Intuitive vs. book meaning

[changa]

So I'm interested in hearing other peoples approach to this. Where do you start from in a reading? Do you first look at the cards and try to catch the overall message and hope for an intuitive hit which will give you the starting direction, or do you start by going "so I see the 4 of Swords here which means that maybe it's a time to step back and take a break" and try to trigger the intuition that way? I know it's probably the most basic question ever but I'm interested because for me (in my practice readings for imaginary people) it seems to be both. Sometimes I directly get a story/concept popping into mind and I work from there, and sometimes I'm just listing off the keywords I know for a certain card until I feel a gentle push to expand on one of the keywords into something more. 

 

Is tarot reading always so "unforeseeable" or does one method kind of become the go-to over time. 

 

So again, what starts your readings? Intuitive hits? Book meanings followed by intuition? Just start talking and see what comes out?

[changa]

So I'm just gonna plug my 5th post here so I can head on over to the reading-exchange now.. sorry for that hehe🤪

 

I could still add a question about the start of a reading. Is there any other "mental ritual" or mantra you go through at the start of a reading to remind you to focus on what's essential or is every reading different in that sense?

[Guest]

Hi @changa

 

For me intuition and cards’ meanings are not mutually exclusive. As such, I see the two working together. Cards’ meanings are embedded with their iconography. Your intuition threads all that together, so that you know what that card means in that context and for that querent. Sometimes you will learn a facet of a card, such as the Four of Cups can indicate a threat to a relationship from an outside influence, and several years later something triggers that meaning in a reading which allows you to bring the entire reading together. That is intuition. 

[gregory]

Absolutely. I pull the cards and look at them. REALLY look. They do the job. Mostly I don't think about the generic meanings at all, and certainly never start with them (though as someone pointed out recently, what I get usually matches that to a degree anyway !) - after all, every artist adds their own stuff to a deck, and if it's in the card you pull, it's relevant.

 

But if you for one moment imagine that intuition plays no part - then we don't need readers. Just look up the cards in the book as you draw them. And in that case - anyone can read - just buy a book and there you go. Rattle off the chapter on Hermit and Bob's your uncle.

 

Although I am heavily involved in the ill-named "intuitive study group" I very much object to the term "intuitive reading". Our intuition is what makes us readers, rather than dictionary diviners.

 

Rituals before I start - does clearing a space on the table count ?  

[Wanderer]

I'm totally with Tim & gregory on this one. Each card contains a vast range of meaning that the 'book meaning' attempts to encapsulate. Even though there are certainly readers who go much more from intuitive insights (and almost ignore the cards), and others who base their readings within a framework of deep theoretical/historical knowledge, reading depends to some extent on intuition. The book meanings give you a way to 'read-by-numbers', and that might still be effective in a simple sort of way, but it doesn't reach the art of it. The keywords, especially... they're shorthand examples of the broad spectrum of specific meanings that the cards are trying to represent. The actual generic meaning of a card is more abstract, and multi-faceted... but it contains the keywords, and the significance of the details that the artist has put into the deck. How do you pick out the relevant meaning? Intuition.

 

When reading, the overall knowledge or visual impression of the card's meaning forms a backdrop for the intuition. Whether we get that impression by rote learning (initially), or by experience, it's still only the background. Intuition tells us how to read the card in this context: which details leap out, how it connects with other cards, and how it interacts in meaning with the question and position. Beyond that, sometimes the intuitive meaning falls outside the abstract spectrum that we'd expect, because some apparently trivial detail that we've never noticed throws itself into our heads and presents an entirely new perspective. Of course, that detail isn't completely random - it's still a part of the whole card, and that card was constructed to include it... but the meaning of a detail on the edge of a situation can be very different to the overall 'book meaning'. 

 

Slightly off-topic, maybe, but not really: this is part of the reason why I focus on one deck. There are so many levels of detail to become familiar with that I don't feel I'm near to exhausting the Wildwood yet, and it rather demands my undivided attention. Some other decks appeal, certainly, but I know how long it would take me to become properly familiar with them. I guess that those who are happy reading from hundreds of different decks have honed their observational reading to another level: they don't need familiarity because they can see the messages in whatever cards are put before them. I'm in awe of that ability... but I also feel I'd struggle anyway, because it's knowing the shape of the whole deck, and how the cards relate to the ones that are not drawn, that makes the reading cohesive for me. Sometimes, the meanings of cards are defined by the cards that they're not, if you see what I mean. Anyway, enough rambling! 😊

[gregory]

15 minutes ago, Wanderer said:

 Even though there are certainly readers who go much more from intuitive insights (and almost ignore the cards),

 

Excuse me. We do not ignore the cards - even almost; we look at them differently is all. We simply don't START with what a book says. You might say we actually look at the cards more thoroughly than someone who says "hermit - solitary meditation, 10 cups family, 5 pents hardship." I got a 5 pents once that pointed INSTANTLY  to the need for an urgent visit to an ophthalmologist. There was no suggestion of hardship, but the eye thing screamed for attention (and was correct). As to that time I got 10 swords for happy marriage...

[changa]

1 hour ago, Wanderer said:

I'm totally with Tim & gregory on this one. Each card contains a vast range of meaning that the 'book meaning' attempts to encapsulate. Even though there are certainly readers who go much more from intuitive insights (and almost ignore the cards), and others who base their readings within a framework of deep theoretical/historical knowledge, reading depends to some extent on intuition. The book meanings give you a way to 'read-by-numbers', and that might still be effective in a simple sort of way, but it doesn't reach the art of it. The keywords, especially... they're shorthand examples of the broad spectrum of specific meanings that the cards are trying to represent. The actual generic meaning of a card is more abstract, and multi-faceted... but it contains the keywords, and the significance of the details that the artist has put into the deck. How do you pick out the relevant meaning? Intuition.

 

When reading, the overall knowledge or visual impression of the card's meaning forms a backdrop for the intuition. Whether we get that impression by rote learning (initially), or by experience, it's still only the background. Intuition tells us how to read the card in this context: which details leap out, how it connects with other cards, and how it interacts in meaning with the question and position. Beyond that, sometimes the intuitive meaning falls outside the abstract spectrum that we'd expect, because some apparently trivial detail that we've never noticed throws itself into our heads and presents an entirely new perspective. Of course, that detail isn't completely random - it's still a part of the whole card, and that card was constructed to include it... but the meaning of a detail on the edge of a situation can be very different to the overall 'book meaning'. 

 

Slightly off-topic, maybe, but not really: this is part of the reason why I focus on one deck. There are so many levels of detail to become familiar with that I don't feel I'm near to exhausting the Wildwood yet, and it rather demands my undivided attention. Some other decks appeal, certainly, but I know how long it would take me to become properly familiar with them. I guess that those who are happy reading from hundreds of different decks have honed their observational reading to another level: they don't need familiarity because they can see the messages in whatever cards are put before them. I'm in awe of that ability... but I also feel I'd struggle anyway, because it's knowing the shape of the whole deck, and how the cards relate to the ones that are not drawn, that makes the reading cohesive for me. Sometimes, the meanings of cards are defined by the cards that they're not, if you see what I mean. Anyway, enough rambling! 😊

I like the part of the backdrop. I made a reading for myself to figure out my relation to the cards and the what I learned through my interpretation was that the Tarot is "blind" (9 of Swords), it gives us a skeletal structure that we fill out with our interpretation. Alternatively, the cards provide the beat, scale, time signature and genre, while we improvise a melody and lyrics. 

[Wanderer]

45 minutes ago, gregory said:

 

Excuse me. We do not ignore the cards - even almost; we look at them differently is all. We simply don't START with what a book says. You might say we actually look at the cards more thoroughly than someone who says "hermit - solitary meditation, 10 cups family, 5 pents hardship." I got a 5 pents once that pointed INSTANTLY  to the need for an urgent visit to an ophthalmologist. There was no suggestion of hardship, but the eye thing screamed for attention (and was correct). As to that time I got 10 swords for happy marriage...

Wasn't aimed at you, gregory! 😄

I've heard other readers (including on here, some time ago) who themselves said that the cards are largely irrelevant to them; they draw them, glance at them, but they don't actually need them. And of course there are purely intuitive readers (as opposed to Tarot readers) who don't use cards at all; some may use tealeaves, or whatever they like, or nothing at all. What I'm talking about is that there is a gradation, between those who focus very strongly on the book meanings to those for whom the cards aren't even necessary. They are, after all, a tool for bringing out our intuition, and to some people the cards themselves are practically superfluous.

 

[gregory]

45 minutes ago, Wanderer said:

Wasn't aimed at you, gregory! 😄

I've heard other readers (including on here, some time ago) who themselves said that the cards are largely irrelevant to them; they draw them, glance at them, but they don't actually need them. And of course there are purely intuitive readers (as opposed to Tarot readers) who don't use cards at all; some may use tealeaves, or whatever they like, or nothing at all. What I'm talking about is that there is a gradation, between those who focus very strongly on the book meanings to those for whom the cards aren't even necessary. They are, after all, a tool for bringing out our intuition, and to some people the cards themselves are practically superfluous.

 

If you don't use cards at all, you are not reading cards/tarot.  Why draw them and not use them ?

 

Intuitive readers - as you describe them - are "just" psychics picking up on the vibes psychics do pick up on. That isn't reading - it isn't reading anything; it's picking up from the - collective unconscious, maybe ?. Nor is being a reader for whom "the cards aren't even necessary."

[katrinka]

48 minutes ago, gregory said:

 

If you don't use cards at all, you are not reading cards/tarot.  Why draw them and not use them ?

 

Intuitive readers - as you describe them - are "just" psychics picking up on the vibes psychics do pick up on. That isn't reading - it isn't reading anything; it's picking up from the - collective unconscious, maybe ?. Nor is being a reader for whom "the cards aren't even necessary."

 

Yep. If "the cards aren't necessary", they're a prop. And we're getting into mentalism/cold reading, which can look really, REALLY impressive, but it's an act.
I'm not saying that psychism doesn't exist. But it is NOT on tap for every rando who calls you asking if Suzy is going to put out. 

Reading cards, first of all, involves familiarizing yourself with the meanings. Most of us do this with book meanings. Some may be wired differently and have some well thought out decks that enable them to pick up the information from the images. Others might have wonky decks and think they're being all intuitive but go totally off the rails. Caveat emptor.

Making stuff up is NOT "intuition". Rather, intuition is a gut feeling, an instinct, And you only get it from being thoroughly familiar with the cards. Lay them out, BOOM, you know it's a yes or a no before you parse them. That's intuition. It comes from constant use. It's like driving - it comes with experience and you don't think, "OMG, there's a kid in the road! Now I am going to let my foot off the gas and step on the clutch and the brake" you just DO it. Like a reflex. 

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by katrinka

[Wanderer]

26 minutes ago, gregory said:

If you don't use cards at all, you are not reading cards/tarot.

Oh, I agree... but my only point was that there is spectrum from readers who literally read (i.e. translate cards into accepted meanings and string them together), through most of us who have an element of interpretation or intuitive additions, to those who barely glance at the cards themselves and are verging on being pure psychics (who perhaps might argue that they 'read' the universal subconscious).

     Personally, I actually don't quite like 'reading' as a description of what we do - it feels too formulaic, and suggests that a computer algorithm could do exactly the same (and no, I'm not getting into whether there are things like quantum computers that might be able to tap into the universal in the same way that we do! 🙃). What I feel like I'm doing is closer to interpreting, in the sense that a tracker interprets signs in the grass, or a geologist understands the clues in rocks. One can learn the basics by rote, but there's more to it than simply applying a direct translation of each detail. Likewise, the messages in the cards are often somewhat hidden, and need an extra intuitive step to understand them - even if the clues are in the images. 

26 minutes ago, gregory said:

  Why draw them and not use them ?

 

Dunno... but perhaps it is habit or ritual (one person hinted at that, I seem to vaguely remember), or possibly (in hypothetical cases!) just for appearances. I guess it makes sense to them, at least for a while... but can easily imagine that they end up ditching the cards altogether.  

[katrinka]

Edited November 28, 2020 by katrinka

[TheLoracular]

16 hours ago, timtoldrum said:

Hi @changa

 

For me intuition and cards’ meanings are not mutually exclusive. As such, I see the two working together. Cards’ meanings are embedded with their iconography. Your intuition threads all that together, so that you know what that card means in that context and for that querent. Sometimes you will learn a facet of a card, such as the Four of Cups can indicate a threat to a relationship from an outside influence, and several years later something triggers that meaning in a reading which allows you to bring the entire reading together. That is intuition. 

As others have mentioned, this is very much the way it works for me.   How much it is one way and how much it is another can vary on different factors and I think you will find that to be the case the more and more you work with people.  The same way when you are having any kind of conversation: sometimes you know exactly what to say in order to answer a question or your reaction comes straight from the gut but other times you have to pause and consider, sort through memories or you need to ask them for more information to make sure you know what they are talking about.

Tarot readings for others are pretty much the same.   🙂

[katrinka]

20 minutes ago, TheLoracular said:

As others have mentioned, this is very much the way it works for me.   How much it is one way and how much it is another can vary on different factors and I think you will find that to be the case the more and more you work with people.  The same way when you are having any kind of conversation: sometimes you know exactly what to say in order to answer a question or your reaction comes straight from the gut but other times you have to pause and consider, sort through memories or you need to ask them for more information to make sure you know what they are talking about.

Tarot readings for others are pretty much the same.   🙂

 

Yes. There's book meanings at the root, but there is also context and, essentially, going with your gut.
To make it very simple, suppose you're reading Lenormand and you draw Child + Fox. 
That could be literally "wrong child":  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling_(film)/

But in most cases it is not so dire at all. Maybe it's just a red-haired kid. Every time is different.

[gregory]

1 hour ago, TheLoracular said:

As others have mentioned, this is very much the way it works for me.   How much it is one way and how much it is another can vary on different factors and I think you will find that to be the case the more and more you work with people.  The same way when you are having any kind of conversation: sometimes you know exactly what to say in order to answer a question or your reaction comes straight from the gut but other times you have to pause and consider, sort through memories or you need to ask them for more information to make sure you know what they are talking about.

Tarot readings for others are pretty much the same.   🙂

 

Yes. But you do it USING THE CARDS - not out of the ether.

 

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

 

 

I'n with katrinka. I don't think you get it, wanderer. That's OK. You do you, as they say.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, katrinka said:

 

Making stuff up is NOT "intuition". Rather, intuition is a gut feeling, an instinct, And you only get it from being thoroughly familiar with the cards. Lay them out, BOOM, you know it's a yes or a no before you parse them. That's intuition. It comes from constant use. It's like driving - it comes with experience and you don't think, "OMG, there's a kid in the road! Now I am going to let my foot off the gas and step on the clutch and the brake" you just DO it. Like a reflex. 

 

 

This.

 

Palmistry was the first method of divination I learned. As I learned, I was repeatedly told if I felt something (for lack of better word), I would be able to find evidence in the hand. At first, there was nothing. I read, as I did, noting different insights or details. But as time went on, and I saw more and more hands, it came. Something unconscious registers what the conscious reasoning cannot. That’s why intuition in its highest form is intellection.

 

It has always served me well.  I have applied this to all methods I studied.
 

No reader can read by book definitions alone; an intuitive reader does not resort to supposition.  Diviners and intuitives are readers. If they do not read...

Edited November 28, 2020 by Guest

[gregory]

[Wanderer]

7 minutes ago, gregory said:

I'n with katrinka. I don't think you get it, wanderer. That's OK. You do you, as they say.

I'm pretty sure I get it... I just don't quite agree. I guess I'm not going to change anyone's mind, but that's fine - what matters is that the techniques that we use work for us, rather than exactly why they work,  and in practice we're describing the same experience. 

 

You're saying that intuition in reading is basically subconscious recognition of details that are embedded in (or suggested by) the card. Either you use the cards, or you don't. There's nothing in between, and no room for pure psychic insights plucked out of the aether. 

 

I'm saying that I think that's only partly true, because the cards are tools for focusing and strengthening our native intuition, rather than being the source of all the information in themselves. Sure, they guide our reading, but they also allow our intuition to work more freely, giving our conscious mind a space in which we can get the right information to come to the surface.

       It is pure intuition that lets us draw the cards that are needed, and then the images feed back into our interpretation of them, allowing us to recognise the messages consciously and turn them into a reading. Obviously, the cards have a direct role in generating much of the reading, but there is room for layers of 'psychic' insights that may be more spontaneous. There is, of course, also a psychic element in deciding which of the possible insights and interpretations are relevant in any particular reading (one-card readings being the most extreme case). What makes us see one particular aspect of a card on a particular occasion, and something else on a different occasion? There is a balance between the external concepts embodied in the cards, and the spontaneous choice of interpretation of them that comes from us. 

       I don't think we can deny that there is something exotic in the way a reading is performed. It also makes little sense to deny the reality of any spontaneous insights that are independent of the cards, but allow exactly such an abstract insight in the drawing of them, and in the selection of which possible facet of interpretation is relevant. The cards and our minds work in concert; it's not a one-way street.  

 

 Not that it really matters. The two scenarios both result in the sensation of an intuitive insight on seeing the cards, and both improve with practice and experience; they only differ in the mechanism... which, so far as I can see, none of us truly know. Whatever it is, it's presumably the same principle at work whatever divination practice we use, whether tea-leaves, crystal balls or automatic writing. Some of these have little external input; there was someone on these forums who used to do 'readings' by spontaneously drawing semi-abstract artworks, and then interpreting them. That came entirely from her. I can certainly see how you've all come to the conclusions you have regarding the nature of intuition, but it's not the only possible way of looking at it... even based on the same observations and experience. 

 

I may be wrong, and my ideas may well change; 25 years isn't that long, after all. In the meantime, as you say, I'll do me... and I'm sure you folks will do the same!  

     

[gregory]

11 minutes ago, Wanderer said:

You're saying that intuition in reading is basically subconscious recognition of details that are embedded in (or suggested by) the card. Either you use the cards, or you don't. There's nothing in between, and no room for pure psychic insights plucked out of the aether. 

 

Sure - but that isn't reading the cards.

 

 And yes - either you use them or you don't. That's actually pretty much what you said, when you said some people glance and ignore them.

[Wanderer]

6 minutes ago, gregory said:

 

Sure - but that isn't reading the cards.

 

 And yes - either you use them or you don't. That's actually pretty much what you said, when you said some people glance and ignore them.

Ah, but I can't read (effectively) without including intuitive insights, whether that's seeing things that are obviously present in the cards with hindsight, or things that may be hidden in symbolic form, and are harder to relate directly--and which you'd put down to our subconscious being better at seeing connections than our brain is. These insights, however dubious their origins, are all part of the art of reading. In many cases, I don't know whether a specific intuitive detail came directly from the card, or not; I can assume it did but I haven't spotted the link (and therefore it counts as reading, in your definition), or that it was spontaneous (in which case, it doesn't). A reading isn't so black-and-white, for me: it contains whatever comes to me during the process. 

 

More importantly, though, even if every insight I've ever had while reading was triggered directly by the card, it still leaves the problem of selecting those meanings. Sure, we may be able to see that meaning in a card, but we can potentially see a lot of others as well; if the choosing of the meaning is intuition, how does the card inform us which one we should be choosing? Again, that implies some spontaneous agency on our part, and is as much a part of the reading as the formal card meanings are. However you slice it, intuition involves some element of selection or insight that comes spontaneously from us. 

[katrinka]

I just want to clear something up. 
And I am not doing this to snark - we're using written words to communicate here,  so. it's important that everyone understand what those words mean.

Intuition is not psychism, and intuitive insights don't come "from the aether."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/intuition

 

As noted in the link, intuition is NOT woo. It's a function of your brain. Brains are pretty amazing and mysterious on their own, without woo.

Woo has its place. When we don't yet have an explanation for something, we call it magic, or spirits, or what-have-you. Not everything has a rational, scientific explanation.

The process of reading cards DOES, though. What doesn't have a scientific explanation is how the correct cards manage to come up in the layout. THAT is some seriously mysterious stuff. 
 

As for getting information "from the aether", I'm not saying it doesn't happen. That's how crystal gazing works. But with cards, you have a physical THING in front of you. That's the medium you're using, Pay heed.

 

[Wanderer]

Thanks for that, @katrinka, and I'm not being deliberately contrary either - but I do still feel you're all missing something that I'm trying to get across. Perhaps it's because the scientific understanding of intuition (as you linked) explicitly rules out psychic inputs (no surprise there...), whereas we just experience the sensation of intuition, and can only make assumptions about where it comes from. Dictionary definitions (which I was using) generally don't make that assumption, and some do explicitly link it to the paranormal (e.g. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/intuition; https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/intuition).  I'm glad we agree, at least, on the way the correct cards are drawn (dealt/whatever) being seriously mysterious stuff (as you put it) - that's a start!

 

So, here's my key point: it's not just the drawing of cards that is mysterious. While there's a potential scientific basis for being able to see the possible meanings in the cards, especially across multiple cards in a spread, and how they interact... I don't accept that intuitively recognising which is the correct meaning also has such a basis. In some cases you may be picking up on additional cues (your knowledge of the sitter, relation to other cards, etc.), so let's assume the extreme case of a one-card reading, remotely, for someone you know nothing about, and haven't even communicated with directly. The only input you get is from the card... and yet, out of all the possible interpretations and facets of meaning that the card can embody, we still get an intuitive insight, choose one, and come up with a reading. Usually, it's right.

    How does that work? While our familiarity with the cards is critical to seeing the range of possible meanings, we still have to choose one. And that can only come from within - there is nothing in the cards that tells us which message is relevant on this particular occasion--we make that decision ourselves, and we do indeed pluck it 'out of the aether'. That's the mystery in the process of reading, and it's a different type of intuition from the description of Psychology Today.

 

   The psychological understanding of intuition certainly is a thing, and comes into reading as well... but it can't be all of it, and there's no reason to assume that it is. We already accept that something mysterious is involved with the selection of cards, and I can't escape the conclusion that something equally mysterious is happening with the reading itself. I don't necessarily like the idea that it's fundamentally 'non-scientific' (I am a professional scientist, after all), but that's the way it is. The whole process to me is a mysterious thing, and we can only rationalise isolated elements of it.

 

I'm obviously in a minority on this view, but no matter. It's an interesting debate, and I like to challenge the accepted understanding every now and then, to see whether it will break. That's what forums are for, right?😉  Got to run now - a long morning of scything ahead.

[katrinka]

2 hours ago, Wanderer said:

I'm not being deliberately contrary either - but I do still feel you're all missing something that I'm trying to get across. Perhaps it's because the scientific understanding of intuition (as you linked)

I'm going a little OT here, but I'm trying to get to the root of why so many reject science and facts. I'm not saying that you take it to the extremes of a flat earther or antivaxxer, but if something is demonstrated to be true, why cling to sketchy theories? The road to the Dark Ages is paved with such thinking.

 

 

 

[changa]

42 minutes ago, katrinka said:

I'm going a little OT here, but I'm trying to get to the root of why so many reject science and facts. I'm not saying that you take it to the extremes of a flat earther or antivaxxer, but if something is demonstrated to be true, why cling to sketchy theories? The road to the Dark Ages is paved with such thinking.

 

 

 

If we're going to open this door we probably should open another thread for this. Which I would be delighted to do. But as the mods already warned me once about not straying too far from the mainstream narrative on Covid, I'm not sure how this would be received, being only my second day on this forum.

 

I personally sometimes reject "science and facts" because of the conflict of interest apparent in a lot of "scientific studies". Millions have been spent throughout the years looking for a "cure for cancer", while expensive treatment methods are giving patients false hope and many times prolong and make their suffering worse. All the while there are many known "alternative" (read; natural) cures that have worked for many patients in eradicating their cancer. Also true for other "incurable" diseases. But you see natural things can not be patented, hence, not profited from. That's why no pharmaceutical company will ever back any "research" into an actual cure, making them loose out on the multi-million dollar/year industry of "treating" cancer. A cancer which was caused in the first place from the processed foods and unhealthy lifestyle our society promotes and passes off as normal. 

 

Have you personally looked into either flat earth or researched vaccines?

 

[gregory]

Go ahead and open a new thread - covid and cancer have no place in this one.

 

Though cancer was around LONG before all these societal causes.

Edited November 29, 2020 by gregory