Hey buddy! I’ve been mulling over offering readings online as I’m getting solid results reading for myself. But I’m concerned about giving absolute nonsense readings to someone else 😅 Have you got any tips on connecting with the person I’m reading for to maintain accuracy without going to the trouble of audio calls? What sort of links/tag locks would you recommend as a minimum?
Cheers, hope you’re doing well and witching wonderously :)
In regards to preparing for professional reading, this is what I've found:
(Went a bit rogue here and added infos you did not at all ask for but maybe it will be useful to others!)
A person's social media profile, even an anonymous one like Tumblr, generally works for all forms of connection and are very valid taglocks. I will often have a person's tumblr page open as I do readings, and check back to reconnect as needed (as I primarily do professional readings via advertising on tumblr).
But there are many points of connection that can be helpful. You can ask to receive real names (maybe only the first name or a "true" nickname for privacy purposes), initials, or even answer a question that to you is very insightful and gives you a hook to connect in ("what is the most peaceful weather?").
A vast majority of the readings I've ever done have not been live, and for me, once the connection is established you can tap back in time and time again. So let's just pretend you do need that audio call to connect. But what if a short audio clip of that person stating their question sufficed?
In these regards I recommend casting a wide net and figuring out what really works for you.
In the past I have found large public servers where I had an endless stream of people to read on extremely helpful in answering these questions for myself.
(In my early education, I found that starting with very strong taglocks, like a photo of a person, really worked great. And by following that feeling of proper connection, I began to be able to find the connection in smaller and smaller "openings," like just the person's initials, then just a username and PFP, and so on. So if anyone out there is struggling to properly connect with an online person to read them, try practicing with connections you know work for you and then work your way into being able to work with more anonymous, private connections)
Some people are very difficult to read for. I believe it's trivial to disrupt divination, people can do it by accident and it can be built into wards as a side-effect without people knowing it.
When a reading is blocked, IME it will return with that "absolute nonsense." For me this typically looks one of 3 ways:
Garbled: no interpretation can be produced at all
Catastrophic: the tool advises that something of apocalyptic magnitude is happening, either good or ill
Mean: the interpretation is strikingly mean-spirited, not tough love but more like bullying
Every now and then I will return a reading that feels real (I can produce an interpretation, it's in line with the question, and it's reasonable sounding) which is just completely inaccurate, and in my experience this mostly happens with people who "can't be read." Such people may be more accurately described as "very difficult to read," and can usually advise you that normally readings for them are never accurate.
I believe a strong solution here is to do a ton of readings for people who are willing to give feedback, and seek the most feedback when your readings are inaccurate. This also means finding people to read for who are willing to tell you that you're wrong, which can be its own struggle!
If you can get a feel for when your readings are going wrong, then you can approach reading for others with a greater degree of confidence knowing that you can pull the plug if it doesn't feel right.
But to actually answer your question!! The point here is that if you are able to pick up on a blockage that's getting in your way, then you can go back and request stronger taglocks from the querent, or then potentially engage in your own work that's necessary to read past a blockage like that.
It is absolutely okay to return to the querent and advise that you're having trouble connecting (and I think you should do this if that is the case). You can ask for your "escalated" taglock, if they are comfortable sharing anything else.
(The second half of this coin is learning the basics of troubleshooting blocked readings, including how to work with their spirits to be allowed through, how to walk people through lowering their wards so you can read them, building up your own tools and spells to side-step these blockages, and sometimes a certain level of "doctoring" to assist a person in resolving a blockage, if you want to go that far.)
The supreme method of ensuring that a querent will not be delivered a nonsense reading is to do a "Barnum test." I've been doing these for years, and I describe them as "connection checks" to querents.
A Barnum statement is a statement which could be true for basically anyone, like "you want a connection with someone that brings joy into your life."
To check and see if you are able to accurately read on someone, do a quick sample reading for them in which the interpretation must not be a Barnum statement; that is, the interpretation must not be true for a majority of people, like: "you want a friendship with someone that reminds you of your own darker side, because you're feeling disconnected from yourself and you're worried that you've grown too domesticated."
Send this sample reading to the querent and ask them to rate the Barnum test from 0 to 10, 0 being completely inaccurate and 10 being completely accurate.
You will not ever get a 10 because you'll always lose points on the phrasing ("I wouldn't say I'm overwhelmed, I'd say I'm treading water...") but you should receive at a minimum an 8 or 9 out of 10.
I advise querents that the accuracy of the Barnum test will reflect the accuracy of their reading: if they felt my connection check was true in most ways but a bit off about the exact nature of a platonic relationship, then the full reading will likely be a bit off in the nature of their platonic relationships as well. And so on.
I have found this system to more or less hold 100% accurate for me, in that if the Barnum test fails then the reading will fail also.
The huge benefit for the professional reader is that you get a chance to see if you can read for this person before you really begin, and so can decline the reading or provide refunds before wasting your or their time any further.
An important part of not delivering nonsense readings is giving the querent a road map to the process it will take for you to be able to deliver an accurate reading.
The querent should always have this road map ahead of time so they can decide for themselves if your process to attain connection is one they are comfortable with, before they put money on the table and feel 'locked in' in any kind of way:
Ask the querents if they normally get nonsense readings. I have found that most querents do not disclose this. If they do, see if you can troubleshoot this before any readings or test readings begin.
Ask the querents if they have wards or spirits that may interfere with readings.
Advise that you can start with a certain kind of connection point (profile picture, initials) but that if that fails, you may ask for a stronger connection.
Advise that before the reading begins you want a response to a "connection check" style question (if you're doing so, of course).
Most importantly, clarify to the querent what they should be able to expect from your reading, or basically:
Lack of Resonance is Not Automatically Inaccuracy
Now this one I think is more of a personal opinion, and the advice suggested probably won't work for a lot of people offering readings.
The problem is that in the moment, querents can reply to you that a reading feels like nonsense, inaccurate, and so forth, and then come back to you 3 weeks, 3 months, or 3 years later and say the reading ended up being scarily accurate.
In these cases, pressure is put on the reader in the moment to agree that the reading was inaccurate because it didn't resonate at the point of delivery.
This is why I believe professional readings should seek to deliver something above and beyond the raw interpretation, to always try and give the querents something in the present moment, even if they don't feel like the readings land. For example, depending on the reading, I try to include journaling prompts, guided meditation ideas, energy work exercises, spells, and recommended avenues of research and study.
Or in other words, I believe it's wise to sell readings where the querent is getting something of value even if they do not immediately feel that the reading resonates.
However, I'm sure many readers would say, "that's not my job - I am here to do the reading and nothing else." And I have no arguments against that, either.
I personally enjoy over-delivering on readings. That's my splash pool of happiness. Finding other ways to provide value in a reading is one way to mitigate the bad feeling of, "oh no, they didn't like the reading - am I a bad person for getting paid for my time?"
Either way, I think it's important to clarify to the querents what they should expect, and how you intend to handle the situation if they feel that the readings are nonsense.
