magenta said:
I think there is a middle way and in that middle way there is the possibility for a reader to have a healthy self esteem and feel good about his/her level of accuracy without risking to become a self absorbed, egotistical monster that does not care about the "sitter" and has lost compassion and what is good and holy in life. [...]
Is it possible for a person to be good at what they do and feel good about it without necessarily becoming a heartless egomaniac?
Absolutely it is! And a good tarot reader will do just that. Accuracy is an important part of what makes a good tarot reader, but it's not the only element. You might see accuracy as the brain of the reader, while compassion is the heart. In a good reader, the two coexist and function together.
I think we all agree that the client, the sitter counts for something, but what I don't understand is why granting the reader also the aknowledgement for doing a good job then becomes this issue about ego and lack of compassion and "not helping"?
I agree with you that it's a puritanical, calvinist throw-back. People who feel good about themselves and their talents arouse jealousy. In the old days, they'd say "he's too big for his boots". Nowadays they blame the ego. The truth is, in order to hone your skill at anything, you need to take some kind of pride in your achievements. And one essential skill for a tarot reader - of any diviner - is accuracy in seeing facts and truths about their querent's life, past, present and future (that, by the way, goes as much for self-readings as for reading for others).
magenta said:
Can a Tarot reader be accurate and at the same time care for the sitter?
Or is such option impossible to concieve?
It's not only possible to conceive, it's essential to aim for in a reader.
No, helping is not accuracy, I am sorry...you can be helpful by listening and
assisting the sitter understand the problem or the situation better, but accuracy is another thing....accuracy means predicting or stating precise facts....we are misxing two different things in these discussion, both important , but both different things...
BRAVO! Absolutely! Although accuracy is helpful, not all help is to be equated with accuracy. My first tarot reader was very accurate in her reading of the cards. And when I sat there miserably, she was also helpful in making suggestions how to deal with the situation, and with what was making me miserable. Together - her accuracy and her kindness - made it a memorable reading experience I remember to this day, and one which had far reaching consequences for me.
I don't think accuracy removes free will from anyone. What removes free will is telling people how to act and what to do in a directive manner: and even then, a querent can leave you and go out and do exactly what they please. They generally do, you know.
If I tell you an accurate future, you then have choices because you know more. Ignorance is not bliss in this difficult world. To come back to my "closing down workplace" example - which I drew from life - by giving accurate information about the future, I am giving my sitter - or myself if I am reading for myself - the choice as to how to react to that event in advance. I am actually enhancing their free will by giving them more time to prepare for an upcoming situation they don't control. Same thing if I decide to place money on the markets: if I am accurate in predicting the way this or that investment will perform, it stands to reason I have more, not less, opportunity to exercise my free will. Therefore accuracy is at the centre of all tarot readings.
Quite frankly, as a querent, I don't bother with readers who give me a pile of mush, and who are not accurate. And if their accuracy doesn't matter to them, I start to worry, because that's what I am after. Accuracy in reading the past, the present and the future. Accuracy in bringing some light to circumstances of my life I might not wholly understand, because part of it is hidden from me (either because I am not told, or because it's buried in my unconscious).
In times of great trouble and confusion, querents come to tarot readers for accuracy, because they need some kind of rudder or port to aim for in the middle of the raging sea in which they find themselves. They want that little bit of certainty in a life that has become terrifyingly uncertain. Not everything is a matter of free choice. We also need some solid things that exist outside ourselves: and no matter whether we want them or not: they exist anyway.
