definitions of readings....

214red said:

hmm curious, am i right to sum up the last few posts by saying that its perception that stops some people saying they are psychic?

that seems such a shame, that peoples perception, and the odd arrogant 'psychic' reader is causing people not to use the word.

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I find that when I call myself a Tarot reader, many people will ask if I'm psychic (something they wouldn't be so likely to do if I said I was up front). My answer is always that I think everyone is psychic, and that I don't consider myself more psychic than the average person. So in that respect I think it helps the perception change, oh so gradually. When, on the other hand, someone advertises themselves as "psychic" and gives a wrong impression of what that means, of their own abilities or of what a psychic should be, I think it feeds into the wrong perceptions. This happens because they're often trying to impress on people that they're more talented or special, that it's something only they can do and unreachable for the average person. Mind you I don't say all purported "psychic" readers do that, but enough do that it is in part how we've arrived at all these mis perceptions.

So, if the exaggerated ideas people have about psychics are that only a few people can do it, or that anyone who claims to do it is scamming, then surely it doesn't hurt to 1) not give others the wrong impression about being "special" and 2) when asked, promoting the idea that everyone is psychic.

I think I am quite intuitive, but not physic. That is the way I see it. They are not the same thing to me. Well maybe they are, but it's a matter of degree. I am not intuitive enough, the way I define it, to be psychic. To me if I were psychic, I would be able to know with or without the cards. I am good at interpreting the cards, but without them I just have no idea. Those who are psychic to me, don't need the cards, the cards simply enhance things. I can't do it without the cards. I can follow the card images and get the message when the cards are there, but I need them to read.

People presume that I am psychic because I am a reader, but I don't think I am. I do think everyone can develop their intuitions. But to me being intuitive and being psychic are not the same. The latter is a gift (or I know some who have had it who considered it a curse) but it is something that goes beyond and is more powerful than what most people can experience in their lives.

Barbara

I call myself a tarot reader because that's what I do. I've been asked several times whether I read palms. I can and I have. But, as I am quick to tell those who ask me, it's like wearing someone else's glasses. I can see a little, but not as well if I wear my own (tarot).

Just because I use glasses (tarot), doesn't mean I can't see. It just means I don't see as clearly as I wish I could.

Barbara, you bring up such an interesting distinction. I don't know where the gradation would come between intuitive (getting messages from not-always-conscious sources) and psychic (getting messages from, hmm, where DO they come from anyway?). I just know that I get some of those messages, not all of them, that it's not like the movies. And, if I did have the winning Lotto numbers, you'd have heard about me in a big way in the newspapers. Basically, it doesn't work like that (the Lotto, I mean). But I have had information, sometimes really detailed, that I had no way of knowing. And I do think the more you do it, the better you will be. And I don't think it's more or less special than anyone else's ability to pick up on things. I can make all the jokes I want about my gypsy gr-gr-grandmother, but I don't credit her with my interest or intuition any more than any other inherited trait. I never knew her; she could have been thick, who knows?

Like everything else in the human experience, I expect this kind of trait has a "bell curve" with some few people being extraordinarily gifted and some few people being extraordinarily "ungifted" and the rest of us somewhere in the vast middle. I can say with certainty that given the right circumstances, I would NEVER have been able to become a pro basketball player; again, though, under the right circumstances, I might have been an OK swimmer. I'm not either of those things because I didn't pursue them and wasn't interested.

I think all "gifts" are mixture of your potential and what you make of that potential. So I think I'm a better tarot reader than I was last year because I have studied, practiced, read, practiced, exchanged ideas, practiced...did I mention practicing?

If you have "flim flam" in your heart, no matter how psychic you are, you'll probably ruin it. If you have honesty and sincerity in your heart, and you practice, practice, practice, guess what? You still won't be perfect. But, you'll be better than you were last year.

When people ask me if I'm psychic, I have to say, like Griz said, "sometimes". I also answer a question they may not have asked, which is, am I doing this for laughs? While I enjoy reading cards very much, I am most sincere about it. And my focus isn't on me, but on the sitter. Sometimes the messages are funny because people can be funny. But I'm not doing it for laughs. I do it because I love.

i am loving the discussions in this thread!

Barbara i think its simply a lack of confidence that makes you think your not psychic, i do beleive there are gradients of the ability, and your modest enough to know where your abilities lie....your still psychic

Griz- i understand that you go for integrity, and its disheartening when people think they are the source not the messenger, when they think its all about them, it does give psychics a bad name.

Marcia - thanks for your post,i enjoyed reading it


Gypsyspell- its interesting to see the way the words psychic and clairvoyant have been percieved differently recently, in the UK at the moment people are loving both words because they interpret it as someone that can give them hope, they are popping up everywhere, am not saying thats a good or a bad thing...i do think when anything is too popular it tends to taint it because some people want to cash in

Different people have different definitions of 'psychic'.

According to MY definition I am intuitive but not psychic.

According to other people's definitions who knows?

Aerin said:

Different people have different definitions of 'psychic'.

According to MY definition I am intuitive but not psychic.

According to other people's definitions who knows?

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That's what I am starting to think. By my personal definition I also would say that I am intuitive. This means in practise that when I read I am not infrequently surprised at what comes out of my mouth (or fingers in typing), that I often know things just before they happen and similar 'knowings'. However compared to some flat-out psychics around here, well, no comparison.

Alta