Disagreeing with a reader's interpretation

[Cicas]

Sorry, thought I put this in the wrong spot, then realized that it probably isn't and bringing it back...

I've been lurking for a long time but this is my first real post - I think this is where it should go but I apologize if it's better placed somewhere else

I had a six card reading about a relationship. I relate to the individual cards in their positions, but my interpretation of the spread is completely different than the reader's.

However, I know that sometimes we are blinded when interpreting cards for ourselves. I know nothing is set in stone but her interpretation (cautionary) is completely opposite of mine (moving towards awesome).

So this got me thinking about who the cards are trying to talk to - me or the reader? Did they line up in order to create the message that I was meant to interpret, or in order to allow the reader to communicate what I need to know?

Has anyone else run into this? If so, who's interpretation was closer to what actually ended up happening - yours, or the reader's?

 

[chaosbloom]

Both reader and querent can fall prey to their own prejudices. The querent might want to see everythng as positive while the reader might be negatively biased and end up painting everything black. I think it's pretty common for some readers to always point out how any situation you might ask about is terrible and that you need to escape.

The cards should be speaking in the reader's personal symbolical language but they're meant to answer your questions. The point is, does the interpretation feel right? If it doesn't, just follow your own intuition.

 

[Padma]

While I agree with ChaosBloom in theory, I have had people here who read ask me for a reading, then say "oh. No, I don't think that is what it means, I think it means this" and I find that really off-putting. If one thinks they know better than the person reading for them, then they should stick to reading their own cards, imo. Don't ask if you don't want to hear it from another person.

The reader of the cards may be picking up on nuances and intuitions that the sitter has no clue about, even if they are well-versed in the cards, and I would at least take the reader's point of view into consideration, and store it away to check back on later.

I will tell you a story: when I was very young and green, and though I knew a bit about reading cards cause I had been reading them for about 5 years, I went to a psychic and card reader.

The reader told me my impending marriage would fail horribly, and that I was not meant to marry him. He said it was not going to last long at all, and I would soon be fighting my way out of a nightmare court case.

I was enraged, as I was getting married the following week, and I believed myself in some sort of love heaven match, and so I walked out in a huff without paying, thinking I knew what the cards were saying better than he did. (what can I say, I was young, proud, short sighted and stupid!)

Turns out my marriage was a total nightmare - drug abuse (his) physical abuse etc. and I am lucky that I got a beautiful son out of it, and lucky to have gotten out alive. It was a nightmare to get out of everything, but I won full custody. (My son is 30 years old now).

You could argue I *was* meant to marry dude, as I had a wonderful child with him...but I think that was just a stroke of wild luck (longer story there I am not inclined to put in here). I think if I had listened to the reader, while I would not have my particular beautiful son whom I adore, I might have had another beautiful child that I would have adored, with a man who actually cared about me.

Anyways. I leave you to draw your own conclusions from all that, but I still think that it might pay to put the advice of the reader on the back-burner, and maybe open your eyes a little to any potential red flags, without creating them. You may like to take a more objective view of your relationship. In hindsight, I saw indeed that I was being ridiculously immature and blind to marry that man, and I was blinded by my infatuation, and my pride, so certain that I was smarter and "right-er" than that reader.

Cautionary tale!

 

[chaosbloom]

Yeah actually Padma's right. While some people might have biases when interpreting the cards, that's not always the case and it might be the querent and not the reader who's really mistaken because they're more invested in the outcome. I've seen both happen but I'm not sure which one is more likely after all.

The reader told me my impending marriage would fail horribly, and that I was not meant to marry him. He said it was not going to last long at all, and I would soon be fighting my way out of a nightmare court case.

I was enraged, as I was getting married the following week, and I believed myself in some sort of love heaven match, and so I walked out in a huff without paying, thinking I knew what the cards were saying better than he did. (what can I say, I was young, proud, short sighted and stupid!)

Please tell me that you remember the cards involved? It would be extremely useful to see how those cards were interpreted differently.

 

[gregory]

Yes indeed. I'm with Padma too. Too often we approach a reading )self or otherwise) expecting the cards to deliver what we wanted and going into denial when they don't.

Hearing the answer we wanted, rather than hearing the message that was actually delivered. Slippery slope there.

 

[Saskia]

I had a six card reading about a relationship. I relate to the individual cards in their positions, but my interpretation of the spread is completely different than the reader's.

So this got me thinking about who the cards are trying to talk to - me or the reader? Did they line up in order to create the message that I was meant to interpret, or in order to allow the reader to communicate what I need to know?

Hi Cicas, that's a very good question. I mostly second the others who have replied already: it's more likely that the person who has emotions invested will read the cards to get the message s/he wants, whereas an outsider can see them more objectively.

However, it's also possible that the particular reader you asked doesn't know or use all the definitions the cards can have and only reads them one way, whereas most cards actually have multiple meanings and the message changes according to that tone. I'd go and ask the same question from one or two other readers too to see what's the vibe/direction it seems to be going.

I've recently started reading to other people here in AT and found that the most common question is 'how things will go with x', x actually being an ex. The most liked interpretation of course would be 'you'll be in love foreverl'. Understandably, people have really hard time with accepting when the cards give answers such as things can't or won't progress to where you want them to go, just be content with what you already have in your life and/or move on from this person.

I can admit that based on my general life experience, getting permanently back with your ex hardly ever works out, so I might be biased in seeing negative answers*. But then again, the sitters I've had to give a negative answer to, have not gotten back with the ex (at least not yet) so I'm bound to belive I saw the message more objectively.

*) I haven't known in all the cases that the person in question was an ex, not a current or prospective new partner, so my negative bias about exes wasn't behind the negative interpretations in these cases.

 

[Barleywine]

The one question I have is whether this was a face-to-face reading or a "remote" one. I only read face-to-face, where any such divergences of opinion can be discussed candidly and hashed out via a constructive dialogue. There may still be some bruised egos, but at least the air is cleared and a mutual understanding can be approached. After several decades of doing this, I still learn something from every reading, and it usually comes as a result of a shared investigation of the meaning of the spread. I've never felt that tarot readings are intended to be unilateral pronouncements, but rather joint journeys of discovery.

 

[chaosbloom]

I've recently started reading to other people here in AT and found that the most common question is 'how things will go with x', x actually being an ex. The most liked interpretation of course would be 'you'll be in love foreverl'. Understandably, people have really hard time with accepting when the cards give answers such as things can't or won't progress to where you want them to go, just be content with what you already have in your life and/or move on from this person.

I can admit that based on my general life experience, getting permanently back with your ex hardly ever works out, so I might be biased in seeing negative answers*. But then again, the sitters I've had to give a negative answer to, have not gotten back with the ex (at least not yet) so I'm bound to belive I saw the message more objectively.

I think saying that "the cards don't show many chances for a reconciliation" and saying "you should move on" are completely different things. One is predictive and interpretive but the other is basically common wisdom advice based on what the cards say. Moving on isn't always a good solution and while it might work for people who like to fly from flower to flower, it won't work for more steady types who commit more strongly but rarely.

For example, many years ago, I chose not to move on after a bad breakup, more than six months passed and then we managed to be together again and stay together for years. But even if we hadn't reconnected, the time taken to re-evauluate and recover was valuable. Constantly moving on after things like that drives some people to become emotional/relationship junkies or never bothering to improve themselves or be more accepting of others, preferring to find the next best thing instead until the cycle repeats.

I'm not saying you're advocating any of those things, just my thoughts on how I see the commonplace "move on" advice.

 

[emilygrace]

Here's another perspective I want to add. You're all right, however I do think that sometimes a reader can be wrong. Like very wrong. Not every reader can connect with every querent (I know many people who've had bad readings from people I personally connected well with and vice versa), and sometimes a certain question may not be meant to be answered at that time. I've even had readings from this site (I won't mention any in particular) that I knew intuitively were just completely, totally, waaaaaay off. It happens. Sometimes the reader can have an off day, or maybe they don't know how to read as well as they claim to. I had an experience like the latter once, where I bought a reading from someone off of Etsy who told me the most horrible things, left me in tears, and then took the opportunity to sell me her hoodoo products to fix it. Yeah...

As chaosbloom said earlier, if you intuitively feel as though the reading just doesn't seem right, then it likely isn't. However, you also have to be careful when you're attached to the subject and a particular outcome, because sometimes it might not be what you were hoping for. Be careful about readings that are overly positive, but also ones that are overly negative- a reading should leave you feeling empowered, not confused or in tears. Also be wary of asking the same question too many times, because I find (from personal experience) that time and time again it will only cloud the accuracy the more you ask it.

 

[Cicas]

Thank you everyone for the responses. I greatly appreciate the insight and personal experiences. I definitely agree that we all fall victim to prejudices when reading and that it's easy to ignore a warning when you're personally invested in the outcome. I initially didn't include information about the cards because I didn't want this to be mistaken for a reading interpretation post, but there's a single card that's causing the difference in interpretation, and it's the devil reversed
(I believe someone asked about the nature of the reading and it was remote).

It was a relationship reading and the cards were 4 cups (me), 10 pent rx (him), devil rx (above), queen of wand rx (below), 8 wands (past), sun (outcome). I agreed with most of her reading but she basically said that since the devil was present, I should leave the relationship and she said the sun was a future with someone else (she drew another card - knight of pents).

I get how she'd see this, but she seems to be extremely prejudiced against the devil card, like it always means a bad relationship. She didn't read it "wrong," but when I read for myself, the devil almost always indicates obsession in thought, a trap of the mind.

Sometimes I fixate on something and get trapped in doubt, to the point of inaction. So if I feel like I'm getting obsessed with a thought I'll ask the cards if there's anything I really need to know about situation X and if it is unwarranted obsession, i draw the devil and it helps me clear my head. It's actually one of my favorite cards.

So based on my thoughts and feelings and the situation, I see the devil and the queen of wands and the 8 of wands saying "hey, stop freakin obsessing over your self destructive mind trap because you know you're doing nothing to improve the situation. you've handled this before, just do what you know you need to do to take yourself and it'll be cool."

I wouldn't expect anyone else to interpret it that way...like I said, that's really based on my personal relationship with the devil (i am depression prone and can engage in some pretty self destructive thought processes). However, her personal relationship with the devil seems to be addiction, manipulation, abuse and DOOM!!.

So that's when I started to wonder who the cards were talking to. Were they catering to her perception of the devil and asking her to advise me to move on, or were they drawn based on my personal relationship with the devil card?

Way too early for any indication but we'll see. Just kind of an interesting concept