Is it not good to ask the same question more than once?

[Ambrosia]

I feel if you have to ask a question repeatedly, you are not really listening to the message. For me, if I keep asking, the answer just gets muddy and loses clarity. You really need to trust what the cards are telling you and dont second guess them. Of course sometimes a reading can seem totally off, in that case another card for clarity usually suffices for me.

 

[Lleminawc]

One thing to keep in mind is that it's not the same question the second time, as the situation has been changed by the outcome of the first reading.

In my earlier experiments I would sometimes repeat a reading and find that a card that showed up as "Unexpected" the first time would appear as "Expected" the second time, for instance.

 

[Clear Autumn]

Many thanks to all who have replied to my question. Your answers are inspiring to me!

A special thank you goes to rwcarter for pointing out to me "the tarot tells you not what will happen regardless of what anyone does, but what will happen as long as the current factors surrounding the situation remain the same." I might have read the similar idea somewhere in one of my tarot books, but it never occured to me when I did the readings. However, when you mentioned it, it just clicked in my mind and I suddenly realized something that I had never paid attention before.

Now I know what to do. Thanks again. You've been very helpful!

 

[SunChariot]

I heard someone say you shouldn't ask one question repetitively; if you want to ask the same question again, wait for three months.

I've done tarot reading for a friend of mine, and she was kind of troubled by the result of the reading, so she asked me to do the reading again, with the same question but using a different deck. So I did. While I was doing the second reading I didn't feel good about it. I had this weird feeling from the very beginning, and the results turned out to be very inaccurate. The first reading was accurate, only she didn't like the "future" the tarot foretold.

I'm a newbie of tarot reading, quite ignorant of tarot reading rules and such. And I was wondering if there's really a "legacy" against doing repeated readings for the same person regarding the same question in a short time period. Thanks to anyone who can clarify my confusion.

Well I don't know about 3 months, but from what I have always heard and my expereinces it is best to let enough time pass until you have resonably suspect that something might have changed. If you have no reason to suspect the situation may have changed it is too soon to ask again.

There are a few reasons for this. First because being a Tarot reader involves trust and if you ask the very same question very soon after you just asked it, in effect you are telling yourself that you do not trust your ability and maybe you got the wrong answer so let's try again. That is not the path to develop your skills. You need to trust what you get.

Also being a reader involved trusting your intuitions. So if your intuition told you that it was not right for you in that situation to do the reading again, then it was best for you to respect your intuition and not do it.

As well, whatever the source you feel the answers come from just sometimes get tired of answering the same question over and over and they just stop sending answers, as though they are saying inside "What's the point of us keeping on telling him/her (the reader) the answers when he/she is not really listening and believing what we say. When that happens you just get random cards that make no sense.

While there is nothing wrong with using multiple decks in a reading, to use the second deck to verify if the first spoke the truth does not seem right. Instead, if your friend was troubled it would be a good idea to me to use the second deck, or the first again, to find out why she is troubled and what advice the cards can tell her on the topic that wille ease those feelings of discomfort she is feeling.

One more piece of advice, although I believe the cards always give us teh right answer and thus the right cards did come up that first time, how we deliver the news is part of the process as well. Tarot has a lot to do with duality. There is not darkness without light, no night without day....THere are of course no "bad" Tarot cards. Even the Death card, means something ending to make room for something better to come and the Tower removes what is negative from the querent's life so that a new era of hope can start in their life. The Star is the card following the Tower, after all and for good reason.

So it is important to give a balanced message, showing both sides of the coin, if something negative comes up there is always it's other side nearby. I thought I would add that in as you said you were a newbie and in case it helps. Whenever delivering any negative news, it's important not to leave the querent feelings scared or hopeless. We have that obligation as helpers I believe.

Well those are my feelings on that, hope it helps in some way,

Babs

 

[Metafizzypop]

I think that, in some situations, it may be a good idea to ask the same question a few times over. A second reading can work to clarify the first. Sometimes it's hard to interpret the cards on the first try.

Let's say a woman wants to know what the possibilities are of her getting involved romantically with a certain man she's met at work. The first time she does a reading, the 3 of Swords shows up. She, being hopeful about things, might interpret this as a reference to her last relationship, which was a disaster. The rest of the cards that appear in the spread she finds difficult to interpret.

A few days later (I do believe in waiting a few days to let the cards cool down), she throws the cards again, asks the same question. Several cards are different, but the 3 of Swords appears again. A few days later, she asks again, and again, gets the 3 of S.

I think the value in asking the same question a few times over is that it lets a person learn about a situation by seeing what cards come up repeatedly. After seeing the 3 of Swords over and over, it might begin to sink into the woman's head that whatever happens between her and her new love interest, it will be painful.

I don't think it's right to do a reading over again just because someone doesn't like the reading they got the first time. But I do think it's worth doing for clarification reasons.