Part of the Casswiki article series Fourth Way
The term reading error is used by Boris Mouravieff to denote the subjective bias of interpretation people put on their experience.
The idea is that man’s emotional reactions are a sort of “moral sense organ”, but this sense organ has a tendency to ignore one thing and overreact to another, or to consistently mislabel something. So, just as with calibrating a physical gauge, one must compare the reading of one’s instrument to outside reality as discerned through other faculties.
Examples of data for calibrating one’s instrument are rational analysis of past outcomes of emotional situations or listening to how others see and interpret a situation. Emotional responses must not be shut down or ignored, rather they must be made to work in conjunction with the rest of the organism. The horse should pull the carriage and not decide where to go. However, the driver should also listen to the horse because its keener sensitivity can be a great source of information and a motivated and healthy horse can be essential to making the journey.
Self-importance and belief in somehow being chosen or uniquely entitled is a common source of reading error. Naivete before the possible ruthlessness of others is also a common reading error. Repeatedly falling in love with flaky or abusive partners and various sensation seeking can also denote a reading error.