How Your Personal Desires Affect a Reading

Hello. I'm just getting started in tarot and have a bit of confusion. I've been told by a few people that sometimes a card you pull might be reflective of your own desires and not necessarily the situation itself and I don't quite understand this.

OK, example. Let's say you're asking about the possibility of marrying a certain individual and you get the 4 of Wands as an outcome with some other promising cards in other positions. From what I've been told, 4 of Wands as an outcome could just mean that you have a strong desire for marriage, not that it is likely to occur. I would think if that were the case, this card would come up in your hopes and fears position, not the outcome. And if this is the case how do you ever know whether something is just based on your desires or if it is a direct answer to your question?

Or let's say I do two-card reading asking if a couple will reconcile and get perhaps the Two of Cups and Six of Cups. Again, could this be reflecting just a strong desire from the querent?

Short answer: you don't know.

Some people believe that their own energies influence the cards. Whether they do or don't, what people see in a card is definitely influenced by their feelings. Every card has many different shades of meaning, some contradictory. 4 Wands means celebration, completion, optimism, freedom. Could that mean marriage? Sure! It could also mean a bunch of other things. It also gets trickier because of that idea of positioning. If you pull 3 cards, they aren't necessarily 'positioned'. I use other spreads but I'm not personally big on the CC, for example. Sometimes I'll pull five cards and put a story together in the order that makes sense, not the one that I pulled from the deck. So the influence is in how you tell the story.

Some people are reluctant to read for themselves because they're concerned that they'll paint too optimistic a picture and then be disappointed, or get a bad spread and have a poor attitude that makes it come true.

I usually look for cards in the spread that echo each other. Maybe you get the 4 of Wands which can mean a wedding celebration. In that case, I'd look to see if any of the other cards are present that would echo that theme. Like a 2 of Cups or 6 of Cups or maybe even the Hierophant and Lovers card.

I'm wondering if you mean that you're doing a reading for somebody else, but the cards seem to be speaking to your own issues. If that's the case, then the reason for it is just that, as humans, we often share issues with other people. It isn't surprising that we can see our own concerns in the readings we do for others.

I've found that the easiest way to understand a spread is to have a definite question and then positional meanings. That way I know exactly what the cards are talking about and I don't have to guess.

An example might be 4W, 3S, Judgement rx, the spread is pointing at a solid foundation, stability and married life but here we see an end to such therefore we can't assume the energy of the 4W is present.

Same as if the 2C came up in a spread we can't automatically assume harmony in a relationship, the card may simply be advising us the spread relates to a relationship but we need to look to the other cards to see what's happening in relation to that couple, if for example temperance rx came up too then we'd be looking at an imbalance.

barefootlife - That's kind of the feeling I was getting from some of the discussions I've had. For me, I feel that it is a very deep intuition that is telling me which cards to choose in the first place. Perhaps strong emotion could lead to misguided intuition, however?

Grizabella - what you're saying about the relationships between cards in a spread makes complete sense. What I was trying to ask (though maybe not very clearly) is whether our emotions can have an affect on the actual cards we draw. Say I really, really want to have a relationship with someone so I ask if we'll have a romantic relationship. Then I pull a two of cups and ace of cups (I know interpretation of cards is another factor, but at face value these seem like a pretty good yes to that particular query). Did I pull those cards simply because my desire for a "yes" was so strong? I've had a couple other readers imply this and it confuses me because then it makes me wonder about just how often my personal feelings could be getting in the way of an accurate reading.

headincloud - yup, good reminder to look at the cards as a whole.

If someone wants absolutely a "yes" to his/her own question and is not open to a "no" or to what the cards could say, I think that personal desires can affect the reading.

Aside from the cards, there is something that you can note very often: you know someone very well and see clearly the situation in which this person really is; you can tell him/her what's happen (of course you know it because it is crystal clear for everyone who knows this person), but this person has already a precise idea to what he/she wants to hear and is in denial about everything else, so...

I don't think personal desires affect the particular cards drawn, but they most certainly do affect the interpretation of them.

Desert Girl, People have hopes and desires. As tarot reflects human life, it would be odd if hopes and desires didn't show up in readings.

In answer to your question, there's no objective way to know what any tarot card means in a given spread. That's why book knowledge only goes so far. A quality reading is usually the result of three things: a thorough understanding of the cards, experience with people and knowledge of the situation. In general, the less of these one has, the more the reading suffers.

It can be tempting to believe that tarot is promising us something when a good card shows up. But there's no equation: Outcome position + good card = good outcome guaranteed. Although this might be disappointing, there's also no equation: Outcome position + bad card = bad outcome guaranteed. We create our lives; tarot merely reflects what we create. That's why bad cards can be good, because they give us warning of difficulties we might face. It's also why good cards can be good, because they help us realize the value of the positives in our lives, even in difficult times.

The true message in the cards is not "what is going to happen," but "what we can do about it." The insights the cards reveal allow us to make better choices, and create a more productive future for ourselves and the people we care about.

I don't use much the Celtic Cross spread, probably because it's a 10 cards spread and for me currently 10 cards it's a bit too much.

Well, anyway, in relation to this spread & your question Desert Girl, the position 9 in the Celtic Cross is "hopes and fears", therefore the card reflects querent desires!