Whether you read cards by yourself or get readings from someone else, you might have asked at least once in your life:
Can tarot cards be wrong? If yes, when can they be wrong?
Let me tell you that you’re not alone. Quite possibly, every person who has ever ventured into the world of tarot has asked these questions.
I think it’s human nature to question everything. And that’s completely okay! After all, you only find the truth by seeking, isn’t it? And when it comes to divination practices, it’s only normal to at least wonder.
So, when are tarot cards wrong?
The answer to this question is quite simple. Tarot cards are never wrong. It is only the reader who makes mistakes in interpreting them. In other words, there can be certain cases where these cards appear to be wrong but that’s only because the reader isn’t able to connect the dots properly.
In this article, I’ll be talking about all these scenarios and also how you can ensure that you don’t get wrong readings.
When Can Tarot Cards Be Wrong?
A tarot reading involves drawing out several cards and trying to figure out the overall, as well as specific messages.
Since there are 78 cards in a standard tarot deck, you can imagine how there can be endless combinations for any query.
As such, it takes intuition and experience to be able to do accurate readings.
As a reader, you need to be able to connect to the cards on an energy level and figure out what they are trying to say. It’s like trying to figure out what a baby wants to tell you or what a person speaking another language wants to say to you.
Since there is so much going on during a reading, there can be scenarios where it might appear that the cards are giving out wrong readings. Let’s take a look at some of the more common scenarios.
1) Personal Bias
As human beings, we all have our biases.
There is no point even arguing against it. Each one of us perceives the world in our own way and we all have our preferences and inclinations.
The problem is that these biases can show up where they don’t belong at all. One example of this is tarot readings.
As a tarot reader, you should be completely impartial and free of prejudices. However, there might be times when you lean one way or the other in regard to a particular subject matter. Let’s say a friend comes to you for a reading and they ask you about their future in the career of politics.
Now, if you dislike the world of politics, your bias might hinder your reading. It might prevent you from accessing the subtle spiritual plane and so, you won’t get the guidance you need to help your friend. Or you might mistake your prejudice for intuition, which can have unintended consequences.
2) You Aren’t Ready For The Answer
Sometimes, you’re just not ready to hear the truth. ( sounds familiar?? haha )
Sometimes, you are so lost in your preconceived notions and imaginations that you wouldn’t believe the truth even if god personally told it to you.
In this state, the cards may not reveal the answer that you seek. Yes, this might sound a little strange, but the cards have a strange way of connecting to your energy and showing you what you really need at the moment.
For example, if your partner is not right for you, and you are better off without them, the cards might not reveal this to you if you’re blinded by your feelings of love. That’s because you would ignore their message or warning anyway. So, if you ask them about the future of your relationship, they might give you something totally unrelated.
As such, you might think that the cards are wrong. But that’s not the case. So, you should take this as a sign that you need to pay attention to your query and see if you have an emotional block in that area.
3) Misinterpretation of The Message
This one is quite straightforward.
Even if you are unbiased and have the best intentions in your heart, you can still make mistakes. As I said above, there are countless combinations of cards you can get for any question and sometimes, it is just tricky to pinpoint what the cards want to tell you.
This happens to even the best of tarot readers.
After all, tarot reading is not like science… it is more of an art form that you slowly develop over time. And even then, there is no such thing as perfection. Sometimes, you get a tricky or difficult question, which becomes even more tricky when strange cards show up.
Another factor to consider here is that human language (any language) has its limitations. Sometimes, it can be extremely hard (if not impossible) to translate the messages of the cards into comprehensible information.
So, you might have to rely on guesswork, which leaves room for misinterpretation.
4) You Are Not Supposed To Know
This is probably the most mystical reason you will read in this article.
And it might make you think about all types of stuff like fate and free will.
But it does indeed happen that the cards don’t reveal something to you because you are not supposed to know it. In this case, too, the cards aren’t wrong. But you’re not wrong either. It’s just the situation that prevents you from getting the right answer to your query.
Consider this scenario. You eat some junk food at a nearby restaurant and fall sick. You then visit the hospital where you fall in love with a nurse. Years later, you two get married. Now, if you had consulted the cards one week before you ate at the restaurant, the cards wouldn’t have told you that you were about to fall sick.
This is because if you didn’t fall sick, you wouldn’t go to the hospital and meet your future wife. It is things like this that make you realize that tarot cards may work in ways that our logical minds can’t comprehend.
5) You Need More Time
Sometimes, you just need more time to figure out what the cards are telling you.
After all, you are a human being and you might need some time to connect the dots and translate complex ideas into words. Also, you might receive insights about events or things that haven’t happened yet. This further complicates the matter.
So, in this case, also, the cards are not wrong. They are telling you what you should know. It’s just that you don’t have all the information you need to answer the questions at hand. In cases like these, it is seen that things become clearer over time. So, you might just have to wait and observe the events around you.
6) Your Trajectory Changed
This is a common occurrence.
When you ask the tarot cards about a particular problem, they might give you the solution. Then, when you stick to that solution, you’re able to avoid any unfavorable events that might have otherwise shown up. Essentially, you are able to change your trajectory in the present and avoid negative events in the future.
For example, let’s say the cards tell you that you are about to face a health problem in the future because of your bad eating habits. Now, if you switch to a healthy diet and add exercise to your routine, you can avoid the health troubles that the cards had warned you about.
So, in this case, what the cards predicted didn’t happen because you changed the trajectory. Instead of saying that the cards were wrong, you should appreciate them because they made a real positive impact on your life! I mean, isn’t that what tarot cards are for? ( I am not sure i would stop eating coconut cakes or vinegar crisps if the cards told me to hahah)
7) You Are Not In The Right State
To be able to read tarot cards properly, you need to be in a healthy physical, mental, and emotional state. If you think about it, it’s like doing any other work.
If you’re not in the right state, you just won’t be able to perform the task properly. I mean, when you don’t get enough sleep during the night, it’s hard to function at your full potential the next day, right?
Plus, when it comes to tarot, you need to be even more alert because of the nature of this practice. Not only that, you also need to be in touch with your intuition and the higher realms of the spiritual world. You need to be open to receiving guidance from higher entities.
So, if you tend to get inaccurate readings from time to time, you should also check your inner state and take steps to improve it. Also, avoid doing readings whenever you are not in touch with yourself. It’s better to delay things than to do them the wrong way. Check our blog posts about being grounded.
8) You Chose The Wrong Tarot Spread
A tarot spread is a particular pattern or layout of cards, where each card represents an answer to a question.
A reader might use different tarot spreads for different types of questions or aspects of life. Also, the number of cards used in a tarot spread differs from one to another. A reader may draw either a single card or multiple cards depending on their style of reading.
So, if you choose the wrong tarot spread or something that is not suited for the question at hand, you might get slightly inaccurate readings.
For example, if you want simple guidance for the day, drawing out one card from the deck would be enough. However, if you draw five cards, it might unnecessarily complicate your reading and cause inaccuracies.
Similarly, if you are reading for a complicated issue like the future of a relationship, you might need to draw out four or five cards. This is because there are multiple factors involved in this scenario and you can use layered information to come to an answer. However, if you use only one or two cards for this scenario, you might not get a complete picture.
9) You Haven’t Developed Your Psychic Abilities
One great thing about tarot reading is that you don’t have to be a psychic to be able to practice it.
Any person can start learning how to read tarot cards and become great at it through practice and experience. There are countless examples of this already. However, you can’t deny that psychic abilities can take your reading to a whole other level.
After all, tarot involves getting spiritual guidance, and when you can access the spiritual realm, you are bound to receive much more relevant insights. So, whether it is clairvoyance, channeling, clairsentience, remote viewing, or clairaudience, psychic abilities can help in getting much better insights.
Now, another great thing here is that psychic abilities can be developed even if you’re not psychic at the moment.
Every human being has these latent abilities buried deep within them. And they can be brought to the surface through various ways. I truly think one such way is meditation. If you practice deep meditation every day, you can give rise to your sleeping psychic abilities and develop them over the years. This can help you become a much better tarot reader.
10) The Tarot Deck Hasn’t Been Cleansed
This is one of the simpler scenarios where the cards might appear to be wrong.
If you happen to be a tarot reader, you are already well aware that tarot decks can hold onto residual energies from past readings. They can also hold onto the energies of the people they come into physical contact with. These energies can hinder any future readings you do.
In fact, even if you’ve bought a brand-new deck of cards, this still applies. This is because your deck of cards has been touched by numerous people before reaching you. Also, if you haven’t used your cards for a while, they may still gather unwanted energies and vibes from your surroundings.
So, if you’re not getting the answers you seek or are getting irrelevant insights from your cards, it might be time to cleanse them. In fact, you should do this on a regular basis, especially after a reading.
11) You Are Not Consistent With Your Style
Every tarot reader has a particular style when it comes to this practice.
This may involve doing certain rituals before and after the reading, using certain tarot spreads for different types of questions, connecting with the cards, creating the right ambiance, doing spiritual practices, asking a particular set of questions to the seeker, and so on.
This way of doing readings is unique to every reader and once you nail down your unique method, you should stick to it. This ensures that you get into the right mental and emotional state to be able to read the cards. It also ensures that you are comfortable in your own skin and are open enough to receive guidance from higher planes.
However, if you are inconsistent, it may create friction in your reading. Not only that, it creates confusion and leads to unnecessary complications. All of this can greatly impact your reading and lead to inaccuracies. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying you cannot experiment or change your way of reading… but I believe that when you keep using or repeating the same rituals, you kinda enter a certain state, you a mental state where you can better decipher the messages you get… 🙂
12) You’re Reading Reversed Cards The Wrong Way
There is a lot of debate about reversed cards.
If you didn’t already know, reversed cards are when a tarot card appears upside down in your reading. Some tarot readers think that this doesn’t change the core meaning of the card, while some think that reversed cards have the opposite meaning of the upright cards. So, what should you do?
First of all, your experience should tell you how you should read reversed cards. If you have done enough readings, you should know by now whether reversed cards should hold their original meanings or the opposite ones.
Secondly, a lot of tarot readers are beginning to form a sort of consensus on this issue. They believe that reversed cards have opposite meanings only for yes/no questions. So, if you get them for other types of queries, you can go on with their original meanings. But as usual, your own personal experience often prevails 🙂
How To Ensure More Accurate Readings
So, now that we have discussed some cases where tarot cards might appear to be wrong, let’s try to understand how you can ensure more accurate readings. Of course, these may take some practice, but you will get there eventually.
1) Avoid Being Emotionally Attached To Questions
This is perhaps the biggest mistake that most tarot readers make.
They get emotionally attached to the question at hand, whether it is their own or someone else’s. This brings bias into the reading and it is bound to give inaccurate results.
Tarot readers are supposed to be objective and they need to look at things exactly as they are… not as they want them to be. If the cards are telling you something negative about a particular scenario, pay attention to it instead of trying to wash it with “positivity.” After all, some warnings in the present might be necessary to avoid bigger troubles in the future.
So, try to stay as objective as you can. If you find this difficult for a particular reading, you can ask some other reader to do the reading.
2) Prepare For The Reading
This is a very important step for any tarot reader, whether you are just starting out or are an experienced one.
Preparing for the reading may involve doing meditation for a few minutes, asking your guardian angels for help, taking a relaxing bath, creating a crystal grid, cleanse the energies with sage or palo santo and so on. It really depends on what works for you and what you’re comfortable with.
Also, if you are going to do multiple readings during the day, it is ideal that you take breaks in between and do your rituals before every reading. This will ensure that you are always in the right state of mind and emotions.
Tarot readings can take a lot of energy and some readings in particular can be really draining. So, it is important that you strictly follow the preparation steps and any rituals you might have.
3) Don’t Read If You’re Not In The Right State
You might be a tarot reader but you are also a human. And sometimes, you might be feeling tired, unmotivated, sick, emotionally detached, and so on. If you do readings in these states, you are bound to get wrong interpretations. This is because energy plays a critical role in tarot readings and when your energy is depleted in any way, you won’t be able to connect to the subtle forces.
So, when you’re feeling down, take some rest or a prolonged break. During this time, if anyone comes to you for a reading, you can refer them to someone else. In the meantime, focus on recharging your batteries and feeling better.
To that end, you should get proper sleep, eat a well-balanced diet, do meditation, do physical exercises, spend time in nature, spend time with family and friends, focus on your hobbies, read books, listen to music, and so on.
4) Have An Open Mind
This is perhaps one of the most important pieces of advice. In general, when you’re in the world of spirituality, we need to have an open mind. This is because you will encounter a lot of ideas and concepts that might seem outrageous to you or even impossible.
And the more you resist them, the more difficult it will be to make progress down this path.
This is especially true of tarot reading. There are many combinations of cards possible for any question and you need to be open to their meaning, whatever they may be. Plus, you should also be open to receiving any information from the higher spiritual realms.
At the end of the day, listen to your intuition and pay heed to the type of energy you experience. All of this will make your reading far more accurate.
