I did a reading awhile back - Seamonster and Novia gave me a hand with it - and I've been wondering about tarot cards and their interpretations.

In my understanding of divination, tarot cards are merely a means of getting a perspective on a situation. They cannot tell you the future, because the future has many posibilities that are all changing as you make decisions in the present.

So my question is, how much good are they? I know one answer is - as good as the recipient of the reader allows them to be - but I'm still a little confused on what accomplish by giving you a perspective on a situation in time that can change, not based on any action of your own, but on circumstance, outside forces etc?

In my case, I got a general idea of my situation (really more of a confirmation of what I knew) and a possible outcome that was rosy. Needless to say things didn't quite workout that way, and for a little while I was shattered - I'm feeling much better now (or so I'm telling myself )

Does anyone else have any comments or experiences of this? Has it ever happened to you that you have done a reading and gotten an "answer" that was a reflection of the path you were on? Has it ever been completely different to the question you were posing? My mom went to two 'psychics' at two different times. One of them was a tarot reader, and apparently when she turned over a card, she gasped and refused to tell my mother what it meant and what she 'saw'. The second told my mom she would end up with a man who had a young child (me) and move overseas - all true!! But at the time she thought it was a load of crock

I'd like to hear other what other people think on this

to me, additional perspective is gold. it's why i flip a deck at all. so, the tarot to me is as good as gold. the the additional viewpoint the cards offer is a shining gem of true treasure in my world. when the perception shifts, the situation changes. "when you change the way you look at something, the thing you're looking at changes" (Dr. Dyer). this, to me, is the essence of magic.

because of my own understanding on existance, that for anything to be a tangible entity in reality it must have a contrasting component to distiguish it from the ever-existing "all", when we form a question we simultaneously create the answer. so, the deck cannot tell you anything you don't already know, it'll just bring information to the forefront of the mind for further contemplation. additional perspective, when you can't break away from a one-track frame of mind on a certain topic, opens doors that didn't exist before. someone once told me you can't perceive chaos from within chaos.

so, the deck does two things - 1. it affords you the opportunity to define the question, so that an answer may be created, and 2. gives you additional perspective, offering other possible options that may not have surfaced before consulting the cards. now, to find the PROPER perspective to have, consult different perspective-giving devices and cross-reference their answers, looking for similarities. or employ the usual remedies of love, patience, compassion, etc,...

about answers that differ from the question asked - the question may not differ from or be displaced from the answer as much as you think. the answer may be a bigger perspective which encompasses the question along with the larger picture...i'd call it higher-consciousness (like, angel) perspective...a vision of our situation from a definately different vantage point then the one we're sitting in here, now.

I like to get the perspective oftentimes just to put my mind at ease about something.  I have a tendency to make more of a situation than actually exists, so, for me, that extra "inner voice" of the cards, helps me to ground my thinking and stop fretting over stuff.  It also helps me to hone in on what I should be thinking about.  I never take too much store by the "outcome" of a spread, because I know that outcomes change according to our actions, so I know that I can always "write my own" outcome.

I agree with RealEyez and SM.  The cards help me gain perspective and help me consider all the options.  For me they are uncannily accurate in revealing the path I am on, in clarifying the stuff I already know as RealEyez said. Like the saying, "laying all your cards on the table", it helps getting all the aspects of the situation out there in front of you.  Since I tend to go round and round with a problem, the cards help me to stop spinning.  And they often reveal an option or perspective that I hadn't considered.  I have had more experiences where the outcome looked rather negative, and that has helped me to make the choices that result in a more positive outcome.  
I would never take seriously anyone who "gasped and refused to tell the querent what she saw".  That's just melodrama from someone I would strongly suspect is a "poser".

I have really gotten into tarot in the last year or so.  To me it helps me to think and to realize things that are going on that i have trouble seeing.  The way the cards are inturpetted depends largely on the person doing the reading.  I always for example seem to get certain cards that i feel represent certain people, this helps me to see how that person fits in to things.
Some people also ignore weather or not the card is reversed, the deck i bought has pictures and meanings for the right side up as well as the reverse. If a card is reversed it has a completly different meaning to me.

I always find it helpful to meditate for a bit on what you are going to ask this will help your reading to be more clear and make sense.  Otherwise it will tend to be just jumble.