Reading by hand vs. computer generated readings

[Alta]

I infinitely prefer to handle the cards myself, and generally find the canned interps limiting. I have however used the sites. I prefer the Gaian Oracle even though it is majors only. I especially like her interpretations. Don't use it that often but find it helpful.

tarot.com seems to have some pretty good tarotists writing their interps, because I have gotten some good insights there. But also you can use them to draw cards and interpret them yourself.

 

[reagun ban]

As a developer of tarot-based software, I'm going to have to play devil's advocate here.

I find no difference between digital decks and physical ones. I get as clear and concise a reading from my digital deck as I do from any of my physical decks.

I have had feedback on the software that I've created and other than one person who commented that "it wasn't pretty enough" in a very abrasive manner, all the feedback has been extremely positive.

Correction: I inadvertantly freaked out a Roman Catholic friend. I asked her to HCI test and early version, left the room and sat down in the sitting room. She came in to me, clearly spooked, and asked me to take a look at the spread. I took one look at it and said "Oh, this is about <name of her friend here>, then". This spooked her even more so. So, apart from freaking one person out and having one person tell me it was ugly, it was all very positive.

I've had readers from the Irish Pagan Federation test it for me. She was aptly amazed.

It's probably a good point to raise, at this moment, that I poured my heart and soul into making this software. I didn't know enough about any of the technologies involved and so spent, literally, years improving my skills in order to create this software (now in its fourth incarnation, going into its fifth). From a magical point of view, if you subscribe to such things, the system has merit.

This isn't me trying to pimp it, I'm just playing the devil's advocate.

 

[schumacherf1]

Facade.com taught me tarot, too

I, too, found facade.com readings quite useful in learning the tarot card meanings. I've heard people say (both on forums here and friends who also read tarot) that computer readings are 'not right' and 'do not count', which I think is quite silly. Isn't the whole idea of tarot based on the concept of random cards comign out to form a meaning? A computer is quite good at that, and it can also give you an ubiased reading. I guess the next step is to add your own interpretation to the cards and see how they fit together. I've had some experience with readings that were computer-generated and found them to be quite useful and honest.