it is, but I'll know it when I see it" way. Although I'm beginning to dislike "It resonates!" as much as "It's intuitive!" I now think the latter (along with inspiration and imagination) is a more reliable fall-back when more rational understanding falters.

 

[Etene]

4.5 quintillion and change not even including reversals.

4.67×10²¹ including them.

I've heard some readers suggest discarding a reading as invalid if cards don't fit. I've heard others claim that when the cards don't fit, either you're asking a bad question or the matter the querent needs to resolve isn't the one being explicitly asked about. Do we have any anecdotal testimonies by experienced readers who can support either the "toss it if it doesn't fit" or "read it as it falls and figure out why it doesn't make sense at first" methods in practice?

This reminds me of the Considerations Before Judgment, a list of dozens of little things that may appear in an horary astrology chart which warn of an unreliable reading. Likewise, some practitioners will balk at them, and others will work through it, ignoring the caution or remarking as a caveat that the chart doesn't pass the Considerations.

 

[Barleywine]

This reminds me of the Considerations Before Judgment, a list of dozens of little things that may appear in an horary astrology chart which warn of an unreliable reading. Likewise, some practitioners will balk at them, and others will work through it, ignoring the caution or remarking as a caveat that the chart doesn't pass the Considerations.

I also work with horary astrology, and it seems the approach to the Considerations has "matured" some (I'm not sure about "dozens," but off-hand I recall a few major "strictures"). The Horary Astrology sub-forum here has some very wise and experienced people on it who have views on that. I note the caveats but don't rigidly adhere to them; the results of the chart will prove themselves - or not. I tend to side with John Frawley's more pragmatic approach. Back in Lilly's time, when charts were laboriously calculated and drawn by hand, it probably made good sense to stop short and not waste any more time, but with computerized chart-generating programs, it's reasonable to crank out a chart and take a quick look to see if it hangs together well enough for interpretation.

Regarding "tossing a tarot reading if it doesn't fit," my experience has been more in the way of disregarding a reading if it's simply repeating what a previous reading showed, because the latter hadn't fully played out yet. It's usually some form of anxiety driving the asking of a question too soon and too often. In those cases, I suspend reading on that subject for the present. It can be remarkable how closely two consecutive readings can convey the same meaning, even with different cards. If the reading appears to be legitimate in all other respects, I will work my way through it and attempt to deconstruct it in more innovative ways. This is where having a "live" sitter is invaluable, because it makes a mid-course correction much more practical and credible.

 

[Zephyros]

I don't treat any reading as a dire thing. Sometimes it "works" while at other times it doesn't. But some predictions comes true in ways that we can't imagine or foresee. Sometimes our imaginations are limited, which is part of why we use the "greater imagination" of Tarot.

I think there's a difference between a reading that just doesn't work, if you're tired or troubled or confused or if the Fates decide to be silent on you that day, and a reading that does work but you don't completely understand.