Intuition vs. Key Words

[Ferendial]

I'm glad I signed up for this forum, I've gotten a lot of good advice in the few days that I've been here! I realize I've been asking a lot of questions, but I have another that's been on my mind since I started learning.

So many times I've googled "how to learn to read tarot cards" and I read so much about the importance of using your intuition, going with your gut, etc. always accompanied by a list of key words for each card. I started giving readings before I memorized all of these key words (I still don't memorize the majority of them!) and decided to just look at the card and see what it means to me. (For the record, I'm using the Radiant Rider-Waite deck)

I gave a reading where the 6 of Swords came up, and I got the feeling that someone was being taken somewhere against their will. The swords seemed to be blocking the two people from escaping, and someone was essentially steering their path for them. I told the querent that and they said they definitely relate to that.

Just today though I decided to look up what the "text book definition" of the 6 of swords is, and I found key words that contradict the vibes I originally got from the card. "New Beginnings" "Overcoming Obstacles" "Bright Future" "Traveling Away from Difficulty." Was I wrong in how I interpreted it?

Similarly, for the Page of Swords I thought of someone careless. He's not holding the sword like a warrior, he's holding it like a toy. I imagined someone who might not be aware of his potential (not understanding the strength of the sword he's holding). Looking the card up today I found that it represents "Dexterity" "Decisive Action" and "Self Control" which definitely is not what I got from the card. If anything I imagined a LACK of self control.

Should I just not trust my intuition when I'm still this new to using tarot cards? Thanks guys!

 

[WhiteWolfy]

My question would be do you use reversals? and if you don't maybe you intuitively picked up the blocked energy (reversed meaning) of those cards.

I would say of course always use your intuition but if you feel you are lacking by all means read up on the keywords but it isn't compulsory and if the feedback from your sitter was positive and in agreement all is fine

Maybe do some readings in the reading exchange for feedback and see how you fare with that and the people on here will give you good and honest feedback if you are not sure how you are doing with your readings

 

[Richard]

Keywords usually are just the intuitive impressions of another person or persons. Your own intuition is likely to be more relevant for a specific reading than a list of keywords made up by someone who had no notion of the question which you are attempting to answer. As time goes on, I daresay you will gain more confidence in your intuition, and regard book meanings as little more than suggestions to consider in case you get stuck.

 

[canid]

Keywords are simply meant to send you down a path - to know the 'basic' energy of a specific card. Which can morph into thousands of interpretations, maybe more, depending on all the variables. Art, question, spread, surrounding cards, INTUITION, etc.

There are some readers who don't know nor do they care care about the trad meanings of a card & if it works for them, great. Keywords are certainly not written in stone. I think they just help you make the leap from what card can mean to what you intuit in a particular situation. The possibilities are endless.

 

[Barleywine]

Keywords are like training wheels and teleprompters. Even the President of the United States uses the latter (and the present one certainly could have used the former )

 

[Richard]

Keywords are like training wheels and teleprompters. Even the President of the United States uses the latter (and the present one certainly could have used the former )

Hmmmmmmm......

 

[rwcarter]

No author is going to be able to list every possible interpretation for a card. And as I've said for years around here, just because it's in print (or on the web) doesn't mean that it's gospel. My general rule of thumb about other people's interpretations is that you should keep what resonates and discard what doesn't.

You got confirmation from the person for whom you interpreted the 6 Swords differently than whatever resource you ended up consulting. So why are you questioning whether your correct interpretation was the wrong one to use?

You and I can use the same deck and see completely different things in the individual cards. All that means is that the deck will give us different cards to get us to the same conclusion and will give us the same cards to get us to different conclusions. That doesn't mean that my interpretations or your interpretations are any better or worse than the other person's interpretations. It just means that the interpretations are different.

Rodney

ETA: And keywords are a fine place to start, but you shouldn't end there....

 

[Shade]

Chiming in on "both." Key words are a jump start but they really stem form the idea that there is a meaning or sphere of meanings for a particular card. When you understand the structure of the Tarot deck you are using, your intuition helps you choose what meanings are relevant to the reading.

Key-word only readings tend to not really tell a story.

 

[Ferendial]

Thanks a lot for all the input, and I'm glad to know I'm not doing it wrong! It definitely makes a reading more of a hassle than anything else when I have to constantly look up each card in some sort of guide. I guess I'm really only concerned about the cards that have meanings that seem "universal," in that I see the same meaning repeated in many different guides.

You got confirmation from the person for whom you interpreted the 6 Swords differently than whatever resource you ended up consulting. So why are you questioning whether your correct interpretation was the wrong one to use?

I guess I just wasn't sure because in a lot of cases people can have a lot of different feelings at once- if I tell someone they're feeling that their life might not be going the direction they want it to go in, they might be able to recall something that makes them feel that way. Similarly I could tell them that they're doing something in their life that's leading them to a fresh start, and they might be able to think of something in that regard that relates to them. I think a lot of the reason that tarot cards "hit home" for a lot of people is that humans experience so many different emotions at once, so it's easy to find a way to relate to each card.

@WhiteWolfy: I did just recently start using reversals, but I'm not sure if I like it. I find that in most cases when I see a reversed card, I find that the upright meaning makes a lot more sense in regards to the question. In this particular reading there were reversed cards, but neither of the cards that I asked about in this thread were reversed. Interesting idea though that I could be picking up on the blocked energies!

 

[Barleywine]

Chiming in on "both." Key words are a jump start but they really stem form the idea that there is a meaning or sphere of meanings for a particular card. When you understand the structure of the Tarot deck you are using, your intuition helps you choose what meanings are relevant to the reading.

Key-word only readings tend to not really tell a story.

I agree. Tarot keywords are similar to astrological interpretations: they are an accumulation of the experience, insights and - ideally - wisdom of many people over a long period of time. A reading using only keywords from a book is kind of like Frankenstein's monster, stitched together from bits and pieces that don't always blend very well together. The art of tarot reading is the act of skilfully blending and often transcending the individual card meanings with personal flashes of insight that push the reading down a specific narrative path - the "story" we all talk about.

I think of it as the three "I's": Inspiration arising from the imagery and symbolic message of the cards, leading to insight about the relevance of the individual and aggregate card meanings to the question, and firing up the intuition to wring out important details where the words and pictures fall short. Some readers see intuition as a kind of "magic carpet" that lets them rise above the drab landscape of traditional interpretation. I prefer to stay relatively grounded and keep it as my ace-in-the-hole to add depth and color, fill in cognitive gaps (by "leaping tall improbabilities at a single bound") and smooth out any bumps in the narrative road. Don't quote me on any of this, I just pulled it off the top of my head. But on reflection its basically how I like to work.