Intuition vs Accuracy

[Ratty]

I was reading a book called Quabalistic Tarot by Wang, and in his section on Gematria (reading of letters as numbers), he gives an example by Westcott (of GD fame) and republished by Crowley, which appears on the surface to be wrong, or at least inconsistent with the system espoused by Wang and it is implied by Westcott (the standard mispar gadol). But does this invalidate the insight given?

 

It got me wondering in general if conclusions arrived at through erroneous means are any worse than those arrived at by accurate ones. On the one hand we are told to trust our intuition, on the other what's the point of learning the tarot system if you are just going to make it up as you go along?

 

I get a feeling there's a line to be drawn, but I can't see where.

 

 

[Princess Of Cups]

For me the line is drawn with applying the traditional meaning itself. Each card literally has thousands of different associations and possible meanings, if it wasn't for my intuition I would literally be lost scrabbling through them all trying to decide which meaning applies.

 

For example the Death card could mean so many things to someone who is going through an identity crisis, it could mean outside circumstances caused their turmoil, it could mean death of their old self, it could mean disruption to their day to day life, it could mean they are themselves causing changes through their social circle etc

[DDwarks]

To quote Pascal:

"Verite en deca des pyrenees erreur au dela".

Roughly translated as "Truth on one side of the Pyrenees, falsehood on the other".

 

In other words, Truth is what resonates with you.

 

The tarot system is very much like society.

We all abide by the law of the land but within that frame are allowed to express ourselves and live the way we feel is right for us (intuition).

 

Some people choose to live off the grid completly (intuition only).

 

Who's right? Who's wrong?

 

Wang and Wescott were simply seeing the world from opposite sides of the Pyrenees.

 

Where you lay your own hat is where you feel works for you the most.

 

That takes a lot of reading, an open mind and not being afraid to come up with your own conclusion.

 

You could even end up agreeing with Wang! Who knows (yet) !

[Esk]

On the one hand we are told to trust our intuition, on the other what's the point of learning the tarot system if you are just going to make it up as you go along?

 

I get a feeling there's a line to be drawn, but I can't see where.

 

 

 

That's a question i ask myself too. I've come to the conclusion that for me the system works better. Maybe it's because I've not developped my intuition enough. Sometimes my intuition had to be trusted, but in this case the message is strong and come in a weird way, like a wave hitting my head. That's the only cases I put aside the traditional meanings (and usually if I compare they're not very different). But this happens rarely. More often I use the traditionnal meanings of the cards and use a mix of logic and intuition to choose the good one. And here again logic seems to work better than intuition  ;D

 

I don't doubt some people rely more in their intuition than the tarot system and have accurate results. We're all different. But i think there's a danger saying to newbies they have to trust their intuition in the first place. It's VERY difficult to make a difference between intuition and fantasies/imagination when you're not trained or not have a natural ability to do it, specifically if we read for ourselves. I've been adviced to listen more to my intuition at some point when I begun learning tarot, to look at the cards and see what they tell me. And I get very bad readings doing that. Going back to traditional meanings has helped me more and made me progressed more.

[HOLMES]

I have Robert wang Jungian tarot..

 

in the minors he changed the astrology system to fight a more standard of  doing it.. according to the gd systems the planets and signs were divded up by the decanates assocations..

in the jungian tarot, the planets are standardized..

http://www.tarotforum.net/library/8/2002-08/jungian-tarot-changes-their-meanings-20020806.shtml

was the discussion i started 14 years it would seem on that.

 

when i first read your post i thought you were on a differnt subjct of how inuition wasn't accurate, or more traditional meanings might be more accurate then inuition..

 

instead i find that it in speaks to changing the tarot system to fit a person mindset/belief/experience.

 

so let me reference good old crowley,, in his tarot system he changed the qabbalistic association of the star . tzaddi is not the star i think..

and waite changed his major arcana of justice and strenght for 8 and 11 respectively and he never said why..

for years i thought waite version was the true version (as it was the one i started on ) and it wasnt' until after i started learning the older systems had 8 as justice and strenght as 11.

and let us not forget waite allowed his minors to be illustrated, and crowley allowed his minors to be almost half illustrated by their respective aritists.

 

it is said i forget where,, that mathers went into his room for an afternoon and came out with the qabbalistic assocation which the whole gd system is based. (probaly most likelyy folklore) , and who says the gd system is infallible or the only system.

 

so my points are..

1. if the tarot founders system founders as we know them to be(we still don'tknow who actually made the marsielles ) can change the tarot to fit their beliefs,, views etc..

2. then we can as well, and nay must ,, in keeping with the times.

 

but the true thing is ,, question everything and follow nothing on blind faith,.

and consider that some of the tarot myths today were once considered fact! or mainstream.

 

 

[Princess Of Cups]

I love what HOLMES[/member] just said, so true! The thing in all the different books etc give different interpretations and they are very different now to medieval times. You

[Ratty]

instead i find that it in speaks to changing the tarot system to fit a person mindset/belief/experience.

 

I think it's more about swapping and changing in the short term. It would be more like Crowley putting the Star back to Tzaddik just for the one insight. I don't mind different systems, but I like a bit of consistency. The question is how much?

 

I think it was Emerson who called a foolish consistency "the hobgoblin of little minds", and I kind of agree. Nevertheless, it still niggles at my little mind.

 

 

[DDwarks]

instead i find that it in speaks to changing the tarot system to fit a person mindset/belief/experience.

 

I think it's more about swapping and changing in the short term. It would be more like Crowley putting the Star back to Tzaddik just for the one insight. I don't mind different systems, but I like a bit of consistency. The question is how much?

 

I think it was Emerson who called a foolish consistency "the hobgoblin of little minds", and I kind of agree. Nevertheless, it still niggles at my little mind.

What if you were to adopt a more fluid mindset?

[sandrang123]

I think we're getting a bit too academic here (spoken as someone with three degrees, snore). To my mind--since we're going there--it is absolutely paramount that you have understanding on that level of the divinatory meanings. I would never want to go to someone who didn't understand various systems and meanings within those realms and who hasn't studied them (seriously, and for a while). But I do hope intuition kicks in, given that Jungian melding of left and right brain (and I have never had a reader--paid for--who wasn't also "more than" book learning "accuracy"). If I don't think a book works, I bag it. And if I don't think the cards are speaking, intuitively to me, I bag them. Accuracy only matters if you're accurate when reading. Intuition only matters if it makes you more than accurate.

 

My two cents!

All My Best,

Sandy

[Sar]

For me the line is drawn with applying the traditional meaning itself. Each card literally has thousands of different associatiins and possible meanings, if it wasn't for my intuition I would literally be lost scrabbling through them all trying to decide which meaning applies.

 

For example the Death card could mean so many things to someone who is going through an identity crisis, it could mean outside circumstances caused their turmoil, it could mean death of their old self, it could mean disruption to their day to day life, it could mean they are themselves causing changes through their social circle etc

 

Or it could mean plain simple death.

 

[~D~]

For me the line is drawn with applying the traditional meaning itself. Each card literally has thousands of different associatiins and possible meanings, if it wasn't for my intuition I would literally be lost scrabbling through them all trying to decide which meaning applies.

 

For example the Death card could mean so many things to someone who is going through an identity crisis, it could mean outside circumstances caused their turmoil, it could mean death of their old self, it could mean disruption to their day to day life, it could mean they are themselves causing changes through their social circle etc

 

Or it could mean plain simple death.

YUP! had that happen before in a reading...

[Sar]

 

YUP! had that happen before in a reading...

 

Me too.

[Thoughtful]

l feel it's always best to learn the tarot meanings thoroughly at the beginning of your journey. Goes without saying really. As you progress and use the cards regularly intuition can kick in.  The meanings are still there but suddenly you see and feel things that bring the cards more alive. This is especially so if you have a deck that you bond with very closely. l am very intuitive but l have to read a deck that speaks to me in all ways.  Some decks leave me cold, pictures on card nothing more.  Depending on who you read for, even yourself, a meaning could come into focus that adds something quite different than before. If it is a sudden flashbulb moment and it fits with the reading, that's your intuition at work. Genuine intution is always accurate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[~D~]

l feel it's always best to learn the tarot meanings thoroughly at the beginning of your journey. Goes without saying really. As you progress and use the cards regularly intuition can kick in.  The meanings are still there but suddenly you see and feel things that bring the cards more alive. This is especially so if you have a deck that you bond with very closely. l am very intuitive but l have to read a deck that speaks to me in all ways.  Some decks leave me cold, pictures on card nothing more.  Depending on who you read for, even yourself, a meaning could come into focus that adds something quite different than before. If it is a sudden flashbulb moment and it fits with the reading, that's your intuition at work. Genuine intution is always accurate.

 

 

TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU!

[Sword Queen]

l feel it's always best to learn the tarot meanings thoroughly at the beginning of your journey. Goes without saying really. As you progress and use the cards regularly intuition can kick in.  The meanings are still there but suddenly you see and feel things that bring the cards more alive. This is especially so if you have a deck that you bond with very closely. l am very intuitive but l have to read a deck that speaks to me in all ways.  Some decks leave me cold, pictures on card nothing more.  Depending on who you read for, even yourself, a meaning could come into focus that adds something quite different than before. If it is a sudden flashbulb moment and it fits with the reading, that's your intuition at work. Genuine intution is always accurate.

 

I agree. Intuition needs to come from somewhere, to be grounded in something. It's not just a shot in the dark, but arises from study, experience, familiarity with the cards and with oneself. It is always such a temptation to project our needs onto the cards--our own wishes and preferences then determine what we see.

[DanielJUK]

I'm not sure about learnt meanings of cards, I spent a lot of time in my first year of learning, studying and memorising each card and I now find it unhelpful for my intuitive reading. But when I came to tarot, my intuition was so repressed! I never used it and that side of me. Learning the tarot opened up that side of me. If someone has worked on their intuition and use it, I do believe they can just look at any card without knowing anything about the card, you don't need to know the "general idea" of the card to say what you see in the art or feel or sense.

 

But not everyone is an intuitive reader, some people are more reference / learnt ideas style readers, studying the card. I think most people are a mix of both, combining both areas. But I wish I had spent more time in my first year on my intuition and meditating on the cards, rather than trying to learn everything off by heart, perhaps the learnt meanings gave me a foundation for them but I tried to learn too much! They are just other people's views of the cards ultimately.  So for me, I do believe you can be accurate just by intuitive reading if you are an highly intuitive person.

 

My best readings and insights, don't come from the learnt meaning, it comes from what comes to me at that moment but that is the part you have to trust and get stronger with for accuracy.

[Thoughtful]

l hear what you say Dan but we are all so different. Learning the meanings gives direction to the newcomers to tarot, after a while they may find intuition kicks in so can begin to use it, it would be an instinctive thing for them to do if it is natural for them. As you say other folk want to learn by the book, and stay in that mode of reading.  It could be due to lack of confidence that when they get the flashes of intuition they hesitate and the moment is lost.

 

You obviously have a wonderful gift of strong intuition that is brought out more when reading the cards.  Others are not so gifted at first if ever.  Whichever way the cards are read, the accuracy can be measured in the response of who you are reading for.

 

Don't mourn the beginnings of your tarot journey it was a learning experience for you, now happily you have found what suits you best when reading. Many people strive to look at a card and know what it means right off the bat.  Intuition gives you that.  And you are so right the cards are created with their makers own knowledge and views. So if we get a feel of something different to a set meaning and it feels strong and right go for it.

 

l have some decks that do nothing for me, other decks reach into my soul and there is a wonderful connection between us.  This is what l feel brings out the closeness and intuition for me.  l had to learn that.

 

You Dan could probably read a matchstick! more power to you  <3

 

 

[ToadieOdie]

 

I came across this podcast transcript that I thought was a very interesting and enlightening read regarding this subject. I felt that you all would find it interesting as well.

 

 

https://www.biddytarot.com/btp136-can-intuition-alone-make-you-a-great-tarot-reader/

 

 

It is long, but in a nutshell what she says is that you do need to learn the collective knowledge and meanings behind the cards and that you also need to use your intuition in order to do readings. But in the end you are going to need to find that balance between the two.

 

 

So I think it depends up to the individual on how long that takes. It depends on how much of the collective knowledge of the tarot that person needs. How much of their intuition they need to develop. What other bodies of collective knowledge  and psychic skills are they bringing to the table plays a factor in all this. In addition to all that, their ultimate goals with tarot also play a factor. Because of all this there isn't going to be a "one true path" in tarot. There will never be "one true answer" in any of this.

 

 

If any one of you look at a painting with me, we'll both see that painting but we'll both get something different out of it. The same thing happens when we listen to the same song. You and I will never experience that same song exactly the same way. So even though we learn colors, learn how to use brushes, learn notes, learn how to play instruments, our experiences will always be different.

 

 

And tarot is the same way. We learn all of this collective knowledge and how it works, but then we experience it differently. And it's that differences of experience where intuition comes into play.

[Wanderer]

This is a really interesting question, and to some extent it depends on how the Tarot actually works...

 

For example, if the meanings of the cards are somehow tied to the collective unconscious, then which cards are drawn depends on some absolute concept of that meaning, which the Universe 'knows'. This is where the book learning and the intent of the authors (and users over long periods of reinforcement) is critical; there must be an aspect of this, otherwise the cards are effectively random... and you could indeed read matchsticks instead.  :)

 

Having said that, the meanings are always within a conceptual range, rather than simple and clear. The concept of attraction, for example, covers the entire nebulous subject surrounding the idea, rather than specifically stating that you will be attracted to something. It is about the existence of opposites, as well as the reasons why attraction happens, and its implications. Disentangling the possibilities is the role of your intuition.

 

The key, for me, is being able to intuit how the potential meanings of individual cards combine into a coherent reading. That, I think, is where the reading of people, and perhaps of more nebulous things, diverges from the cards themselves or builds on them. Most people probably have a good feeling for how much they should trust these extra insights, and how much to stick with what the cards are actually saying... hopefully! ;)

 

[Thoughtful]

ToadieOdie thanks for that link very informative. l am sure that will help others to gain more understanding

[ToadieOdie]

ToadieOdie thanks for that link very informative. l am sure that will help others to gain more understanding

 

 

 

Thank you. The link covers the topic about tarot, but it reinforces something I learned in college while taking an English course called "The Nature of Story" which was perhaps one of the most enlightening courses I had ever taken. I had intended it to be a throw away elective course, but it turned out to be one of the best things I had ever done. I really changed the way I perceive the world.

[risingsun]

I think we're getting a bit too academic here (spoken as someone with three degrees, snore). To my mind--since we're going there--it is absolutely paramount that you have understanding on that level of the divinatory meanings. I would never want to go to someone who didn't understand various systems and meanings within those realms and who hasn't studied them (seriously, and for a while). But I do hope intuition kicks in, given that Jungian melding of left and right brain (and I have never had a reader--paid for--who wasn't also "more than" book learning "accuracy"). If I don't think a book works, I bag it. And if I don't think the cards are speaking, intuitively to me, I bag them. Accuracy only matters if you're accurate when reading. Intuition only matters if it makes you more than accurate.

 

My two cents!

All My Best,

Sandy

 

i agree with this. i wouldn't want to be read by someone who has only referenced books on tarot and sticks rigidly to that. of course, learn the basic meanings of the cards, you have to, but definitely hone and follow your intuition. death can be read sooo many different ways. if you stick to it meaning the end of something all the time, then it really does a disservice to the sitter. a medium i go to has used the cards for a long time. she told me how she doesn't understand how someone can read cards without using intuition. you can read the same spread differently for various people, because intuitively you'll get different messages. i think some tarot enthusiasts get too stuck on traditional meanings and get too wordy and analytical for my taste. you can read the cards using the basic meanings combined with intuition and read that is straight forward. i often have to interpret the cards myself when someone reads for me. of course, i know my story more than anyone, but they're obviously not intuitively in-tune with me either.

[Rose Lalonde]

 

Great thread to read through. I agree with Wanderer[/member] and Princess Of Cups[/member] and  some others about the range of potential meanings and intuiting the story of cards in combination with one another, or with spread positions if we have them, or with the question at hand.

 

HOLMES[/member] brought up some good points about changes made by deck creators, and as someone who likes to know why cards in a particular deck are said to mean what they do, my personal standard for judging those details is not at all about who's "right" or which came first. It's just down to its usefulness to me as a reader. So I ask myself, does Waite's swap of Strength and Justice (which I was under the impression he did to line Strength up with Leo and Justice with Libra as they fall in order through the year - making it mainly useful for those incorporating GD and Waite's astrological associations) add insight to my readings or not? Does it lead to more or less clarity, understanding, and helpful advice? Those are my criteria. So Ratty[/member], what you're asking about isn't really how I look at it. I get good results reading with Golden Dawn derived decks like the Thoth and RWS, and heck, the GD said a lot of things about the history of tarot that I believe in about as much as I believe in the Easter bunny. Doesn't bother me. I just want archetypes that work when I do a reading.

 

risingsun[/member] 's post got me thinking about how this comes up for us as sitters as well. As is probably already obvious, I don't mind the analytical type of reading risingsun mentioned, but I find it less fulfilling to receive a strictly intuitive reading if it seems like it could have come from random photos. I won't fault the reader for having their own style of reading, but it's the tarot archetypes and the way those symbols interconnect that I love.

[Ratty]

Great thread to read through

 

I think it has answered my original question, of where do you draw the line? The consensus seems to be wherever it's useful for a good reading.

 

I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to helping me come to an understanding. I found the link Toadie gave to the Biddy site particularly useful.

 

I like the background information and alternative disciplines, including the history. I think it gives my intuition more to go on, and if I get stuck with learned/experienced meanings and looking at the pictures for inspiration, I can think astrology or kabbalah or whatever and it means I'll get there one way or the other.

 

When I start reading with very different decks, it'll be interesting to see if the balance shifts. I do utilise the pictures, so perhaps if I tried reading TdM it would be different.

 

 

[Styx]

This is a wonderfully interesting thread.  <3

 

To me the dynamic between learning and following your intuition is basically the same in tarot as in any creative endeavour. I don't see the knowledge as restrictive, I see it as a way of expanding my horizons. My mind and my heart are not naturally that big  ;D; reading about tarot helps me to see bigger pictures or new ideas. It's a bit like art: if you blindly follow the established meanings or methods, you may do a good job but your work won't be very personal; if you don't learn from the tradition at all, well you won't be able to handle a brush or you'll keep doing the same stuff over and over, I guess. But if you get inspired by tradition AND bring bits of yourself in the process, then you can be Michelangelo/Klimt/Picasso (choose your favourite  ;)). I don't think of it as a "balance" between two sides, I think of it as a permanent movement: you learn the meanings, which give you new ideas, which opens up your intuition, which makes you look for more knowledge, which expands your mind again, etc.

 

Some readers (like me) think of the relationship to the cards as a kind of communication "pact": the cards know you and they will use that card to make you think of this precise idea/event/person. (If they wanted to give the same message to someone else, they'd put it differently.) I'm a linguist and to me, a language is a system: the meaning of a word is a kind of shape, defined on all borders by the points where it encounters other words. (For example, in my mind, I can only define "love" as something that is somehow connected to and circumscribed by "affection", "friendship", "passion", "lust", "desire", etc.) To me the cards work in a similar way: the two of pentacles has an infinity of meanings, but they all make sense in relation with the other cards. If I get the 6/swords and try to articulate the precise meaning it has for me, I might compare it with the 8/cups, or perhaps with other 6s. I do rely on the images a lot (and this is my excuse for collecting decks  ;D), but my readings are never 100% intuition, because I think along the lines of this big web of meanings. The bigger and denser the web the better, and that's where books but also practice (journaling!) come in.