I joined this forum a few months ago, and have been trying to learn all I can. I do have a question about tarot readings. In the reading/research I've done, I've seen a lot of opinions about this. Some say if you have multiple areas of your life you'd like to have a reading on, you need to have multiple readings. Others say you should only have one that encompasses everything. Some say that you shouldn't have them often, others say you can do one daily if you'd like. Some say that you should never do your own reading, others say if you're experienced enough, it is no problem to do your own.
For those of you that are experienced, what is your take on this, and why?
I've never had one, or tried to do one, but I am interested.
It depends on the reader, and who is receiving the reading. Maybe those who incorporate the tarot in the traditions of Golden Dawn and Thelema have a specific way of reading, for example the Opening of the Key tarot spread takes forever to lay out and read, and it determines what the area of life is going to be, or even if you get a reading. If you can't find the significator in the first section that you get, then no reading. But that's specific to those traditions.
More intuitive tarot readers either feel that they're called to general readings, or specific areas of life, or letting the reading itself call attention to the specific area if there is one. Intuitives can schedule and pace themselves, or have readings as often as they want, or tell others not to get readings so often because the situation would not have changed in two hours and they should focus their time and energy on something other than getting tarot readings because there is such a thing as life. When I was beginning to learn to read tarot cards, I did readings for myself a lot.
"Some say that you should never do your own reading, others say if you're experienced enough, it is no problem to do your own. "
Since the previous poster answered the rest of your queries rather handily and fairly well, I shall take this one then.
I personally have read for myself plenty of times. I love to just take the major arcanna cards , draw one and use it as a meditation focus. Sometimes , I just draw it and just contemplate. I think the people that suggests that an individual should not do their own reading is that one can be biased to their own point of view or one can inteprete the cards in such a manner that is favorable to you when the situation is not. One can sometimes be too involved in the matter or just overlook it due to their own hubris.
Here is a genuine experience of mine that happened quite awhile ago:
I happily settled down at my desk and started shuffling the cards. Asking the cards if there was anything that they wished to tell me. I obtained the card " The Fool". Now , I am usually a very nice tempered person , who usually think before I speak and carefully view a situation before doing anything else so I was baffled. I don't think anything else in my life could relate to this card. What the hell? Why was this card drawn? I shuffled the deck , drew a card and suddenly felt a strong urge to invert it before flipping it over to see what it was. It was "The Fool" but reversed. Clinically , I took alook at it and muttered some meanings. But the feeling that I was ignoring foolishness felt unusually strong on me. Once more , I shuffled the deck and drew a card. It was the same card. "The Fool". Normally , when cards are recurring , one would take a look at it again , contemplate it more deeply and try to resolve the issue. I did not feel like it and so , I nicely organised my deck and put it away in a drawer.
I then sat at my desk and decided to do something relaxing. I personally loved playing with fire and so I did so. I took out some flammable materials such as paper , candles , wax , charcoal , deoderant , labatory safety goggles etc. All of this are all easily reachable and always in my workspace so that I can enjoy this passion of mine. I even had some water , a large bottle of water beside me to drink and put out the flames. Soon , I had a nice fire going on my desk. Antics started flowing freely , antics such as taking a mouthful of vodka and spitting it to the flames , waving my hand over the flames , spraying deoderant and seeing it catch fire is not uncommon and usual practice. However, since I could not use aluminium foil as a unburnable base , as I was too lazy to walk into the kitchen , I just used some thin wood I got from a drawer. I knew I should just go and get some aluminium foil but I ignored that thought. I played with it for awhile and then decided to go to the kitchen to get a drink, leaving the fire unattended.
I opened the freezer and my blood ran cold. It was my smartphone and it had been there for more than half an hour! The freezer have an average temperature of -15 to -20 degrees.I placed it there to cool off after it got too warm in my hand for comfort as I had been using it too long. I picked it up. The phone felt as cold as ice. The human body could not really tell how cold an object is after a certain temperature but it was pretty darn cold. I panicked. What would I do? The phone has some important data that was not backed up onto it! I need to heat it up but I wasn't thinking. I poured water over it. The phone was still cold. In fact , the water was cold. It was only later that I should not have done that. I craddled the phone close to my body , trying to warm it up with my body heat while I walked back into my room in a mild panic. I tried turning it on. The phone was still very cold to the touch. I have reached my room in a daze at this point. The screen lit up , but only partially , the top part of it remained black while the bottom half had flickering lines of light. I released the power button and it flickered off.
I was pretty darn upset and was not thinking rationally. I retook my seat and looked at my phone. I need to warm it up even more! Pronto! The longer it remained cold , the more it will worsen. I poured some water over it. I berated myself. What was I doing? I tried that and it failed!
Then , I looked at the fire. It was there , looking beautifully at me. I blinked and was gently entralled. Without thinking , I put my phone into the flames. "It will be warmed up soon" , I thought tiredly to myself. And I leaned backwards and closed my eyes. Damn it , there was some nice pictures that I had not backed up , some articles I saved that I would like to read , some e-books that I had downloaded onto my phone that I did not backup to a desktop. It better survive.
I opened my eyes and saw my phone in the fire. What the hell was I thinking? I doused my hand in water, and quickly took out the phone. The phone was warm to the touch. Not a good sign. I sighed. I was so foolish about it and I panicked and rushed into the situation to much and my phone was likely dead. I doused the fire and started clearing the ashes. It was so foolish of me. I definitely see what the cards meant now. No way was this a coindence. I saw the thin wooden base that I burned. And again , another shock happened. That squarish piece of wood had some of my earliest drawing designs that I was particularly fond of that I kept it for a few years and now it was blackened , covered in soot. I sighed tiredly.
This seemed like exactly what the cards meant. Three Foolish Mistakes , the first being dousing my phone in water , second, placing it into the fire and finally burning a destroyed piece of wood that had some of my favourite drawing designs.
This is actually a true experience of mine. It's a while back and the experience was rather surreal when I think about it now. Heck , it was particarly surreal when I went through it!
Three Fools indeed. Even if one thinks fortunetelling and divination are bullocks and a piece of crap , the chances of drawing the same three cards in a row is less than 0.01%. That was the best coincidence ever in my opinion!
If you choose to do your own readings , take a step back and view the situation and reading in a detached manner and hopefully you will not get your hands burned for overlooking what your cards tells you. Good luck with your future readings!
Thank you for your replies! You both brought up interesting points. I always enjoy hearing about other's experiences because as a person who is just now learning about this, usually it reminds me of something else that I've read and it helps to connect the dots so to speak.
