Training Intuition?

[Joan Marie]

I am knocking around some ideas for an interesting exercise for April's Intuitive Study Group / Reading Circle.

Something occurred to me and I think a lively discussion about it would be very beneficial in planning and pursuing this topic, this style of engaging with cards.

The idea is this: Reading Intuitively and Reading "Non-intuitively" (for lack of a better term, but you know what I mean) are NOT mutually exclusive.

Could it be that the difference is the intuitive reader has learned to get out of their own head in a way, not throwing away all they've learned, but rather found a way to summon the essence of their knowledge without being distracted by it?

And might we develop our skills at intuitive reading by employing some kind of exercises to get ourselves used to that kind of "letting go?"

If I were to compare it to something, it would be acting exercises. If you've never done it, you've probably seen it in movies.

Here is a really short video showing an simple exercise, think about what the instructor means when he says "there is no 3".

Here is another short one, that I think could be tweaked to be a Tarot exercise.

The point of these exercises isn't to disregard everything you ever learned, it's to find your way past it to where you are not distracted by it yet subliminally enhanced.

This is not my forte', per se I'm just looking for an angle to approach it from. It may seem counter-intuitive to "train" for intuitive reading but actors train extensively to learn to act naturally and be spontaneous, and to do that well and not awkwardly.

I really do think I see a kind of parallel here.

Really interested in everybody's thoughts on this.

[jaq]

Really interested in everybody's thoughts on this.

I absolutely do think that intuition can (should?) be trained. Just like a creative person (painter, writer, etc.) cannot rely on the muse or talent alone, a tarot reader can't completely rely on their innate intuition.

The first video was a bit difficult for me, partly because I the accent was a bit hard for me, partly because I'm not sure I understood what he was getting at. How I interpreted the "there is no 3" is that in reading intuitively, we can't rely on outside cues, we need to dare and "go" when we internally feel it's the right moment.

The second video holds a lot of promise for a whole bunch of intuitive tarot exercises!

I think for training intuition it IS a good idea to put aside what you have learned so far.

[Myperception]

I personally think that to train our intuition is necessary. I am not a very theoritical person, i tend to follow the book interpretations when i just started to learn to read tarot card, but it didn't work well with me, either I don't pick up the same meaning from the card as per it shown in the definition book, or maybe I just like to free my mind let it sense and predict by itself intuitively. Sound like no logic right? LOL

Till an extend I just give up on the book, and study the card 1 by 1, see what I pick up from each and individual card. Eventually it become much better, and accurate. An example : March intuitive reading circle that coordinate by jaq, though I was too excited to read for kare and I didn't notice the questions should falls under certain form. While I immediately turn the normal tarot readings to intuitive reading, it helps me to pick up more intuitively. Therefore I think besides of what we had learn, at times, we will need to train & trust our intuition when we pull the cards.

I trust apart of what we had learn in past on tarot, oracle, lenormand, playing cards etc. To train up intuition will be a way to enhance our reading. I trust all human beings will definitely have their own intuition in someway or another, we have feelings and senses, it depends on us, how to discover it. It can be an interesting learning journey

[Charlie Brown]

So I drafted out my spicy take, which people think is going to be much better than it is. Before that though, I thought I'd post a few more positive thoughts about my personal practice.

I guess how I've normally thought about intuition in tarot reading is about instinctively knowing when to use secondary meanings or techniques. For example, I had recently been planning to do a three-card line, sentence style, but when I saw the Justice card in the middle I read the flanking cards as what was on each side of the scale. Knowing when to draw an extra card to see what the Fool is walking towards. When to look at the base card to get an extra valence on the reading. When to throw in a little bit of astrology. etc. I would generally define it in my practice as having a wealth of techniques at my disposal but not planning to use them. Based on what other people are doing, this seems to be a pretty conservative use of intuition.

Now, when I get, shall we say, salty, at the reader who says the 7 of Wands tastes like chocolate raspberry, one might think that I'm basically just in favor of a conservative, classically-oriented cartomantic practice. That isn't quite the case. I really enjoyed Jaq's color reading exercise from last month's intuitive circle. As a reader, I'm more concerned that my cards seems to work without spending too much time worrying about WHY they work. There are a lot of theories, of course, some with larger or smaller amounts of "woo-woo." I'm not sure what I believe about why/how cartomancy works, but if there's anything woo-woo that I believe, it's that the cards you draw are inseparable from your intentions. What I liked about Jaq's method is that there was a clear practice to it. It was understood how the spread would be read before the question was asked and the cards drawn. I think this is crucial. On the other hand, while I'm wholly comfortable calling that cartomancy, I'm less comfortable calling it tarot reading, even if it's using a tarot deck. That's a semantic question separate from intuition. Other things I'm not so eager to embrace as card reading. After all, everyone knows the 7 of Wands tastes like pork roast.

Something else I wanted to say... To me, it's of paramount importance to remove my views, biases, and prejudices, as much as possible from the act of reading. It's never wholly possible but that's the goal, I think. Most of the face-to-face reading that I do is for friends and family. People in whom I have a vested interest. They can trust me when I read for them because they know that I look at the cards and don't just impose what I want for them onto the reading. That being said one doesn't always need the cards to know that he's not breaking up with his girlfriend, or at least not for you. I wonder if many of the more successful intuitive readings don't live on this level.

[Joan Marie]

The first video was a bit difficult for me, partly because I the accent was a bit hard for me, partly because I'm not sure I understood what he was getting at. How I interpreted the "there is no 3" is that in reading intuitively, we can't rely on outside cues, we need to dare and "go" when we internally feel it's the right moment.

That was the same take I had too!
I know it was a little abstract, but it's interesting how we both "intuited" the same meaning.

I think this kind of thing can work.

[Joan Marie]

So I drafted out my spicy take, which people think is going to be much better than it is.

I love a good spicy take.

I'm really glad we are having this discussion because if nothing else, it may help break down some of the barriers between the perceptions of intuitive reading and how it is actually practiced.

The more I think about it, and I think this is at least sort of in line with what Charlie Brown was saying, the more I think that developing/understanding one's intuitive senses is just adding another, very important, technique to have at your disposal.

When CB talks about removing biases and prejudices from his reading, I think that requires an actual shift in mental state. It's a kind of preparation for reading. This takes practice, it takes a technique if you will. You need to get in touch with something within you that can get past your vested interest in the person. Or even if you don't have that relationship to the sitter or the issue, you still don't want to impose your personal point of view really. You want to give an objective reading. Many people think the only way that can be done is to be purely pedantic about it, following all the "rules" etc.

Some of the most biased readings I have ever seen (you can find them on various blogs) were done by people who have the most, lets say "educated" approach to tarot reading. They know all the symbols and correspondences, have read all the books, know astrology and Kabbalah, but have lost the ability to get out of their own head long enough to maybe experience things from another person's vantage point, to have a sense of the situation at hand as opposed to a "theory" about it. These are usually the people who scoff the loudest at the concept of reading intuitively.

On the other hand, intuitive practices can, especially easily for some types of people, go way too far up into the "woo-woo", which is located dangerously close to a part of the anatomy where the sun doesn't shine. Rather than being so objective there is no real connection to the sitter or her question at all, it goes entirely the other way and becomes totally subjective. Basically the reader has taken on the role of a "Life Coach" of sorts. ew.

I think what I'm doing here is making a case for the importance of a synthetic approach (as in synthesis) where study and knowledge and practice, work hand in hand with a refined use of detachment. This detachment allows the intuition to play a role.

I'm not sure this is making a ton of sense, and I could go on, but I'm going to leave this for now. Let it marinate a bit.

[jaq]

Just a quick comment before I run off - I think it's worthwhile to read this article on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition

[Charlie Brown]

n.b. this is an inchoate hodgepodge of disparate crap but people wanted me to post, so they get what they ask for. Never let it be said that Charlie Brown isn't a man of the people, nor that his aggression could be construed as passive. Written at midnight, proofread never


One of the biggest problems about discussing intuitive reading is that no one seems to have a clear definition of what intuitive reading means. Because of the term's inherent vagueness, I'm immediately skeptical of people who claim to be primarily intuitive readers. To be be wholly frank, I'd say that—as least as often as not—intuitive reading is what people do when they don't actually know how to read cards but they think they look cool and new-agey when they make things up whilst holding a deck. That, certainly, certainly is a broad brush that doesn't accurately paint everybody, especially on this forum, but, unfortunately, I think it does accurately describe too many people out there.

Having re-read Joan's initial comments, I realize that I misunderstood her a bit the first time I saw them. As I understand it now, she's suggesting intuitive reading as as a way of reading the cards quickly so as to allow one's pre-extant knowledge of the cards to emerge with a minimum of analytic thought. That makes a lot of sense though, for the record, I'd be more likely to refer to this as internalization or facility. What I thought she had meant when she said 'getting out of your head" was that so-called intuitive reading is a way to express messages that originate from outside of the reader's relationship to and understanding of the cards—a type of channelling or mediumship, if you will.

Even though it seems clear now that that isn't what Joan was saying, it was an easy mistake to make because PEOPLE SAY THIS EXACT SAME THING ALL THE DAMN TIME!!!! People continually make this weird elision between what they call intuitive reading and claims to either psychic powers or else some kind of divine spiritual insight that's inaccessible to the unwashed.

Here's a few things I've come across recently:

• An intuitive reader sat for me and argued with my interpretation, insisting to me that our Four of Coins signified a happy family.
• One reader informed me that card A tastes like burnt metal while card B is like chocolate raspberry. Both cards were TdM wands.
• I witnessed someone giving a series 'what do I need to know' style general readings. The answers were straightforward but the cards drawn were pretty much random vis a vis the reading, things like 8 of Wands - 5 of Swords - Temperance = You're going to meet a new guy.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with any of that? Not to mention that I've also noticed that people who claim the mantle of intuitive reader often seem really comfortable offering readings that are unrelated to the question. I get extremely skeptical of any reader who won't interpret the cards within the context of the question. It makes me think that they're more interested in imposing their own agenda onto the reading process.

Ok. So I've wailed and gnashed. Why is this a problem?

It's a problem for a couple of reasons. Some of them depend on the venue. I guess it's fine if someone's effectively claiming that they're a psychic who happens to use/need the cards as an anchor, but that doesn't leave much room for us to discuss or learn about the tarot or cartomancy. If the four of coins means happy family just because you or your angel says so and, next time, it will mean bad sex because you say so, then how do we build from that? How can our understanding of cartomancy grow from that? Moreover, these people seem to haunt the kind of facebook pages where new readers are looking for beginning guidance. They "correct" the young reader's interpretation with no kind of teachable assistance whatsoever, leaving the newbie more confused and less capable then they were in the first place.

I've deleted a section of rant about the passive-aggression that often accompanies these kind of readers, especially on facebook. I did so because I don't have any specific examples to refer to, just a general sense of things. It seems fairly clear though that when you're readings are divorced from any kind of external understanding of the tarot's interpretive traditions that a critique of the reading can easily be equated with an attack on the reader. Doubly so when the reader has presented themselves as giving voice to the divine.

So why is this important?

In some ways, it shouldn't be. There are many ways to read the cards and many of the readers whom I most admire read in drastically different fashions. At the same time, however, while I don't believe that there one right way to read the cards, I do believe that there are probably some wrong ones. On facebook, at least what I see on it, these people seem to be the loudest voices and they consistently tell aspiring young readers that they don't have to study and they don't have to learn since all the answers are already inside them. This can only lead to a lot of ignorant inexperienced neophytes calling themselves readers. This can only devalue the craft even if it sells faerie decks. My position is that bad readers degrade tarot and that more than a fair share of bad readers embrace the intuitive mantle.

And, speaking of bad reading, this whole rant came about from me misreading Joan's initial comments so it really is one of those cases where the pot calls Snoop Dogg black.

[jaq]

My position is that bad readers degrade tarot and that more than a fair share of bad readers embrace the intuitive mantle.

Well, thanks for your rant. I knew you had important things to say.

What you said, in my mind, underscores why it's a good idea to TRAIN intuition. Part of that is knowing that whatever comes to your mind needs to go through some sort of filter, and if it's just a training filter. For example, when I see the five of coins and I think of my grocery shopping list, what do I do with it? After some training/exercise/experience, I will develop a sense for whether this is germane to the reading or whether I'm just distracted. We need to LEARN how to tell an intuitive "hit" from BS. One of the most important filters, and one I have not yet mentioned, is to filter out our ego stuff. And boy, does that ever take training.

One of the things it says in the Wikipedia article is that there is a theory that intuition is just much practiced, internalized knowledge.

When I read tarot f2f, and as much as possible here, I am always prepared to tell people why I make a certain interpretation. If it's a thought/idea that literally just "flew" into my consciousness, I present it with much qualification, and also try my best to explain why I thought I should express that thought.

[Joan Marie]

n.b. this is an inchoate hodgepodge of disparate crap but people wanted me to post, so they get what they ask for. Never let it be said that Charlie Brown isn't a man of the people, nor that his aggression could be construed as passive. Written at midnight, proofread never

Cool rant! Seriously, I love the passion.

I really do agree with your statement about "bad reading" devaluing the craft. By bad reading I think you mean the wilfully untrained, i.e. those who think their "gift" supercedes any need to actually learn the craft or even acknowledge there is one.

And this is why I think it's important we discuss what intuitive reading means and I agree with what you said, people here do seem to get it.

What I was trying to get at earlier was developing intuition as an actual skill, like recognizing correspondences. That was the origin of my comparing it to acting. Acting is all about getting out of your head. It's a thing actors say when they have a bad performance, "I was all in my head and couldn't get out." Yet actors spend massive amounts of time in classes, learning and practicing their craft, studying their characters, etc, etc, and then in the end the goal is just to "get out of their head." It's a skill.

It's about being present. The opposite of being self-conscious.

And maybe that is what I was trying to get to. I think being self-conscious** is the biggest problem readers face, it's a hurdle.

And maybe that's what intuitive reading is? Trusting yourself, the work you've put in, the effort you've made, trusting that to come through and apply to the present moment?

Am I getting warmer?

** not to be confused with lacking confidence. Entirely different thing.

[jaq]

Here's another thing that's of interest here - for any tarot reading, I guess, but also in this context: The "Cooperative Principle" of communication. It's referred to as "Grice's Maxims" (Grice was a linguist.)

Maxim of quality
Supermaxim
Try to make your contribution one that is true.
Submaxims
Do not say what you believe is false.
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Maxim of quantity
Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Maxim of relation (or relevance)
Be relevant.
With respect to this maxim, Grice writes, "Though the maxim itself is terse, its formulation conceals a number of problems that exercise me a good deal: questions about what different kinds and focuses of relevance there may be, how these shift in the course of a talk exchange, how to allow for the fact that subjects of conversations are legitimately changed, and so on. I find the treatment of such questions exceedingly difficult."

Maxim of manner
Supermaxim
Be perspicuous.
Submaxims
Avoid obscurity of expression.
Avoid ambiguity.
Be brief (avoid unnece

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle

[Joan Marie]

There seems to be another thread on the forum having a similar discussion (actually I found several )

This is a topic that sparks a lot of ideas.

I'm not sure we're ever going to satisfactorily define intuition.

Is it a gift from on high? A learned skill? The refuge of the lazy? An extra tool in the toolbelt? Delusional folly, pure woo-woo? A technique for a learned, talented and sensitive reader?

Maybe it's all those things depending on who's wielding the talking stick at a given moment.

I'm gonna throw another possibility out there: maybe intuition is a kind of intelligence.

Stay with me.

There is a very famous speech that started: Eighty-seven years ago....
Wait, no it didn't. It started, Four-score and seven years ago....

Much better,no? It sounds like the the start of a magick spell. It kind of was really. What do you think made Lincoln go with that instead of the simpler "87 years ago?" His intelligence, his creativity? His intuition that it felt more meaningful put that way and people would respond more strongly to it?

I don't know. I wasn't there. I'm just trying to say that intuition has taken on a lot of woo-woo connotations over time, and that maybe we've lost the truer meaning of it.

I'm starting to think that intuition is deeply knowing something without feeling the need to explain it, or explaining it could ruin the spell. Like explaining why a joke is funny always ruins the joke. No comedy writer ever wrote a joke and said, "Now see this is funny because..." You know it's funny if people laugh. That's it. That's the test. And you know your intuition reading tarot is good if the sitter responds to it. Especially if the reader has come up with something very specific.

But just like the good comedy writer, you need to learn your craft. I know lots of funny people. But how many have the discipline and skill to sit down and write something that could actually be usable as a tv or movie script or even a 5-minute stand-up routine?

If you want your readings to say more than an average fortune cookie or newspaper horoscope, you're going to need to get at least a little specific. And that is where your intuition comes in.

I think most of us agree that we already have the answers to all our questions or we wouldn't/couldn't be asking them. The tarot reader helps the sitter tease those answers out by creating pathways of thinking. This requires a kind of intelligence.

Having a strong feeling that something just sounds right, or looks right, or feels right is very real. Every artist knows that. And good ones understand better exactly how it works, how to be truly present as they create.

It think it is the same for cartomancers. You learn the difference between true intuitive experiences and random useless stuff just rising out of your head. You learn what it means to be present. You understand the poise and strength that all your training and study has provided you. You find your voice and know how to use it.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[jaq]

I'm starting to think that intuition is deeply knowing something without feeling the need to explain it, or explaining it could ruin the spell. Like explaining why a joke is funny always ruins the joke. No comedy writer ever wrote a joke and said, "Now see this is funny because..." You know it's funny if people laugh. That's it. That's the test. And you know your intuition reading tarot is good if the sitter responds to it. Especially if the reader has come up with something very specific.

I like the comparison to comedians. Being a comedian is hard work; you don't just figure that people laugh at your jokes, jump on the stage and a year later have thousands crowd to your performance. (The documentary "Comedian" shows some of that quite nicely https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/60024976)

Let me throw out a few definitions from the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, my ultimate go-to for questions like this (translated from Pilosophese:)

• arriving at judgments and decisions without consciously considering options and evidence

• somewhat similar to the above: people sometimes have intuitions about something simply because it is the kind of thing that they can or want to understand under a given circumstance; e.g. it may appear to me that I can intuitively understand something said in Portuguese (a language of which I have a smidgen of understanding) but not in Samoan, of which I know zilch

• “intuitions” are simply opinions ... some are commonsensical, some are sophisticated; some are particular, some general; some are more firmly held, some less [Standford then says those opinions are beliefs]

• some [moral] intuitions may be hard-to-eliminate illusion, similar to certain optical illusions which do not lose their intuitive appeal even when evidence tells us better

• in some cases, tendencies that ‘move’ us in the direction of accepting certain ideas without taking us all the way to acceptance

• an intuition is something that seems obvious, either immediately or upon brief consideration ("Duh! Of course that makes sense!")

• and here is something from another site, of particular interest to us here, perhaps: "An intuition is something that happens inside your head and guts; it’s a feeling. An observation, by contrast, is something that you see in the world." In Tarot, our intuitions ARE about observations, about how to interpret what we observe

Thank you for coming to my philosophy class

[Joan Marie]

I was just going through some notes I took from a workshop with Mary K. Greer for another post and I came across this single sentence:

Intuition is seeing possibilities. - MKG

Could it be that simple? But I think the trick-word here is "seeing" as opposed to "imagining".

[jaq]

Intuition is seeing possibilities. - MKG

I love that, and think that's probably how I use it in Tarot. It's all just about possibilities. I strongly believe that I cannot foretell the future (and doubt anyone else can) but given the question, the sitter and the cards, here are some possibilities, and some of those possibilities arise from a place that is hard to name. The harder it is to name that place, the more I need to qualify my interpretations and double check them with the sitter. Because it's not about me, it's about the sitter. Btw, when I do f2f readings, I always start with a question such as "What do you see here?" In the end, the sitter's intuition is more important than mine.

Let's also not forget that even the non-intuitive interpretations are almost completely based on someone else's intuition. I mean, how did Mathers come up with the idea that the 3 of Wands reversed means "Hope, desire, attempt, wish"? https://benebellwen.files.wordpress.com ... -cards.pdf

[Joan Marie]

Btw, when I do f2f readings, I always start with a question such as "What do you see here?" In the end, the sitter's intuition is more important than mine.

I really am going through my notes tonight.

This comment jaq, really reminded me of another thing Mary K Greer said. (I am really name-checking her tonight.)

She'll ask a f2f sitter, "What is this Queen thinking?"
If the sitter says, "I don't know," she'll ask, "What if you did know. What would she say?"

She said they ALWAYS answer that question.

[jaq]

She said they ALWAYS answer that question.

Well, she is cool. I'm a huge fan of her "21 ways to read a tarot card," which I'm sure I've mentioned at least 21 times here already