What makes a reading "accurate" to you?

Accurate reading... hmmm... this is going to sound a little weird but for me an accurate reading is one that answers the question even though the reader may not get the answer.

I had a reading once that dealt with some future plans. The reading was nice but right there in the cards I saw an ancillary answer that struck me like a bell. I knew from that card what we were supposed to offer on a certain item relating to the question. Now I hadn't exactly asked the question that the card answered, but I knew what that particular card meant, even though it wasn't the standard suit for dealing with practical and money matters. For me that one card made the reading.

rufusj

Accuracy is, in my opinion, a giant load of crap.

If we’re really ‘accurate’, the sitter can easily give their power away, and write their ‘future’ in stone (if you’re accurate, and you just told them ‘it is so’).

They then lock onto outcomes that may not be meant for them. They disregard the dynamic in favor of the static.

Being accurate may strip them of free will. Even if we warn them that it is not so.

Mary K Greer says, “I tend to say that I sometimes deliberately make statements I know are wrong so that the querent can correct me. Then I help the querent really ‘hear’ what he or she's just said. Essentially, I want them to recognize and honor their own wisdom and truth.”

Accuracy is a giant flag. It’s ego raising its head above the water and shouting, “It’s all about ME! Look at ME! See how GOOD I AM?”

Reading Tarot is not about you, or how cleaver you are.

It’s about the sitter.

And you’re not very good, or clever, if you’re helping to rob them of free will.

Further – I also agree that the past is not set in stone. Some aspects of the past may be changed – time is not what we think it is (although this annoys the hell out of anti-relativists and others, but agrees with most eastern and pre-christian European religions which see time as non-linear and illusionary).

In short, accuracy is a leash connected to a little puppy named Ego, that follows us around.

I think you make some good points, Umbrae, yet it leaves me with one giant question: without accuracy, what creates value in a reading?

To me, accuracy doesn't mean future predictions are set in stone, but it does mean that there's a reason to believe the reading has meaningful resonance and truth for the Sitter.

For me, there has to be some degree of tangible 'proof' in everything, even magic. I think it comes back to a literature class where we spoke about definitions and research, and our professor pointed out, "The most important thing is the source." Without accuracy, how do you test the source? How do you develop a rapport? How do you even know you can help the Sitter, and how do they know it as well?

Editing this because what I said was taken from back in the thread too far. I should have read the whole thing.

I agree with Umbrae about the little puppy named Ego, though.

Umbrae said:

Accuracy is, in my opinion, a giant load of crap.

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Hooboy, and it's starting to smell too. Say! Didn't you say this already back a ways? You're repeating yourself, mister!

If we’re really ‘accurate’, the sitter can easily give their power away, and write their ‘future’ in stone (if you’re accurate, and you just told them ‘it is so’).

They then lock onto outcomes that may not be meant for them. They disregard the dynamic in favor of the static.

Being accurate may strip them of free will. Even if we warn them that it is not so.

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Ah this is most worrisome. I think many of us have wondered if a predictive reading foretells the future or creates it. However how much sense does this really make? Think about it ---do we take their power away if we tell them what is going to happen, or... do we give them the power to take steps to avoid such and such happening, by warning them that it is in the cards? Hmmmm?

Umbrae said:

Accuracy is a giant flag. It’s ego raising its head above the water and shouting, “It’s all about ME! Look at ME! See how GOOD I AM?”

Reading Tarot is not about you, or how clever you are.[...]

In short, accuracy is a leash connected to a little puppy named Ego, that follows us around.

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Dear Mr. Draco, Sir. [Nice puppy, bye the way, do you have a license for that?] I have something to report that may interest you. I had a very accurate reading done for me once. Pay attention, Sir. Once upon a time, a reader, one Umbrae Draco, did a reading for me (without using tarot cards, or any other method) -- that was so accurate it was scary. He said, [and I quote] "On March 23" (I think that was the date), "all the doors will be open".

Well the day came, and on that precise day, as predicted, I received at four different phone calls each offering me singing gigs, one of which was a last-minute full-time opening in the San Francisco Opera Chorus, and which allowed me to earn a wonderful living for the next entire year....

Now of course, you didn't say exactly what would happen on that day, but you did predict exactly the day, and your prediction was made about two weeks in advance.

So was that important? Hell yes! It was important!

And now that you mention it, this same Umbrae Draco had earlier done a reading - in which he foresaw (but did not tell) many dire happenings for me. These dire happenings (which you did not tell me at the time) did rather come to pass, two years or so later, in fact, I did go through a period of wishing to embrace death, and the occasion to do so was very nearly offered to me on a silver platter. But I did not embrace it, I used all you had taught me, and lived through the worst, and was transformed by the experience. What you saw in the first reading was accurate, was it not? And was that not important? So... you did not tell me exactly what you saw, but you set about empowering me to handle, deflect and change what was to come about. Important, no?

Of course, we are still not in agreement precisely about what being "accurate" means... LOL. Still, I think if a reader (not me, sorry) has the tools to really foresee the future, he can also use that gift to empower the querant to handle it or deflect it in some measure, no? Is that not important??

Alright, I was trying to refrain from posting because these types of discussions (which really get close, at least in potential, to what exites and interests me about tarot) never seem to get anywhere, but, here goes...


Most of my future questions are a matter of looking for alternate possibilities contingent upon my own various possibilities for action. I've never thought of it as looking for “the future” as though it were some already-existent only-one-possible-thing. I am both the readee and the diviner in those instances.

People who only or mostly read for others are free to disregard my experiences. Just as I disregard discussion which is geared solely to “readers for others” (particularly when the assumption is that that is the only type of “real” or worthwhile reading).

Obviously, future investigations that are contingent upon changing what one would do, are limited by the degree to which one is likely to stick to what one would have done anyway, or to not even imagine more relevant questions or courses of action to consider.

Umbrae said:

In short, accuracy is a leash connected to a little puppy named Ego, that follows us around.

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This is a false linkage, when applied to every user of divination-- some of whom primarily and usefully read for themselves, (hard to believe as that may be for some here).

It isn't surprising that the viewpoints of people who have found it fruitful to read for themselves might show up here less often. Less to ask about on a tarot forum (though not necessarily less to ask about in other areas of life), and less to commiserate and compare about when it comes to “reading” as such.

Accuracy can matter for self sought divination, it can also matter for divination by proxy. Complicated issues about truth can arise either way, but the 'accuracy focus = ego' idea to me seems definitely skewed toward the by proxy version. Is it considered egoic for the recipient of a by proxy divination to want the reading to ring true? What if the seeker is also the “reader”? Then what? The fact that some consider this a non question might say something about the ego stakes involved at times when some people label themselves as “readers”.

I've never heard of a user of the I Ching refer to themselves in that fashion- as a “reader” of it. Most often the description I've heard is “I practice it”. The difference in self naming seems to be influenced by the elasticity of interpretation that users of tarot tend toward. The ego questions around divination look to me like they usually come in through the identification with “creativity” and “intuition” that many think tarot reading is based on, as opposed to a more “clear” and “unbiased” (as it is often described, as compared to tarot) manner of divination such as I Ching. Where a reader refers to the text, and usually doesn't think that the answers were mostly their own creation (regardless of whether they view the source of the answers (not the answers themselves) as transcendent or not).

These are all generalizations based on personal experience of observing, of course- and generalizations are always skewed depending upon what they leave out, which is always something. And sometimes they leave out the root elements of a matter.

In this case, my opinion is that the root element of the matter of accuracy in tarot is the question of whether it can be judged to be accurate if used in some ways, in some cases- and how that would be done in some cases and why those ways would seem to work at those times.

The root of the matter would not be the reasons why tarot divination does not always appear to be accurate in all ways in all cases, nor would the root be gotten closer to by a focus upon why and how an accuracy focus may be abused, or seemingly damaging, or misleading (whether those situations are widespread or otherwise).

The importance of those issues should not be negated in any way, but do they really point to the main issue, which is – for those who do care about accuracy, rather than declare it a non-issue or stumbling block on the road to more important or more real issues- what are the personal standards for accuracy (because this is a personal matter, not a collective one- each reading, each reader, each seeker- and that can't be averaged out)- and how would one judge whether that personal standard was being met in those particular cases. And what would be possible ways to go about trying to create that kind of situation in any given act of divination.
People misuse all sorts of things and concepts, it does not automatically follow that all such things should not exist, or that they should be ignored as if they did not.

Sometimes people really do just want to understand stuff. It doesn't always have to be excessively and overgeneralizedly tied to red flag nefarious sounding terms like “ego” (which I am convinced no human could survive without, incidentally).

And without ego no one would or have any opinions, impassioned or otherwise. And they would never type anything on a forum, or converse in other ways.

The medium is not the message. I mean that in at least four different ways.

berrieh said:

For me, there has to be some degree of tangible 'proof' in everything, even magic. I think it comes back to a literature class where we spoke about definitions and research, and our professor pointed out, "The most important thing is the source." Without accuracy, how do you test the source?

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“The source” in literature or in most other fields seems very different than “the source” in divination, to me.

My working theory is: the source (which I define as equivalent to “what makes divination work”- and by work I mean work to show you something you really didn't already know...) ...is not the answers which were received, nor the form of those answers. It's not the medium being used (and I include “cards” and “diviner” under the label of “medium”). It's something beyond those. My method for coming to that view was to strip everything that I could away in my process of divination which was not pointing toward the source (to the limited degree that that is possible, given that we are inescapably subjective, and live in a world populated by forms). Paradoxical as it may appear, using less leeway in interpretation (yes, the dreaded/derided/ridiculed “set meanings” often falsely conflated with “book meanings”- falsely, because set meanings don't have to come from any specific book (though they can), and can come from anything else, including the diviner, and (this is a key) also only have to be set for that one draw)- this was one possible effective way of doing this, for a person like me. And what was left was what I interacted with through divination. This has nothing to do with divination having to be done in any particular way for it to work, and it's not the only way that I do it now. It was about a way to do it that would be effective for what I was trying to seek and understand at that time, and in no way do I consider it “lesser” just because that was what I started with- I actually consider it “greater” because it set the foundation for my practice of divination.

This has nothing to do with being prescriptive about what any other individual should do, not to mention diviners en masse. But I do think it has some value for those willing to look at the ways of others who have approached divination differently than they have... we are all in a sense running our own personal experiments on divination, and comparing notes on the ways that we aren't doing it can be interesting. My main concern is exploring what divination may point to, rather than endless discussions about any particular method of it, which come down to being essentially personal decisions anyway. Even for by proxy readers, though the interfering with others' views of various things including free will are a part of their decisions- just as they are for self readers, who interact with others as everyone else does, though they may refrain from putting themselves in the social/interpersonal role of “reader”.

How do you develop a rapport? How do you even know you can help the Sitter, and how do they know it as well?

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I'll leave those questions to others, since they don't really have anything essential to do with the “accuracy in tarot divination” question. All those things can be done while caring nothing about accuracy, and without even practicing divination.

I had meant to add this to my previous post...

Umbrae said:

Further – I also agree that the past is not set in stone. Some aspects of the past may be changed – time is not what we think it is (although this annoys the hell out of anti-relativists and others, but agrees with most eastern and pre-christian European religions which see time as non-linear and illusionary).

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Hey wait a minute their buddy, this remark is preposterous, because the past is duh, what is passed, duh... it's, like, done.

Hmmmm. But on the other hand, what was done, exactly? See now you got me thinking. (uh oh.. she's thinking) because only a portion of past experience involves physical reality. Take a bike accident, for example -- when the molecules of your bike make contact with the molecules of my fender, (which occurrence I shall assume for the sake of this argument, is irreversible) the physical contact is real, but what I feel, think, judge, experience, believe about your bike molecules assaulting my fender molecules, is my creation. And the part that is my creation, is definitely up for revision some time in the future. The aspects of my experience that were my pure invention can at least be re-cast in different lights. (It was not an assault, it was a "massage", a "fortuitous encounter", and the fender liked it... ). Hmmmm. Ochen Intyersno...