Reading Intuitively = Anything goes?

[pasara]

I have noticed on several threads when discussing the meaning of a card, what comes up eventually is that whatever the person sees in the card is correct. While I do believe in an intuitive approach to reading, and certainly that if something just jumps out at someone in a reading it is valid for that reading, it seems to me that this can be taken to such a degree that it gets confused with the idea of anything goes.

Is there not a common basis of understanding, a basic core language from which we begin. What is there to discuss if a card can have an infinite number of individualized meaning? Where is the line for people?

It seems to me that reading Tarot is like learning a language, and while we can work with language to communicate in an infinite number of creative ways, there is something fundamental which allows us to understand one another. If the word "chair" means something to sit on for me, but means "dog" for you and "run" for someone else, how could we really communicate? If we are going to read psychically, then why bother with the cards at all?

Another question: if anything someone decides a card to mean it means, then how would that person know they were not just seeing what they want to see?

I don't have the answers, but wonder where the line is. Your thoughts??

 

[Thirteen]

Is there not a common basis of understanding, a basic core language from which we begin.

Well, if there isn't, we're all wasting our time here As you say, the fact that we can discuss the cards here shows that we do have agreed on definitions to some extent. If someone were to look at the Fool card and say to a sitter, "Your boat's going to be attacked by a giant octopus" I think most of us would say, "Well, okay if that's what you see...but the Fool card isn't, for the most part, about giant octopuses--or even danger at sea."

Tarot cards do have a history of meaning and images, and while there are variations most books have some agreements on those meanings, enough that we all know, for example, that the Fool can stands for real Foolishness. That is what the card is called after all. Even if the name is different (Juggler rather than Magician) the name and image do tend to have a similar meaning (doing tricks).

My point being that if someone is going to bother using these cards, they will pick up some of that common vocabulary even if they never pick up a book. Because there is the "Fool"--it's not called "The octopus." The common vocabulary is in the cards to some extent. Obviously, this is not so true for the minors in Thoth or Marseille decks which, for example, show 10 cups instead of a rainbow and happy family, but most folk using those do read up on them and gain the common vocabulary that way.

Another question: if anything someone decides a card to mean it means, then how would that person know they were not just seeing what they want to see?

Metaphysically speaking, if there is a power behind or in the cards, even the power to open up the mind to insights, then what one sees is never what you want to see, only what you were meant to see and understand. I don't think this is completely true, as we do have stubborn free will which will make us deny the truth, especially when it comes to romance spreads. People do tend to put the most positive spin on any outcome card when the question is: "Is this guy interested in me?"

However, I do notice that people are more likely to reshuffle and try again when they get something like "The Tower." This suggest to me that they're not always blind to messages they're rather not get. They will try again in hopes of getting a better message, but they don't try to spin the Tower into what they want it to mean.

 

[Carla]

I have noticed on several threads when discussing the meaning of a card, what comes up eventually is that whatever the person sees in the card is correct. While I do believe in an intuitive approach to reading, and certainly that if something just jumps out at someone in a reading it is valid for that reading, it seems to me that this can be taken to such a degree that it gets confused with the idea of anything goes.

Is there not a common basis of understanding, a basic core language from which we begin. What is there to discuss if a card can have an infinite number of individualized meaning? Where is the line for people?

It seems to me that reading Tarot is like learning a language, and while we can work with language to communicate in an infinite number of creative ways, there is something fundamental which allows us to understand one another. If the word "chair" means something to sit on for me, but means "dog" for you and "run" for someone else, how could we really communicate? If we are going to read psychically, then why bother with the cards at all?

Another question: if anything someone decides a card to mean it means, then how would that person know they were not just seeing what they want to see?

I don't have the answers, but wonder where the line is. Your thoughts??

I think, and I have said this before, reading intuitively is like jazz improv, or cubism. A jazz musician knows his or her scales, but the music he produces doesn't sound like the scales. And the artist can do a perfectly realistic portrait, but his work looks like he thinks the lady has a nose growing out of her ear and her boobs on the same side... You learn the basics, then you run with it. But first, you learn the basics. A person learned in music or art can tell if the artist has the basics. For the most part, so can an experienced tarot reader.

 

[canid]

If someone were to look at the Fool card and say to a sitter, "Your boat's going to be attacked by a giant octopus" I think most of us would say, "Well, okay if that's what you see...but the Fool card isn't, for the most part, about giant octopuses--or even danger at sea."

But, but, didn't you see on the news today about that whale that jumped in a yacht?! And everyone lived? (Except the yacht.) Amazing. What are the chances of that happening?

I agree, you have to be able to tell the difference between stray transient thoughts and a gut-feeling-I'm-right intuitive moment. You just KNOW, & it's very difficult to describe.

 

[gregory]

The symbolism is right there in the card. So what you read - when you look at that card - is the symbolism from which the generic language was made.

I am one of those "intuitive" readers - though I don't use the term any more, as it suggests that other readers don't use their intuition. If the symbols in the cards aren't working on their own - it is very strange how often what I pick up is what people would call the common language.

I didn't learn the basics first. The way I came to reading was from rank terror, being dragged kicking and screaming into the "intuitive" group here. And it was a fit, for me.

But anything does NOT go ! Even if you won't see me - in readings - say "well, sixes suggest" - whatever it is they suggest.

Seeing what I want to see - I don't think so. But as I don't read for myself (because I know I cheat) I don't have any "want". I was appalled at the negative reading I got for a friend not long ago though. I certainly didn't want that. And it is coming to pass as the cards had said, sadly.

 

[starrystarrynight]

I agree with the others who have said we have to have a common ground from which to start. As Carla likens it to music, I always think in terms of language. You learn the basic subject-predicate-object for writing sentences along with the definitions of words...and then you can begin to put them together to form or describe thoughts and ideas--creating word pictures like metaphors and such.

I think that by having a common body of generic "meanings" for cards, we can then train ourselves to combine those "meanings" with feelings we get from looking at the images on the cards to come up with a suggestion of what they can mean when put into a spread (like words sometimes have many shades of meanings that change when read in context within sentences.) We can use them as a jumping off point and introduce "intuition" to the mix.

I'm not a Shakespeare or a Twain or a Tolstoy, but I can recognize the genius of the way they put words together to form their bodies of work--even if they are being satirical or ironic or factual or simply creative. And that's because we have that common denominator of language and of meanings of words and sentences.

And basically, tarot is a language (we "read" it, don't we?) And any language has that commonality of words, basic definitions, parts of speech and so on. So, it can be creative, metaphorical, straight-forward, or whatever...but not so much "anything goes."

 

[Thirteen]

But, but, didn't you see on the news today about that whale that jumped in a yacht?! And everyone lived? (Except the yacht.) Amazing. What are the chances of that happening?

LOL! Yeah. I think the Whale thought the Yacht was another whale and was just asking it to play

But I really doubt any tarot reader would get the Fool card and see that happening in it--however foolish and playful the whale Maybe 6/Swords combined with Strength (??)--a boat and a card about a small human going up against a large and more powerful creature?

 

[nisaba]

LOL! Yeah. I think the Whale thought the Yacht was another whale and was just asking it to play

<grin> Whales are not that incredibly stupid. A whale knows what another whale is, and how they look, smell, sound and move. The whale may have known that the boat was something inert and that there were people surrounded by it. S/he may have interpreted that to mean that they were trapped, and tried their best to free them. Sounds as if, in the whale's terms, s/he was being kind, and the mission was a success.

 

[Sinduction]

This is such a sore spot with me because I am what others would call an "intuitive reader."

I have noticed on several threads when discussing the meaning of a card, what comes up eventually is that whatever the person sees in the card is correct. While I do believe in an intuitive approach to reading, and certainly that if something just jumps out at someone in a reading it is valid for that reading, it seems to me that this can be taken to such a degree that it gets confused with the idea of anything goes.

For me, as I am the only person I can speak for, it isn't "anything goes." I have been reading and studying the cards for years. I keep track of my readings so that I can understand how the tarot chooses to communicate with me. It is only "correct" if what is seen is corroborated by either the client or by how things turn out.

Is there not a common basis of understanding, a basic core language from which we begin. What is there to discuss if a card can have an infinite number of individualized meaning? Where is the line for people?

But each card can and does have an infinite number of meanings. I recently read for someone I had not met before and I couldn't figure out what the Star was doing in the spread. Turns out his daughter's name was Hope. But hope itself was not what the card was trying to tell me. So, in this case, that card was signifying his daughter. Then it made sense in the reading. I doubt any written book would give this guy's daughter as a possible interpretation.

It seems to me that reading Tarot is like learning a language, and while we can work with language to communicate in an infinite number of creative ways, there is something fundamental which allows us to understand one another. If the word "chair" means something to sit on for me, but means "dog" for you and "run" for someone else, how could we really communicate? If we are going to read psychically, then why bother with the cards at all?

I have been using the analogy of language for some time. But tarot is not a universal language for me, it is individual. What tarot tells me, it will not tell you in the same way. This is why you can get 100 different interpretations from 100 different readers. I use the cards because I have put the time and energy into learning the language that tarot has offered to me.

Another question: if anything someone decides a card to mean it means, then how would that person know they were not just seeing what they want to see?

From practice and feedback and keeping track of readings in order to go back and figure out what the tarot was trying to say.

I hope that helps.

 

[afrosaxon]

I haven't posted here in a long while!

I pretty much co-sign on what others have said so far, and so won't reinvent the wheel.

I have noticed on several threads when discussing the meaning of a card, what comes up eventually is that whatever the person sees in the card is correct. While I do believe in an intuitive approach to reading, and certainly that if something just jumps out at someone in a reading it is valid for that reading, it seems to me that this can be taken to such a degree that it gets confused with the idea of anything goes.

Mmhmm.

Is there not a common basis of understanding, a basic core language from which we begin. What is there to discuss if a card can have an infinite number of individualized meaning? Where is the line for people?

First you learn the rules...then, as Morpheus said in The Matrix: "...some can be bent. Others can be broken." The "traditional" card meanings are a jump-off point: a reader builds their interpretive skills from there, much as a child first learns to write each letter of the alphabet in block letters, then learns to put them together to write words in block letters, then learns to write each letter of the alphabet in cursive, etc.

If we are going to read psychically, then why bother with the cards at all?

There are people who don't really "use" the cards to read, as they are able to "psychically" read (auras, energy fields, whispers from spirit guides, etc)...but that's a whole 'nother conversation.

Another question: if anything someone decides a card to mean it means, then how would that person know they were not just seeing what they want to see?


I don't have the answers, but wonder where the line is. Your thoughts??

The only thing I can say to all this is: building from the traditional meanings, plus relying on the specific images in the deck used in reading, plus factoring in any extrasensory stuff (hearing a song snippet as you do a reading, for example, or smelling something)...all that adds up to "intuition", and that is the quantum leap between someone who reads tarot cards, and a tarot reader. If that makes any sense to you.

You're asking for a quantitative definition to something that can't be so easily defined...much as even a traditional meaning can be mutable (the 7 of Swords doesn't always imply sneaky, thiefing behavior, and The Sun doesn't always imply happy times). That meaning changes, and changes again, when in conjunction with other card(s) in a reading. Tarot is like a kaleidoscope: there may be a certain number of colored chips in the tube, but there is a rather infinite number of patterns that can be formd by turning that tube around and letting those chips fall as they may.

(I may not even be making any sense. I think I shall go back to lurking.).

Just my $.02.

T.