Tarot Readings: Relevance and Resonance vs. Accuracy

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I try to make my blog posts as helpful to everyone as possible—I know many of you are looking for tutorials and how-to’s. For this week though, I thought I’d go on a bit of a ramble about a topic that I think deserves to be talked about in the tarot sphere.

Why do people put so much focus on “accurate” tarot readings?

I get it. If you’re the querent and you find that 95% of the stuff your tarot reader told you actually unfolds, then of course you’re going to give them a stellar accuracy rating. Especially if you’re not actually into cards yourself and you’ve never tried reading tarot or oracle for anyone, you’re probably going to assume that your reader or their cards *know it all.*

Synchronicity can feel amazing and awe-inspiring.

Readers—myself included—who get feedback about how “accurate” their readings are can get a rush of blood to the head. It’s an ego stroke! It’s validation that your intuition was on the right track and that your readings are impeccable.

But is accuracy really what we should be gunning for when we do tarot readings?

I don’t think so. At least not in my #practicalmagical book. If all we want to do when we shuffle cards for people is read their minds, predict what’s going to happen to them, and “get it right”, then we’re not just doing them a disservice, we’re also putting ourselves in a tight, restrictive, ego-centric box as readers.

I don’t believe in fixed futures, so getting a tarot reading “right” is problematic to me. I don’t think there are rights or wrongs in tarot readings*. What you do when you try to read for someone through a practical / pragmatic framework is shed light on probable blind spots so that they can move forward better. Your readings are meant to highlight what people most likely need to focus on at any moment in time… so that they can work their way out of a dilemma, move towards a goal, or figure out why their emotions are particularly messy and chaotic.

*Make no mistake, this is something I have to continuously remind myself of, especially when someone tells me that the cards I pulled were accurate!

When someone goes to you for a tarot reading that is relevant and resonant, it’s like they’re going to the optometrist for the first time and realizing, after lenses are switched and placed in front of their eyes, that there’s a way to get out of the blurriness.

There’s no guarantee that everything’s going to be peachy keen after a reading, just as there’s no guarantee that the grade of your glasses or contacts won’t change after time. On the other hand, promising an accurate reading is like telling someone who’s getting Lasik that their 20/20 vision will last forever (newsflash: it won’t—you reach your 40s and your eyes get blurry again!).

The best a person can hope for after a reading is that they gain some self-awareness through the cards. And with that self-awareness they can *fingers crossed* move through their next decisions with more confidence, feeling a little more sure-footed and self-assured. This is the premise I build my readings on. Instead of saying “this is what’s going to happen to you,” the cards I pull are instead, an invitation—to look into certain aspects of your life, examine likely red flags, and think about the best available options.

With tarot and everything else, we can only do our best with what we’ve got and pray the universe cooperates.

Tarot readers are well aware that Tower and 7 of Swords moments can happen to the best of us. The rug can be pulled out from under our feet at the worst possible time (hello, Covid!). People can be menacing and mean, and seem completely innocuous at the same time. We really don’t know what’s going to happen next and so promising accuracy or aiming for accuracy in tarot readings is kind of unproductive and inefficient.

So, what do relevance and resonance actually mean when it comes to tarot readings?

Let’s do dictionary definitions first.

Relevance - the quality or state of being closely connected or appropriate.
Resonance - the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating.

With regard to tarot readings, relevance means interpreting cards so that you come up with messages that a person can easily connect to. The way to do this is to read not by predicting anything, but by exploring possibilities. Everyone who’s ever flipped through a tarot deck’s little white book will know that every tarot card comes with a gazillion meanings and definitions. It’s banking on this expansive and exploratory quality of tarot that allows you to come up with a relevant reading. It’s pulling the 3 of Swords for someone and instead of saying “someone’s dumped you,” saying “ask yourself where you feel most downtrodden or betrayed right now.” Not everyone’s going to find being dumped relevant, but everyone will be able to key in on feeling sad, no matter what they’re going through.

Lindsay Mack, who I consider one of my most important tarot teachers, often talks about how we need to interpret cards openly, so that their meanings ring true for everyone—regardless of who / what / where they are. The tarot is meant to encapsulate the entirety of the human experience. Every card will strike some kind of connection and relevance with someone if you read it broadly and with a 360-degree view of the world.

Resonance, on the other hand, can be a little trickier to tackle. With most tarot readings I do, I send a note that tells the querent they may not resonate with all the messages that came up for me while I was pulling cards… but! It’ll probably help them to go back to the reading after two weeks or a month to check in on whether the cards make sense after a while (guess what? they often do).

Delivering messages that are “deep, full, and reverberating” requires deep empathy and a good command of language—whether spoken or written.

This is probably why a lot of writers end up reading tarot. Natural storytellers are able to place themselves in other people’s hearts and minds. Finding the right words to capture an emotion, a feeling, a desire, or a nagging thought comes more effortlessly to them. What we want our tarot readings to do is go straight to someone’s heart, get to the crux of whatever it is they’re going through, and show opportunity, promise, and possibility.

Tarot readings, after all, are stories we tell in order to help people see their own narratives. They aren’t meant to dictate what anyone’s story is or how it unfolds. Practical + magical tarot readings have no definitive endings—only suggestions and openings where people thought there were blocks and dead ends.

They’re meant to help people discover the overarching arcs, big themes, and exciting possibilities available to them so that they feel empowered and excited to write their own stories.

Your job as a #practicalmagical tarot reader isn’t to write their story for them—only they have the power to do that. And sure, it takes a hell of a lot more work to build self-awareness than to rely on someone to tell you what to do. But your querent will find that if they take ownership of their story (with you, bearing witness to their ability to shape it), then just maybe, their life becomes a little bit more fulfilling.

When they get over their humps, make sense of what’s going on in their lives, and are able to rebuild, it’s them who takes credit for that—not their tarot reader.

Tarot readings that are relevant and resonant are humbling rather than ego-boosting. They show tarot readers the intricate connections between all of us and teach us that not knowing everything about what will happen or won’t happen is a good thing.

I know this was a bit of a long read, but I thought it was important to talk about this. Not everyone reads the way that I do, but I think this perspective is worth a look—whether or not you’re into accuracy in tarot readings.

If you made it this far into this post, then thanks for coming to my TED talk! I appreciate it <3