fire cat pickles Posted November 16, 2022 Posted November 16, 2022 Calling on my intuitive readers. I need helpful hints! Starting out and developing my intuitive senses makes me nervous. It is a huge step for me! While making mistakes will be inevitable, I'm calling on those who have experience in the intuitive reading realm. What are some of the biggest mistakes you've made in the past, particularly when you were first starting off? I think this will help me as I start out on my intuitive journey. It won't prevent me from making my own mistakes, but it will help me look out for common stumbling blocks that the beginner may want to look out for. [Just a reminder that this is a safe space. The last thing we want is a meta-discussion, where we talk negatively about others' mistakes. If you do have comments, please limit them to positive feedback only, please 😉]
gregory Posted November 16, 2022 Posted November 16, 2022 Not letting the generic stuff I knew get out of the way when it actually wanted to. The first card I ever drew for an ISG was an ace. It was a while before the word "beginning" got out of my head - and the reading wasn't about a beginning at all, when I calmed down... It was actually about (clouds) hiding someting - exactly what the card showed... Just let the picture talk for itself.
Raggydoll Posted November 16, 2022 Posted November 16, 2022 My biggest mistake was holding back and second guessing myself. I practiced speaking freely as I looked at the cards, which helped tremendously. It was typically the readings that felt the weirdest that ended up being spot on. So my best advice is to go all in! Perhaps also perform some type of ritual beforehand, to put yourself in a deeply relaxed mental state. If you find something that works for you, like meditation or breathing exercises or listening to drumming sounds etc, then by making a habit of doing it prior to your readings, it will become like a powerful cue that will speed up the process (basically like with Pavlov’s dogs). That’s what I’ve experienced. I can trigger the right mental state for intuitive readings much quicker now. I am sure many readers think such preparations are unnecessary, and I respect that. But given how much it has helped me, I wanted to at least mention it!
FindYourSovereignty Posted November 16, 2022 Posted November 16, 2022 Yes, like @Raggydoll, I wouldn’t trust my initial insight and then my mind would take over causing me to second guess myself.
fire cat pickles Posted November 17, 2022 Author Posted November 17, 2022 On 11/16/2022 at 1:27 PM, gregory said: Not letting the generic stuff I knew get out of the way when it actually wanted to. The first card I ever drew for an ISG was an ace. It was a while before the word "beginning" got out of my head - and the reading wasn't about a beginning at all, when I calmed down... It was actually about (clouds) hiding someting - exactly what the card showed... Just let the picture talk for itself. This is good. My last (and first "real") intuitive reading I struggled with the generic stuff. I kept looping back into the regular "Justice means [this or that]"... Of course there will always be cross-over. What happens if there is cross-over though?
fire cat pickles Posted November 17, 2022 Author Posted November 17, 2022 On 11/16/2022 at 2:30 PM, Raggydoll said: My biggest mistake was holding back and second guessing myself. I try hard not to do this with anything now. It's part of a maturation process. It took me years to trust my feelings on many things. If it doesn't feel right, pardon my French ---GTFO! Maybe this is why I feel I'm ready to do the intuitive thing now? "Trust your gut?" right? Hopefully I can extend this to my readings! On 11/16/2022 at 2:30 PM, Raggydoll said: Perhaps also perform some type of ritual beforehand I used to do this before. Maybe I should do this again, preferably without setting off my smoke alarm!
fire cat pickles Posted November 17, 2022 Author Posted November 17, 2022 23 hours ago, FindYourSovereignty said: I wouldn’t trust my initial insight and then my mind would take over causing me to second guess myself. Maybe letting go or meditating first will help me to trust my first, initial instinct?
FindYourSovereignty Posted November 17, 2022 Posted November 17, 2022 6 minutes ago, fire cat pickles said: Maybe letting go or meditating first will help me to trust my first, initial instinct? Definitely wouldn't hurt. For me it is mostly practicing saying what first comes to me and flowing from there. It has helped me to just start talking so my mind's storage of knowledge cannot take over.
Mr Green Posted November 21, 2022 Posted November 21, 2022 IMHO. the reading depends on the questions asked. Say it's a family problem you have been asked to look at, and you get the lover's card. As part of the advice to give you see a family discussion going on, not a man trying to make his mind up abought who to go with. For me the cards change intuitively for the question asked...
Raggydoll Posted November 21, 2022 Posted November 21, 2022 25 minutes ago, Mr Green said: IMHO. the reading depends on the questions asked. Say it's a family problem you have been asked to look at, and you get the lover's card. As part of the advice to give you see a family discussion going on, not a man trying to make his mind up abought who to go with. For me the cards change intuitively for the question asked... That sounds a bit more like logic reasoning than intuition to me. Its one thing to make sure you always answer the question asked, but its another to apply a filter based on the known circumstances. That limits the possibilities. I view intuition as the force that guides your mind when it is completely open to all possible interpretations.
Mr Green Posted November 21, 2022 Posted November 21, 2022 Yes, I see your point, but then we could do away with the cards and go purely psychic, /intuitive. If we are not using, reading the card images then we are not doing tarot! AND yes, I think you should know the circumstances and have a clear question asked. imho.
Raggydoll Posted November 21, 2022 Posted November 21, 2022 8 minutes ago, Mr Green said: Yes, I see your point, but then we could do away with the cards and go purely psychic, /intuitive. If we are not using, reading the card images then we are not doing tarot! AND yes, I think you should know the circumstances and have a clear question asked. imho. I agree that a clear question helps, but I don’t think it’s necessary to have a question. Nor do I think it is necessary to know all the circumstances. Particularly not for intuitive readers. General readings without a specific question do have a place, and sometimes the sitter does not wish to give away details. I have done many readings with very little information. I used to do phone readings and I typically never knew age or location, and they would not give much (or any) background info. Sometimes they just said “Hi, I would like to see what my future holds”. What I see in the cards and in my mind is what guides me. I trust the cards to show my what the reading is about, and my intuition will help me interpret it correctly. I do read the images and I am also a fan of card interactions, and that’s a big part of what stimulates my intuition. I think this is the type of thing that @fire cat pickles was asking about. Aside from that, yes I do also perform psychic readings without cards. That’s not really what is being discussed here, but it can certainly help with intuitive development to drop all the tools. So maybe it’s not so off topic after all 🙂 What I meant with my earlier post is that I think it’s important to approach the cards with an open mind so that the images and your intuition can suggest the correct and relevant interpretations. As I said “ I view intuition as the force that guides your mind when it is completely open to all possible interpretations. “ And by ‘interpretations’ I am referring to what is seen in the cards (plus in your mind, which is often stimulated by what’s seen in the cards…). So I did not say that we shouldn’t study the cards. Not at all 🙂
DanielJUK Posted November 21, 2022 Posted November 21, 2022 During our lives our intuitive side of us (we all have it!) is repressed. By many factors, by ourselves, to just get by in life and by society. Sometimes you see things like "what is your gut reaction" when someone is buying a house or apartment (my spell checker just told me to replace apartment with flat because it wasn't British! lol I was being international!) but mainly the rational is pushed. It's good to be logical and work things out but the intuitive side of us is important as well! I really opened this side of my by learning tarot and it was repressed all my life. An important part of this is trusting your feelings and what you sense, that "gut reaction". It helps me so much in life now, I am glad turning to divination helped me discover this side of myself. My rookie mistakes were not having confidence and trust in my intuition. Also not allowing myself to make mistakes and I should have been kinder on myself. When you start reading intuitively you are going to get things wrong but you have to trust the messages that you get from it. My intuition has really sharpened with time and this helps in my life as well, I can trust it in decision-making as well as my logical side. There are also many parts to this, like you look at the Queen of Cups and you think this means to someone they are going to go on a hot air balloon trip. They are totally different things (unless it's in the card artwork). Some people do read like this and I wonder why use the cards as a tool? I can read like this and got good readings when we tried it on our old tarot forum Aelectic as an experiment. But we have to use the cards as at least a base if we are using them as a tool, if they are in front of us the pretty pictures are there to be a tool or gateway, How it worked for me is that I would read the cards, and use the learnt meanings and ideas as a base to the reading. Then I read the picture. On top of that I sometimes get messages or clairaudience when I look at the reading. This sometimes has random things out of the blue. I give the reading and I qualify my intuitive part, I say "I think" or I am cautious with it. Sometimes I get it totally wrong, I got it wrong a lot at the start but also the most amazing things have come up that always surprises me! Things I cannot know about my reading partners. But if you do a reading and you get something on any of your senses, it takes confidence to give it to your partner! But you should give it, even if makes you look foolish! Like I say, I usually am cautious and give space that I might not be right. It's also easier to do it on this forum, no one cares if you start saying "I see a woman in green on the way". So my mistakes were learning that it takes experience to get good at this and to get in tune with my previously repressed intuitive side. I had to learn to have confidence and trust in my readings and just go with it! It's better to say what you say or feel and get it wrong, then not give it! Trust what you are getting and just give it in the reading 🙂 .
Raggydoll Posted November 22, 2022 Posted November 22, 2022 One other mistake that I can think of, is to not understand the difference between psychic readings and intuitive readings, and to not learn how they can benefit each other. Maybe not everyone defines it the way I do, but I have been greatly helped by understanding these differences. Intuition is very much like the gut feeling that acts as an inner compass. When you look at the cards, it will make certain details stand out and you’ll see patterns more clearly. It can help you know which of the many possible interpretations is the relevant one. A person can work on strengthening their intuition, which is mostly done by listening to it more. What starts as a weak nudge becomes a clear signal. Techniques such as those that are practices in the ISG could be really valuable. Psychic readings are done through one or more of the clair senses. The most famous of them is clairvoyance, but they are all very powerful and I have personally found that they work together like a symphony. These readings can be triggered by what is seen in the cards, and they can also be triggered by what is picked up from the sitter (even in long distance readings). Equally, it can be based on information that is channeled from spirits/guides/ancestors. And some of us also read energy imprints, so we can pick up on past events that are relevant to the present situation. This means that psychic readings can be done without any physical tools. While intuition and psychism is not the same, they can both stimulate each other. I think a lot of it has to do with trust and with being comfortable with seemingly weird things. I really agree with @DanielJUK when he says ‘trust what you are getting and just give it in the reading”. However the information comes to you, share it and you’ll get more of where it came from. It might turn out that your ‘channels’ are not as fine tuned as they could be or that you are misunderstanding some things, particularly in the beginning. But it’s really like learning an instrument and it can’t be learned or be tuned if it’s not put to use! This forum is a brilliant place to comfortably experiment with these things!
gregory Posted November 22, 2022 Posted November 22, 2022 On 11/17/2022 at 8:47 PM, fire cat pickles said: This is good. My last (and first "real") intuitive reading I struggled with the generic stuff. I kept looping back into the regular "Justice means [this or that]"... Of course there will always be cross-over. What happens if there is cross-over though? You know the answer to that. Generic stuff is off limits. Well, in ISG it is. So - you ignore it. That said - you will find yourself amazed - if someone else looks at the same card/s you just read - how often their take in the generic fashion matches yours. I MUST set up that experiment we did here.... On 11/21/2022 at 9:39 AM, Mr Green said: IMHO. the reading depends on the questions asked. Say it's a family problem you have been asked to look at, and you get the lover's card. As part of the advice to give you see a family discussion going on, not a man trying to make his mind up abought who to go with. For me the cards change intuitively for the question asked... No actually - you see three people in a card. What they are discussing or not will depend on which way they are looking, their positions related to one another, their facial expressions, the surroundings.... On 11/21/2022 at 10:09 AM, Raggydoll said: That sounds a bit more like logic reasoning than intuition to me. Its one thing to make sure you always answer the question asked, but its another to apply a filter based on the known circumstances. That limits the possibilities. I view intuition as the force that guides your mind when it is completely open to all possible interpretations. This, very much. On 11/21/2022 at 5:57 PM, Mr Green said: Yes, I see your point, but then we could do away with the cards and go purely psychic, /intuitive. If we are not using, reading the card images then we are not doing tarot! AND yes, I think you should know the circumstances and have a clear question asked. imho. You can do general readings using only the images,. (I actually object to the term "intuitive" in this context - all readers, whatever their methods, use their intuition as well as their knowledge. At one point on AT we took to calling the "look at the pictures" method "glorpish....") 11 hours ago, Raggydoll said: While intuition and psychism is not the same, they can both stimulate each other. I think a lot of it has to do with trust and with being comfortable with seemingly weird things. I really agree with @DanielJUK when he says ‘trust what you are getting and just give it in the reading”. However the information comes to you, share it and you’ll get more of where it came from. It might turn out that your ‘channels’ are not as fine tuned as they could be or that you are misunderstanding some things, particularly in the beginning. But it’s really like learning an instrument and it can’t be learned or be tuned if it’s not put to use! This forum is a brilliant place to comfortably experiment with these things! Yes indeed. If the method doesn't fit you - don't use it. It's not for everyone.
Chariot Posted November 24, 2022 Posted November 24, 2022 I have a wee tarot meanings book that I've written myself, combining all the meanings the RWS cards have evolved into for me over the years ...over 40 years now. I've just started trying intuitive reading, using several decks that are very pictorial in nature ...The Anna K Tarot, The Tarot Grand Luxe, The Druidcraft Tarot, etc. These deck illustrations are all full of detail, facial expressions are individualistic, etc. And then ...I leave the wee tarot meanings book in another room! And do the reading without it. I force myself to look at the cards, and usually the first thought I have about the meaning is the one that sticks. I'm evolving my ability in this direction, but it's been really good to do it. It makes me feel more free, and as if I could do readings anywhere, without any 'aids' to bolster me. I have only done this when reading for myself ...I'd probably continue to use the wee book if I were doing readings for others, or at least keep it to hand. But maybe someday I'll feel confident enough to just leave it home.
fire cat pickles Posted November 28, 2022 Author Posted November 28, 2022 On 11/21/2022 at 4:39 AM, Mr Green said: IMHO. the reading depends on the questions asked. Say it's a family problem you have been asked to look at, and you get the lover's card. As part of the advice to give you see a family discussion going on, not a man trying to make his mind up abought who to go with. For me the cards change intuitively for the question asked... On 11/21/2022 at 5:09 AM, Raggydoll said: That sounds a bit more like logic reasoning than intuition to me. Its one thing to make sure you always answer the question asked, but its another to apply a filter based on the known circumstances. That limits the possibilities. I view intuition as the force that guides your mind when it is completely open to all possible interpretations. It would makes sense to use both interpretations though wouldn't it? Intuition would involved calling on both these resources, if indeed your mind was called first to seeing the family discussion going on? My intuition would guide me to ask, "What are they talking about? Are they arguing?" If he's not trying to make up his mind, etc. then what is he doing/thinking/deciding, then move on from there. Intuition could guide me to a whole other concept as I jump off from there. That could be a away to throw the "filter" off, I should think.
fire cat pickles Posted November 28, 2022 Author Posted November 28, 2022 On 11/21/2022 at 1:35 PM, Raggydoll said: I agree that a clear question helps, but I don’t think it’s necessary to have a question. Nor do I think it is necessary to know all the circumstances. Particularly not for intuitive readers. General readings without a specific question do have a place, and sometimes the sitter does not wish to give away details. I have done many readings with very little information. My first reading with @joy was so intimidating when she asked for a general reading! But then as I started, and then finished I felt almost relieved that I didn't "know all the circumstances." It was almost freeing. It will be interesting to see what next month's partner wants to know.
fire cat pickles Posted November 28, 2022 Author Posted November 28, 2022 (edited) On 11/21/2022 at 3:29 PM, DanielJUK said: But you should give it, even if makes you look foolish! This is what I like about this forum. I really don't have to worry about it. If I make mistakes, all will be forgiven won't it? I can identify with all of what you say @DanielJUK. I will look forward to my participation in the ISG in the upcoming months, and I will be coming back to look at your post for reassurance. Thank you 🙂 Edited November 28, 2022 by fire cat pickles
fire cat pickles Posted November 28, 2022 Author Posted November 28, 2022 On 11/22/2022 at 1:28 PM, gregory said: You know the answer to that. Generic stuff is off limits. Well, in ISG it is. So - you ignore it. That said - you will find yourself amazed - if someone else looks at the same card/s you just read - how often their take in the generic fashion matches yours. I MUST set up that experiment we did here.... Well, yes generic meanings, of course, but one can't overlook actual illustrations (blindfolds, crowns, flowers, etc.). And sometimes, a cigar will actually be a cigar...
fire cat pickles Posted November 28, 2022 Author Posted November 28, 2022 On 11/24/2022 at 2:53 PM, Chariot said: I force myself to look at the cards, and usually the first thought I have about the meaning is the one that sticks. This is basically what I am finding, too. If I don't, I feel I am second-guessing myself and I might regret it later... These responses are wonderful and I am enjoying these. So glad I had a few minutes to catch up with my feedback. Thank you everyone!
Sparklehorse Posted December 11, 2022 Posted December 11, 2022 I find it easy to read like this for other people, even when I don’t know the details of the situation they’re asking about. I find I can use my experience of what the cards have meant in the past and I read my gut interpretation aloud like a story as I lay each card down. I’ve been able to really surprise people by how much the cards resonated with them doing it this way. Reading like this for myself however is completely impossible as I’m totally biased towards wanting to see things a certain way.
gregory Posted December 11, 2022 Posted December 11, 2022 If you are reading SOLELY using intuition, the generic/past meanings have no relevance. Doing a general reading is not at all the same as doing an intuitive reading, and a purely intuitive reading can focus on a question. On 11/28/2022 at 10:13 PM, fire cat pickles said: Well, yes generic meanings, of course, but one can't overlook actual illustrations (blindfolds, crowns, flowers, etc.). And sometimes, a cigar will actually be a cigar... Oh absolutely. The blindfold obscures vision but doesn't necessarily include all the trapped stuff or the need to make a decision and all that.
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