Asking for what isn't there, being too specific

jenster

I very much appreciate context when reading/interpreting for others. To me, it's invaluable data that can make what might otherwise be an inapplicable, pie in the sky effort into something potentially helpful and worthwhile to the querent. For example: reading on a love interest who's ignored contact attempts for years vs. one who is directly involved with you in person and readily communicative = BIG DIFFERENCE! Tarot cards alone can't always put across all valid information, even when it's a major factor.

On occasion, I've had a purely intuitive card-based hunch prove accurate, which may seem more "impressive" than applying any available information to whatever is revealed and/or suggested by the cards... But I don't view such cases as somehow better or any more useful to a querent. Ideally, I want to be useful. Honesty/forthrightness and logic can only encourage greater usefulness, as far as I'm concerned (though I suspect that some would consider that "cheating" when it comes to reading Tarot cards ;)).

Maybe but I do love those moments of pure intuition. I think it is also an invaluable tool to understanding the cards better, or the cards in our hands. For example The Moon which can and does have a lot of positive meanings has always come as a warning to change course or else.
 

jenster

I think the majority of us have probably crossed the line as far as integrity goes at some point with cards and I'm wondering if it's something we rise above eventually as part of the tarot process of self discovery. We all have a shadow and insecurities and it's pretty natural to wonder how we're perceived by others.

Seems to me as long as we ask the right question for example how does x see me? not what should x see we'll get a pretty good reflection but that includes shadow aspects of ourselves we're not aware of and then wonder why we can't understand or make the cards fit lol. I don't necessarily condone this intrusive practice but what I learned from asking is that other people see us as we are, they see what we're blind to and the cards are a brilliant tool for self correction, problem is I guess in the wrong hands their a brilliant tool for manipulation too so I'm torn.

I don't believe we can rise through the ranks on the side of light without integrity but that's something that's learned with practice.

True. Even the ethics of it are something we learn by trial and error.
And I *loved* what you said about the usefulness to us and our self-improvement in garnering a peak at how others see us. Sometimes when there is something negative which resonates it can work as the greatest wake-up call to start working on our flaws. Other times it's just them having gotten the wrong impression but I believe that too can work for our self-improvement. For example it can be that we present ourselves or behave in a way that causes people to get the wrong impression.

For the last thing an example that comes to mind is reading for a friend and a romantic interest of hers and him seeing her as a party girl. She realised that in an attempt to seem cool to him she kept telling him of wild nights out, hangovers, not getting enough sleep etc.
She realised she was completely misrepresenting herself to him which caused her to change that and it turned out for the best.
 

Barleywine

About how someone feels for the sitter questions (I'm sorry I am not quoting but there are three of you opposed to those readings) I am not opposed to them. Neither what they feel nor think about the sitter.

I would if someone was asking about someone's feelings/thoughts about someone else.

The reason for this (the reason why I don't consider it invasive) is that it presupposes a relationship between the sitter and the person being asked about. So the other person's feelings/thoughts about the sitter are at least partly their business. I do appreciate the stance though, maybe even admire it.

I would be more inclined to tackle how the other person is likely to act toward the querent, more what they're apt to do than what they feel or think. I don't have an ethical problem if - as you note - there is already a connection between the two, but I think thoughts and feelings are entirely too "slippery" and ephemeral to pin down with tarot cards, so it becomes a "psychic fishing expedition." If you want to know how someone thinks or feels at that particular moment, find a way to ask them; there's no guesswork in that.
 

gregory

Hear, hear.

Yes, context is provided by the sitter who can have a mild to wildly skewed perception of the situation.
Understatement of the century. See under Your Readings....

About how someone feels for the sitter questions (I'm sorry I am not quoting but there are three of you opposed to those readings) I am not opposed to them. Neither what they feel nor think about the sitter.

I would if someone was asking about someone's feelings/thoughts about someone else.

The reason for this (the reason why I don't consider it invasive) is that it presupposes a relationship between the sitter and the person being asked about. So the other person's feelings/thoughts about the sitter are at least partly their business. I do appreciate the stance though, maybe even admire it.
Well - as one who doesn't do them either - the thing is that very often the sitter will ask how someone feels about them - and so often (see above) we can presuppose there is some kind of relationship - but very often there actually isn't - it's all in the sitter's wishful mind. There was someone on some forum or other a while ago who KNEW some rock star loved her. Now there it was fairly obvious that it was a fantasy - but there have been threads here where it was obviously fantasy too - so how do we - as readers - know ? I can recall someone who was actually banned here after an endless string of reading requests of this kind. We are quite likely being asked to read on someone who is totally uninterested in our sitter - who has no feelings about them either way.

The other thing is - you can say that someone has a right to know how someone they know feels about them - that it is their business, if they know the person. I don't know that that's true. I'm not even sure that I'd have the "right" to ask a reader how my SO feels about me - and we've been married over 50 years ! If I want to know, I will ask him. If I can't do that, I don't get to ask someone else.
 

barefootlife

Understatement of the century. See under Your Readings....


Well - as one who doesn't do them either - the thing is that very often the sitter will ask how someone feels about them - and so often (see above) we can presuppose there is some kind of relationship - but very often there actually isn't - it's all in the sitter's wishful mind. There was someone on some forum or other a while ago who KNEW some rock star loved her. Now there it was fairly obvious that it was a fantasy - but there have been threads here where it was obviously fantasy too - so how do we - as readers - know ? I can recall someone who was actually banned here after an endless string of reading requests of this kind. We are quite likely being asked to read on someone who is totally uninterested in our sitter - who has no feelings about them either way.

The other thing is - you can say that someone has a right to know how someone they know feels about them - that it is their business, if they know the person. I don't know that that's true. I'm not even sure that I'd have the "right" to ask a reader how my SO feels about me - and we've been married over 50 years ! If I want to know, I will ask him. If I can't do that, I don't get to ask someone else.

I hate to 'this' on the internet, but THIS. Lately there have been a lot of 'how does X feel about me' questions where it comes out later that X and the reader haven't spoken in months, or even years, or never at all. It not only changes the reading dramatically, but is genuinely invasive because these people aren't truly involved in each other's lives. It's just not a good or healthy use of the cards, in my opinion. Bad vibes.
 

gregory

Another way this kind of thing happens is where someone will ask "What did x think when he saw me on the street ?" - well, how do you know he actually saw you and what makes you think he thought anything at all ? It's the assumptions some people who ask the questions make that they even register on the radar of that other person.

Any question that starts by assuming something is an issue, actually - there's also "when I go for this job interview..." when they haven't even heard they got an interview - all those things...
 

jenster

The other thing is - you can say that someone has a right to know how someone they know feels about them - that it is their business, if they know the person. I don't know that that's true. I'm not even sure that I'd have the "right" to ask a reader how my SO feels about me - and we've been married over 50 years ! If I want to know, I will ask him. If I can't do that, I don't get to ask someone else.

That is food for thought (for me). I've always approached it with a lighter heart in that -and I don't know why or where I got this belief, but believe it I do- you can't be told what the person won't disclose. So their feelings/thoughts about the sitter *are* out there (when we can actually reach and read them with tarot) it's just that the sitter is having a hard time understanding/interpreting them.
 

jenster

I would be more inclined to tackle how the other person is likely to act toward the querent, more what they're apt to do than what they feel or think. I don't have an ethical problem if - as you note - there is already a connection between the two, but I think thoughts and feelings are entirely too "slippery" and ephemeral to pin down with tarot cards, so it becomes a "psychic fishing expedition." If you want to know how someone thinks or feels at that particular moment, find a way to ask them; there's no guesswork in that.

Well, yes. But usually you ask the tarot things that are hard (for whatever reason) to figure out on your own and simply.
 

gregory

Well, maybe. But even so - for pity's sake ASK - and then if you don't get it - ask for elaboration. :) If you don't know them well enough to ask, you probably don't know them well enough to be told !

I would love to believe the cards won't disclose what someone doesn't want you to know - but then again, I see these threads "He hasn't asked me out, is he gay ?" The very idea of outing someone through tarot - just NO - and still we get "what cards will show me if he's gay ?"

But that is a more extreme example of why I don't like the whole idea.

The other big thing is - for me, tarot offers options. But the only thing you can DO is what YOU can do. What I'd like to offer in a reading is suggestions for action. And you cannot act for that other person.
 

Arania

I usually don't mind such questions within a context, or as part of an in-depth reading. My responsibility is mainly to the client, not to the people asked about. The tradition I grew up in always made that very clear. There are exceptions, like when the cards clearly say not to answer, or not to answer completely.

What I don't do anymore are such simple "how does X feel/think about Y." In my recent experience, 80% of them are useless as X does indeed not feel anything. Also the people who ask those questions keep coming up with more some such, as if they are addicted to simple questions and looking for simple solutions. That's just not what Tarot is all about.

"Should I do a or b" questions are in a similar category, some people keep coming back to ask again and again, and even if they are different "a or b" questions, I can't sem to explain to them that they need to make their own decisions.

This is also why I could never work for a hotline.