Exploring Reader Bias

gregory

What is ISG? I'm just trying to get the game. People put their questions in a hat and you don't know whose is whose you just read on it. Is that the jist?
ISG is a reading circle. We have done that exercise a few times, is all. And it worked.
Btw, I didn't get those cards for the effect of Trump's presidency. 😜😊😉
I never said you did. But if you had, you'd have had trouble seeing them as positive. If the reading had been done blind, it would have been dispassionate at least.:)
 

G6

ISG is a reading circle. We have done that exercise a few times, is all. And it worked.I never said you did. But if you had, you'd have had trouble seeing them as positive. If the reading had been done blind, it would have been dispassionate at least.:)

What does ISG stand for?
 

gregory

Intuitive Study Group. Not a great name but we are stuck with it; it's been going so long.

And don't misunderstand me - we don't do this exercise all the time, but we have done it several times over the years.
 

G6

Intuitive Study Group. Not a great name but we are stuck with it; it's been going so long.

And don't misunderstand me - we don't do this exercise all the time, but we have done it several times over the years.

Reading the cards more intuitively. Got it. ✌🏻
 

gregory

More totally disallowing any previous learning/knowledge or "known meanings".
 

Tanga

...Could you do a reading on a public figure you disliked in a unbiased way?

In the post Nothing’s Shocking – the Art of the Pokerface Theresa Reed came at the issue from a different angle, but with a similar message. Her example made me chuckle.

:joke: Maybe... On a good day (that being one of my "better days" at reaching the 'impartial' mark). Right now - NO WAY. As I've been ill for a while and I'm most definitely "feeling slappy". Lol. :)
 

Shade

Shade, That sounds like an interesting workshop. Was it aimed at beginners or more advanced students?

If I understand your example correctly, the attendees were uncomfortable being forced to admit that the 'other side' also had legitimate points and a valid perspective.

Yep this was for more advanced students but I think any levels could do it. And yes, they were uncomfortable because they expected a negative card to appear in the place of the person they are in conflict with.
 

Tanga

It's definitely a tough thing to work ourselves out of.

I recently lead a workshop in which I had the participants do a reading to help resolve a conflict in their life. I had them pull a card representing themselves in the conflict, a card representing the other party, and a card to help resolve the differences. For most people who attended they were surprised that the card representing the person they were in conflict with was so positive. I asked them to try to imagine what they would say to a phantom client if these cards had been pulled by them and that lead to even greater discomfort as they had to articulate what they might tell themselves to do.

P.S. - such an excellent exercise Shade. :)
I like to read Dr.Elinor Greenberg's 'tarot and psychotherapy' posts from The Tarot School newsletter.
She sites interesting examples of how she uses Tarot in her psychotherapy work - along these sorts of lines.


I do these sorts of exercises myself.
 

nisaba

Could you do a reading on a public figure you disliked in a unbiased way?

Yes, if they asked me to. After all, like the non-famous ones, they're just human beings struggling to get through life the only way they know how. Fame doesn't mean a lot to me, anyway. One particularly obnoxious guy tried to pick me up once, and when I ignored him, he tried again by telling me that I wouldn't reject him if I knew his TV show. Oh, yes, I bloody-well would. I'm interested in character, not in TV-minutes or magazine-inches. And all clients are just clients, no matter their manner, or even their smell. I put aside my own impressions and let my deck tell me what their life feels like to them, and what they need to do to improve it.

And if these Famous People don't ask me to read for them why would I be any more likely to read for them than for any of the other billions of humans on the planet?

Actually, when I saw the thread title (Reader Bias), I thought it was going to go in a more interesting (for me) direction: the unconscious biases we show in how we interpret stuff.

For example, we might have a client sitting in front of us in a dodgy relationship, and they might ask us what can they do to improve it. They might pull the Death card. To the fluffier among us, that might mean that the relationship will "transform" into something better with that same person, while the Tarot deck might have actually been trying to say: this relationship is unsaveable, cut it off permanently right now, grieve, then go looking for someone better.

That's the kind of bias I'd hoped the discussion might be about.