do you need to be psychic to read tarot?

tigerlily said:

Intuition:

"The immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning process"
Oxford English Dictionary

“Intuition is a combination of historical (empirical) data, deep and heightened observation and an ability to cut through the thickness of surface reality. Intuition is like a slow motion machine that captures data instantaneously and hits you like a ton of bricks. Intuition is a knowing, a sensing that is beyond the conscious understanding — a gut feeling. Intuition is not pseudo-science.” Abella Arthur

Psychic:

The word psychic refers to a claimed ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through what is described as extrasensory perception, or to those people said to have such abilities. (...)It has also been used to describe the belief of the ability of the mind to influence the world physically and telekinetic powers some claim to demonstrate, such as Uri Geller.(...)The scientific community has rejected all claims of psychic phenomena (...)."
Wikipedia

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Well by those defintions I am psychic. And I was not at all when I started reading. So that says to me that reading Tarot can make you psychic. Because I developed those skills purely through my readings.

Babs

SunChariot said:

Well by those defintions I am psychic. And I was not at all when I started reading. So that says to me that reading Tarot can make you psychic. Because I developed those skills purely through my readings.

Babs

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we are all psychic!

definitions are often useless in the spiritual world, everyone wants to name something differently and it causes fractions. is the oxford dictionery the source of all knowledge? how after does it get corrected/updated because something has changed...

perhaps a better way of saying psychic would simply be saying that its information we could not have assertained from a logical source (past history etc), its that leap between what you see and what it means, and the bridge you cant see but you know its there.

one small word scares soo many people, am not sure why? perhaps because its a label? but if thats the case people should be scared of 'intuition' too

lark said:

With all due respect I have to disagree with this 214red.
They are not the same at all...and in order to answer this question they should be defined.
To use intuition is to constantly access information from the world around you .
We all do this all the time...when a mom suddenly decides to check on the kids because somewhere in the back ground she is sensing it is just to quiet...she is using her intuition.
We all use intuition as card readers...we take in how our client looks...clothes they are wearing... what they say... how they act... body lauguage... and by using all of these signals we us our intuition as part of the reading along with standard card meanings.
This is one way to read cards and many do...so it is certainly possible to be a card reader and not be pychic.

But a psychic card reader has an added element of knowing...it is not based on gathering knowledge from the knowable suroundings and making an assessment ...it is based on a knowing outside of themselves...a flash I call it, that just comes in and has nothing to do with or connects it with the known information infront of them.
To have a pschic flash is to know your client's brother was buried in a red Cardinals tee-shirt.
To know that your client had a dog named Ike
To know that your client has a secret fishing spot in Alaska.
You just know, you see it and you say it, and you just know without a doubt....that is psychic reading.
And it's a very different animal from intuitive reading.

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You've said it, Lark. That's exactly the difference between intuition and psychic knowledge. They are not the same, though people often confuse them - even on this thread, as I see!

Intuition is based on information our minds process in ways so fast we don't follow the routing. It's not logical processing like analysis or conscious recall, and it's not observation. It is faster than any of that and to a large degree unconsciously used (or rather, the information is processed under the radar of our immediate consciousness, until it appears fully formed as out of nowhere). Intuition has been very well studied these past few years by clinical psychologists and neurologists and other brains experts - it seems that intuition is even more important than we thought, and certainly more important than logic, even among people who do logical-type work.

Psychic knowledge is given to us from an outside source. We "know", though we have no way of knowing from our own experience. It's not the same thing as intuition, and to use them interchangeably is simply a misuse of language. And I'm sorry, Red, but "spiritual" does not mean ignorant and shouldn't be used as an excuse to throw language out of the window because people can't be bothered to learn or use the right words for things.


To be a good tarot reader, you need to tap into intuition, but you don't need to by psychic. On the other hand, the more you develop your reader skills, the more likely you are to discover you have some psychic capacity. It's by no means necessary, but it's fairly common.


That does not mean there's anything to be afraid of if you are psychic.

Thank you Sophie
And I totally agree you don't have to be psychic to be a reader...and you can cultivate psychic abilities by practicing as a reader, but not every reader is a psychic reader some are intuitive readers.
And as the thread starter used the word psychic I thought it would be a good idea to define it.
There seems to be so much confusion as to the difference, with many thinking there is no difference.

Reading as a psychic is not controlable as the information comes from outside normal gathering sources.
You can train yourself to be more open and better at picking things up...and that's where tarot certainly helps as a training and focusing tool.
But Psychic is a maverick with it's own way of doing things and you can't snap your fingers and it's going to come to you.
It in a way tells you...you don't tell it.
It might want to come in as a movie in your head, or a smell, or a feeling, or holding an object starts the process.
If there is anything scary about it I think it is this very thing..that it is unpredictable as to weather it will make itself felt in a reading or not.

To read intuitively you can actually study and gather in on purpose many bits of information and it will eventually filter back as intuitive response in a reading.

So most psychic readers read with all three in place, card meanings, psychic flashes and intuitive response.

I know of a few readers who do read totally psychically (I read this way more and more myself)...but you need to also be ready for them to say..."I'm not getting anything right now."
Because that can happen.

Our Senses

I pretty much agree with everybody. I do not believe in "psychic" as it were. For me is all about paying attention to my senses and inner knowing. As a child I read people by color. My mother never told me that people were not red, green, blue, or any other color I chose. While I don't specifically see color around people anymore, I do see from white to black around people. More like a gauze film.
I have also had 19 years of Transactional Analysis study. (Long story) When I finally understood basic human communications (including body language) a whole new realm of inner senses blossomed. I really think the tarot opens the mind and gives us a glimpse of the possibilities. Learning to believe in and understand our own sense of self and ability is the key to "psychic" abilities. Everybody has it.... Just a matter of if you are willing to develop it or not.
Note: The biggest part of my education came from Traditional Native American values and views of our natural world. But that is another topic.

When I started reading tarot, I realized I have been reading people in one form or another my whole life. While I was learning the TA I was also reading the body with a hands on method by directly channeling energy through my hands, through the other person, and back to myself. Took me a long time to confirm that what I was reading was indeed real. Tarot is just another way to do that.

we had an old thread a while ago with this title, and I still say, No you don't have to be psychic to read tarot (although it helps) for me reading tarot is an art form as well, the ability of reading the story that lays infront of you