The Cards Don’t Lie. They’re Bits of Card.

The question comes up constantly: can tarot be wrong? Can a reading be inaccurate? What happens when it doesn’t seem to make sense? I started looking into this for the blog, and it comes up time and time and time again. And the problem isn’t that it’s a hard question to answer. The problem is that it’s the wrong question.

Asking whether the cards can be wrong assumes the cards have agency. I don’t think they do. They’re bits of card. Printed cardstock. They’re a tool we imbue with meaning, something we use to make sense of our lives and situations. But the power isn’t coming from the cards. It’s coming from us. Whether you think that’s purely psychological or whether there’s some kind of divine component to it doesn’t actually change the fact. What matters is what’s happening in you, not what’s happening in the cards.

Three Reasons a Reading Can Feel Off

There are broadly three ways a reading can miss, in my experience.

The Interpretation Was Missed

When I first started reading, I was doing a lot of TikTok live sessions. High-paced, lots of people commenting, moderators filtering the chat. It could get overwhelming. I’d pull cards for someone, start interpreting, and it wasn’t always easy to track what was landing and what wasn’t.

In one particular reading, I pulled the Ace of Pentacles and went with moving house. New beginning in the material world. Made sense to me in the moment. But for that person, it was a career move they were going through. I’d built the entire reading around that one interpretation, and as a result the whole thing fell apart for them. Complete bollocks, from their perspective. Fair enough.

Since then, I make it clear at the start of every reading: if something I say doesn’t land, tell me. Stop me. One card can throw an entire reading. And it’s usually in that conversation about what isn’t making sense that the real interpretation comes through.

Every card can be read in multiple ways, depending on context and what else has come out. If a reading feels off, the first thing to ask is whether you’ve slightly misread one card in a way that’s skewing everything else around it.

The Timing Was Off

Sometimes the reading is accurate but landing at the wrong moment. Say the Ace of Cups reversed comes out and I talk about a need to release emotionally. And the person says: I’ve been doing that for months. Have I not released enough?

Maybe they have, and the card is pointing to something they’re still carrying. Or maybe they haven’t released anything and don’t even know it yet. The card might be pointing to something that needs to happen, not something that’s happening now. Timing is genuinely tricky. The cards aren’t working to a schedule.

The Person Wasn’t Ready to Hear It

This is the most difficult one. A couple of years ago, someone contacted me wanting a reading about their love life. They drove about 45 minutes to see me. They wanted to know about a specific person: does this person love me, should I get back together with them?

The cards were clear. You need to be on your own right now. Focus on yourself, loving yourself, stop looking for what you need in people who aren’t giving it to you.

I said as much. They pushed. What about this other person? I asked: are you sure you want to ask that? The cards have been pretty clear. They insisted. We pulled more. Same message. They got frustrated. They wanted me to confirm the other person was their soulmate. I ended up cutting the reading short. I charged for the fifteen minutes we’d had and said: it doesn’t seem like this is giving you what you’re looking for. You’re asking me to tell you what you want to hear, and I can’t do that.

Telling someone what they want to hear might make for a more pleasant hour. But it’s not going to help them. Standing your ground in those situations is part of the job.

The Card That Doesn’t Make Sense

Don’t skip past it. Whatever you do.

The readings clients feel most satisfied with, the ones that land hardest, are often the readings where one card makes the least sense to me on the face of it. Something like the Ten of Swords reversed as a final outcome. Or the Queen of Swords reversed in a love reading. Cards that feel out of place in the spread.

The instinct is to gloss over them or explain them away. Don’t. That card is usually pointing to something the client hasn’t mentioned yet. Or, if you’re reading for yourself, something you haven’t quite acknowledged.

Hegel talks about contradictions not being resolved by picking one side over the other, but by sitting with both and seeing what each one has to say. Same principle applies here. Ask an open question: what’s coming up for you with this card? How does this feel? If you’re reading for yourself, journal around it. Sit with it. Don’t chalk it up to a miss before you’ve given it space.

Sit With the Silence

There’s a habit in readings, especially live ones, of filling every silence. Don’t.

I’ve had readings where something comes out, I name it, and then I just wait. And the person says: no, I don’t have a problem with confrontation. And then there’s a pause. And then: actually, now you put it like that, that makes a lot of sense. The silence did the work. The discomfort of sitting in it made them actually think rather than react.

Silence is part of the reading. Let it be there.

The Cards Don’t Have a Job. You Do.

These are pictures on pieces of card. They don’t know anything. They don’t have a plan. What they do is give you something to look at, respond to, push against, or lean into. The interpretation lives in you.

So when a reading feels off, sit with that. Is it the interpretation? The timing? Is there something you’re not ready to hear? Is there a card making you uncomfortable precisely because it’s right? Those are the questions worth asking.

Before every reading now, I always set out what to expect. This is a conversation, not a performance. If something doesn’t land, say so. It’s in that conversation, not in the cards, that the useful stuff usually lives.