Intuition - Anyone Throw away the books?

Yes, you are both right. "Accuracy" was probably the wrong word, "Relevance" of the reading is more what I was looking for. LOL "reassurance" would probably work to

When I was reading in the past (prior to life being turned upside down), the cards were always very relevant and I or the person I was reading for could relate to the traditional book meanings. Reading intuitively may be what I want to do, but I am certainly lacking confidence in my ability to do so

You might find this thread interesting... "accuracy" started out as the topic, but....

http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=187859

also this one.

http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=182846

We shall see you in ISG

shells said:

Yes, you are both right. "Accuracy" was probably the wrong word, "Relevance" of the reading is more what I was looking for. LOL "reassurance" would probably work to

When I was reading in the past (prior to life being turned upside down), the cards were always very relevant and I or the person I was reading for could relate to the traditional book meanings. Reading intuitively may be what I want to do, but I am certainly lacking confidence in my ability to do so

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Don't be afraid, just jump in. You can only be wrong if you expect to make deadly accurate predictions. Be honest and say what you see, and you can't go wrong. I make sure to make a short preamble speech about what Tarot is, what it can do and more importantly, what it cannot. That should be enough for people you read for, to dispel any false expectations, and to give you little breather should things not go smoothly.

Thanks for the links to those threads gregory, certainly interesting reading.

Ok closrapexa, I will heed your advice, stop procastinating and just jump in!

Amen to all of the above!

I agree with all of the previous posters... Sullis said it very well.

Years ago like 20 plus years ago I did use the only book I had for many years and this was the Alfred Douglas one. I cannot remember much of that book now although I still have it. I wish I had some of my old readings as I used to do fairly big longer term spreads back then.. I could see how they panned out!

A couple of my more recent decks I looked at the books briefly, and I have read general books on numerology, tarot etc, but I have always lived by symbols, including many personal symbols... so it is second nature for me to read by intuition. The thing I have found, is the more I do it, the more unique the cards become for each reading. I don't have to do anything, they seem to tune themselves in for a particular reading or with the other cards in a spread and just give me the message like a scroll unfolding... Or like translating one language to another. It felt very strange at first but it is starting to feel more natural, and sometimes I feel almost taken over.

Go for it, you wont regret it! I have LWB's I have never looked at. I haven't tried reading Marseilles style decks intuitively yet, now that must take some doing... I believe there are many readers here who do read Marseilles Style intuitively, Sullis I think does. The Thoth works well though!

I've been doing Minchiate readings intuitively for the most part, although I do need to look up the astrological cards sometimes (that's more my lack of knowledge of astrology than of Tarot!) I may try it with Marseilles next; I never thought I could get anything out of arrangements of suit symbols but it's actually working very well with the Minchie.

Intuition is knowledge based, you need the foundation before you brave the waters of Tarot by intuition. You need to know what the pictures, numbers, swords, colours, etc mean as a functioning tarot deck within the broad definition of a tarot deck to read intuitively. You will not get that from the LWB, that is reading from explicit memory, and is more like a fun fortune telling game. You will not grow beyond what you know of tarot, it you do not read tarot books, just like being able to fix a flat tire on a car does not mean you now intuitively can rebuild a car motor. Intuition is best used, and more often right, when all the factors are already known, but not put together in a "aha" sort of way. You can only be as intuitive as your knowledge base, all your combined memories and life experiences.

The crowned one said:

Intuition is knowledge based, you need the foundation before you brave the waters of Tarot by intuition. You need to know what the pictures, numbers, swords, colours, etc mean as a functioning tarot deck within the broad definition of a tarot deck to read intuitively. You will not get that from the LWB, that is reading from explicit memory, and is more like a fun fortune telling game. You will not grow beyond what you know of tarot, it you do not read tarot books, just like being able to fix a flat tire on a car does not mean you now intuitively can rebuild a car motor. Intuition is best used, and more often right, when all the factors are already known, but not put together in a "aha" sort of way. You can only be as intuitive as your knowledge base, all your combined memories and life experiences.

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Great post! And very true. You said what I've been thinking a lot about lately but was too busy, stressed, scatterbrained (? ) to put together in a post myself.

Well, I don't think you can just pick up a deck with no knowledge of Tarot and read only intiitively. Well maybe you could but the readings would be lacking, I beleive.

I think there has to be some learning of how Tarot works and methodology to start off. For me I read at least 40 Tarot books when starting out. Tarot fascinated me, I couldn't read enough about it.

Over time I tried all kinds of things and developed the method that works best for me. I do read mainly intuitively now. When I get a new deck, I don't read the books that come with it, or an LWBs. I just pick up the deck and read.

But it did take a lot of work to get there. But now I do get the answers mainly from the cards images.

Babs

SunChariot said:

Well, I don't think you can just pick up a deck with no knowledge of Tarot and read only intiitively. Well maybe you could but the readings would be lacking, I beleive.

I think there has to be some learning of how Tarot works and methodology to start off. For me I read at least 40 Tarot books when starting out. Tarot fascinated me, I couldn't read enough about it.

Over time I tried all kinds of things and developed the method that works best for me. I do read mainly intuitively now. When I get a new deck, I don't read the books that come with it, or an LWBs. I just pick up the deck and read.

But it did take a lot of work to get there. But now I do get the answers mainly from the cards images.

Babs

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Absolutely Babs. When I think of the many years I have been dancing around the Tarot, sometimes up close and others from a more distant place, but it has always been there. The books, the decks, the stories,and the past 10 years the web. It is one of those subjects which I tend to absorb by a process almost like osmosis, rather than memory. But yes a lot of time spent reading, studying, playing, discussing, as well as lessons in life itself, all come together with the Tarot.