What makes a reading "accurate" to you?

berrieh said:

So, what is the real goal of the reading, then?

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The sitter, I rest my case.


Baroli

Take away accuracy and you are just left with good intentions if you are a honest reader, or money in your pocket if you cold/hot read.

In theory there should be no such thing as a future based accurate reading unless the querent does nothing from the time of the reading to the time of your accurate prediction, that is why I show paths and idea's more then 'I see divorce in your future on june 22 because your wife is cheating on you" style of reading.

In the present and past accuracy proves my ability to read...to me and the fellow I am reading for. But I hope like hell the future is not so set, based on our past actions, that we can read accurately for it on a regular basis. In other words I would like to think we all can change.

So in a nut shell, for ME accuracy based FACTS are important in past and present to prove to myself and those I read for I have some ability. Future based reading the accuracy my be advice rather then fact based. I wonder if we are all miss using the word accurate here? Semantics coming into play.

berrieh has stated it well. I have not.

berrieh said:

To me, the notion of going to a Tarot reader who thinks accuracy isn't important is like going to a plastic surgeon who thinks looks aren't important... It's a little risky. .

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Nobody here has said accuracy isn't important.

But let's get back to the original question, shall we? The question was:

"What makes a reading accurate to you?"

I apologize for my part in having gotten off the main topic. I'll be interested in seeing answers to the original question now.

Solitaire* said:

You make good points about wanting some degree of accuracy from readings in order to want to come back to the same reader. From the sitter's point of view, what do you consider to be "accurate"? Predictions made about your future? Knowing things they couldn't know about you and your situation outside of the cards? You're a good person to ask about this since you're a sitter.

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I consider a reading accurate when the reader gives me more detail that just the generalities that can be deducted by observing me....like there is a big difference in saying...oh, I see that you have not been happy in love( who has not had some heartache?) than saying....well, what do I see here? there was a certain situation, in the past, with a person that had this type of personality and this is what I see happened and this is what you felt and this is the decision you made etc....it does not need to be perfect, but a lot more elaboration and detail ( accurate) needs to be given...and example?

I was told once by a Tarot reader that I would meet and be really impressed by a person that spoke a language that was not mine and that this person seemed to come form...Russia?....she also said...this person had a scar and had surgery done when was still in mom's belly....when she said that I though it was science fiction, like most of the things she told me( and that all became real)...and I went about my day...a month afterwards I did meet a person whose family had come from Russia, had a scar on a knee and had been one of the first babies to have had surgery while still in the woumb in the 60's and did not speak my language...now, that I call accuracy...I don't look for dates or lottery tickets, but those specific details are telling me this woman was doing a good job....I know she also had combination of cards that would tell her nationalities and races and lots of other ones that I don't remember, she was often very accurate on health readings and specially good at predicting political outcomes...she was not infalible but I knew she was honest and had a gift and was doing the best she could...she would just read the cards yes, she was relaxed and confident and would just say what she saw....and what she saw happened to be on target, like she told me exactly what was going on in the office I worked, all the intrigues and behind the scenes dramas that she could not have known....and she saw that my boss had lost his wife at a very young age due to an incurable disease....

I can see the point of the ones that say "I just read the cards"...yes, that is the whole point, to be relaxed and just let the story unfold( and that is what the sitter exactly expect you to do)....I don't know how this topic got so convoluted and complicated when it is actually very simple: either the reading made sense or didn't but this is also tricky because...many predictions or what seen in the cards may not make sense at the moment, but it will eventually...like this happened to me as a sitter...the majority of predictions this woman made for me sounded like gibberish to me, very unlikely...and I have to say that in the span of the last 15 years it has all happened, that is how far she went....she told me I woul be using my hands to heal others and that I would be doing energy work...now, that for me sounded like the Twilight Zone, I truly did not beleive I had that cpacity nor where to start, nor I was sure such thing as "energy work" was a real thing....she saw the whole process of growth that brought me where I am today....(now , The Crowned One had a good point saying that you can tell accuracy by the precision in describing past and present, yes, true because the future is not written in stone and we can change it by making different choices, eventhough there is a pattern in our lives paths that is the underlying theme...in my case was healing, eventhough when I was told that was too far fetched for me....the reader saw the possible choices I would have made with incredible accuracy,lets say it like that)

ok, so yes, these factors are important to me as a sitter, as also some advice and compassion, of course...during a reading many private issues may surface so you would want someone that cares about your feelings...

For me as a reader, I guess I just take for granted that I'm going to "know" things that will strike home with the sitter if I'm supposed to know them. I don't worry about it. I just know it will be there when it's supposed to be. I don't count up my "accuracy points" or work on some sort of exercises to try to become more accurate. I just do what I do, trusting that I'll be given what I'm supposed to know when I'm supposed to know it so I can pass it on to the sitter.

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and I think that is the best way to do a reading...to relax, trust the process and know that what needs to be revealed will be and what needs to be seen and said will...(the tarot reader I speak about kept a very well documented journal where she noted down what combinations had told her what , if they repeated themselves and kept studying Tarot every day of her life)

I also read, and I have done in and out for the public, eventhough I am ambiviliant about it( beleive it or not I don't like the attention is draws on me, it makes me very tired ) and I do know that the best way to go is just to let expectations about your performance go and juts look at the story the cards are telling...but I also want to be of service to the sitter so I focus and set my intention to be of help and I to give valuable information...I understand both sides and I think the important thing is the motivation behind doing readings...why are we doing readings? and what is our goal( if there is any?)
Yes the focus is the sitter, because it is the one that is putting the trust in our hands( literally) but that is why the reader also has a responsability in taking the job seriously and ethically....

I hope this answers in some ways to your questions Solitaire...
( I do hope some day you will be able to go to Italy and see the Sistine Chapel and all the rest, Tarot has a long history in those lands )


PS
.....and Umbrae, yes hygene is very important to me, how cleaver of you to notice that, but I have to say that you too seem to be overly concerned with some specific body functions

Thank you very much for taking so much time to explain to me and others here, magenta. I really appreciate your doing that.

It's interesting that you mention this tarot reader kept a very detailed journal of card combinations. This reminds me of the way Lenormand cards are read. I've just been learning that in Italy and other parts of Europe, it's card combinations that reveal information and that Tarot cards aren't used as often over there as playing cards or Lenormand style cards are. Was this reader in Italy or here in America? I'm very interested in the concept of reading by focusing more on card combinations and I'll be devoting a lot of my time to studying that method in the near future. It's been less than 8 years that I've been reading cards so I consider myself pretty new at it, so I'm anxious to learn new things as I go along.

Baroli said:

The sitter, I rest my case.

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The querent is not the goal: the querent is one half of the dynamics of a reading experience, and for professionals, the querent is also the client. And the goal of the client is to receive a good reading: which necessarily includes accuracy, in the same way that bread includes flour.

Why are people so afraid of that word accuracy? We've actually drifted from the topic of this thread - which is WHAT makes a reading accurate - because of this fear people have of admitting that accuracy is important.

To say accuracy isn't important, or is number two, or is a trick of the ego, to me smacks of squirming in front of the obvious. A bit like a surgeon saying "precision isn't important, isn't my goal". Well no, it's not the ultimate goal - but if it's not at least one important goal of a surgeon, I wouldn't want to go on the operating table with that surgeon in charge!


Solitaire asked me above what kind of reader I am - if I put reading truthfully, fairly and compassionately first. Well - it's easy: I strive to live a true, fair and compassionate life, in all my activities and interactions with myself and others. It carries through in reading tarot. My most important goal in reading - the ultimate - is to give a good reading. As a querent, it is to receive a good reading. And as a reader, I strive to be accurate in giving facts - past, present and future - and in showing to the querent what they might have missed about a situation: because I believe such accuracy to be an indissociable part of a good reading. I am sometimes wrong, and I think it is this fear of being wrong that seems to stick in so many people's throats. But that's part of being a tarot reader, and one important reason why we must hone our skills to become as accurate and precise as possible, so as to diminish the possibility of being wrong. It's also important to be confident and take pleasure - and pride - in one's skills, because without that confidence and pride, we lack an essential motivation in reading.

As for being accurate about the future - I look for it in a tarot reader, and I strive to be so myself: if anything I find it even more useful that being accurate about past or present. I want to know that the hurricane is going to hit, or that a good opportunity is coming my way, so watch out. The querent stuck in an intractable situation they don't control wants to know if and when it will change. It gives them hope, and depending on the prediction, it also gives them the possibility of preparing themselves for an upcoming situation, and even of changing it if they take the right actions.

The sitter, I rest my case.

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The Sitter is the subject of the reading... they already exist, they are made, and a reading doesn't re-make them (unless you are saying provoking a change in the Sitter?)

This is a focus; it's not a goal. I can't achieve the Sitter...

So, I'm afraid I'm confused at what you mean. If you mean, your goals for the reading are the Sitter's goals for the reading... I agree.

But I think you'll be hard-pressed to find a Sitter who doesn't care about accuracy.

Yes, the sitter. They are the goal. Not me, not the table that I sit at, the sitter is the goal. I don't worry about accuracy, I don't add up my "accuracy points" (nicely put Solitaire), and I don't advertise on a bill board my "accuracy".

I give the most truthful, honest, compassionate , and caring readings and I really don't worry about those things because they come naturally to me.

But the bottomline FOR ME, and it may not be for you, is what the sitter can come away with and if that helps the sitter make choices in their lives, then I have done my job. Again accuracy does not enter into it.

Example: Let's say that, I give a reading and because of the gross inaccuracy of that reading (nothing makes sense at all), the sitter makes choices that gives them a much better outcome concerning whatever question they asked. How would accuracy enter into the mix then? It can't. I wasn't remotely accurate with my reading, but the sitter has a better life because of the choices they made based on the crappy reading I did.

Now, these are my opinions, these are not words to grow on, or THE LAW. It's just an opinion, as is Umbrae's, TCO, Magenta's, Fudu's, Solitaire's and everyone else who cares to post in this thread. To learn and possibly pick up something new, that's what we are all here for.

Baroli

So, the long-term betterment of the Sitter is your goal. I understand now. (Call me too literal, but that wasn't at all evident to me from reading that the Sitter themselves was the goal.)

It's funny since ego has come up... to me this speaks more to ego than striving for accuracy. How can you ever know what's in the best interest of the Sitter? Isn't that for them to decide?

I don't know how to judge how my readings affect the betterment of the Sitter. So, for me, the best I can do is tell them the truth as I see it and hope that I'm correct enough for them to use the information.

The bottom line, for me, is the same thing---value to the Sitter. I just cannot imagine a reading that is valuable but not accurate. If the Sitter believes your reading inaccurate, how could it help them? (Not a rhetorical question...perhaps someone has an example of this.)

At any rate, I think we've gotten a bit off topic.

Yes, well, one more thing before we return this to our sponsors ie the original thesis post.

I remind you, it's just an opinion, and yes I have given really crappy readings and guess what, the sitter who came back and told me later, made decisions based on that crappy reading and there life was better for it. (btw, the sitter is a regular customer of mine).


We now return to our normal station.


Baroli