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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Tarot
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
On another forum, I questioned some ex-Christians about their use of tarot cards, which a few of them used. I was intrigued because I understood them as being for telling futures, but they explained that they also use them for making decisions.
So two questions:
1. Does anyone use tarot cards, for anything? Or have you? are they useful?
2. Is there a good reason against using them? My evangelical background would rail against them strongly, but I can see that there is a value to using tools to help us think things through.
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Blog
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Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I've had Tarot cards since I was about 14. The packs have varied, but I've always had them.
I find them useful for clarifying a situation. What I think it does is that the pictures call forth a response from a part of my mind I'm not consciously aware of.
There are some packs I can't get on with at all and get nothing more than a random response from. There have been a few others that I've felt instantly at home with, and these work for me which is why I think it's about the pictures.
I don't believe there is anything occult about them. I did some research into the origins of Tarot cards at one point and am inclined to believe they are just debased medieval pictures, copied over and over with variations until some bore little resemblance to the originals. Some later 19th century packs deliberately introduced occult symbolism, but I can't think of any older packs that have this.
These days there are a huge and growing number of different Tarot packs out there to cater for just about every preference. There are even Christian Tarot packs as well as angel tarot cards.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
I wouldn't use them, and I'd dissuade my kids from getting into it if I could.
Folks I've known who have been into occult stuff have generally been pretty unhappy. I'm not necessarily claiming causality, just correlation, but I don't know - all that 'what's going to happen, what should I do' anxiety is bad enough, without stoking it. I think I'd include opening bibles and inserting a pin into the same kind of category - there's something desperate and grasping about it which seems unlikely to lead to freedom and peace. Rather, find the lectionary and puzzle over whatever the day's reading happens to give you - take some ego out of the situation, which is almost always a good idea.
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
I don't have any Tarot cards, but if I were to buy some, it would because of their beauty.
There is a charming book by Italo Calvin, "The Castle of Crossed Destinies", making use of Tarot cards as an aid in storytelling.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I know people, perhaps they were already a bit emotionally unstable to begin with, but they became a lot more unstable using this kind of thing.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I don't know anybody who became more unstable through working with Tarot cards or doing the occasional spread now and again. (This thread is starting to remind me of the pro- and anti-drugs arguments.)
I met one person who consulted the cards for most decisions she needed to make during the day, but I've never met anyone else who took it to anything like that extreme. You'll always find some people who need a crutch. Sometimes they use Tarot as one, sometimes they use religion that way.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Mili
Shipmate
# 3254
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Posted
I never thought that Tarot cards did anything, but had never used them before either. Then when I was living in London, my housemates and a former housemate who was staying at our place a few nights got out a set and the visitor started telling fortunes. I was the only practising Christian. One housemate was an English atheist at the time, one a non-practising Italian-Australian Roman Catholic and the third was from a Sikh background, but was born and raised in Scotland and was not religious. The visitor was another Australian and I think also had a Roman Catholic family background.
After a couple of others had had a go I asked the visitor to tell my fortune. She questioned whether I should as a Christian - wasn't it against my beliefs? Something pricked my conscience so even though I didn't believe there was anything supernatural about the cards I decided not to have my fortune told after all.
The next day I went away for a week to France and Italy. While away I had a nightmare and night terror where an old Italian witch had 'adopted' me against my will. We were in a car and she had her bony fingers around my wrist. I woke up yelling and punching the wall. I did have night terrors from time to time until my mid-twenties, especially when sleeping in new places, so it was probably a coincidence unconnected to the cards. Although my nightmares usually involved real people or natural disasters like earthquakes or tsunamis, not the supernatural.
When I got back from my holiday my housemates were out, but the house had a really oppressive atmosphere. I felt depressed and like there was fear in the house. I went to my room and prayed and the atmosphere returned to normal and I felt peaceful again. At this point I was still thinking it could be my imagination though.
Then two of my housemates got home and were really freaked out. It turned out they had been playing with the Tarot cards all week and had spooked themselves silly. They said a light globe had been removed somehow. I suggested perhaps it was our other housemate who had removed it because it had blown. That turned out to be the case in the end!
It might not have been anything supernatural, but the cards certainly freaked my housemates and their friend out when they played with them too much and the oppressive feeling in the house was very strong and not something I had felt before.
Posts: 1015 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
I think it odd that so many people want to consult horoscopes or tarot cards or fortune tellers, mediums, etc, while decrying Christianity as superstitious nonsense. The former are where superstition lies. They are dangerous imv as they seem to encourage dependency, to the detriment of health.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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David Goode
Shipmate
# 9224
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
1. Does anyone use tarot cards, for anything? Or have you? are they useful?
I have several packs of Sicilian playing cards, but that's because I like playing Briscola.
Posts: 654 | From: Cambridge | Registered: Mar 2005
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I do not believe divination accesses anything outside my own mind. However my mind contains perceptions about the present and future of which I am not conscious in the ordinary way of thinking.
To me there is only one question for the Tarot: where am I today? What should I be aware of? How should I best deal with the present situation?
Obviously I only bother to ask these questions if the present is disturbing or overwhelming my normal modes of thinking and coping. The 'advice' I get from a reading I recognise as, indeed, what I should be doing were I not so distraught - plus, often, a message of encouragement and hope - again, coming to me from a calmer part of my mind than the conscious, panicking bit.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
In most of Europe, AIUI, tarot is just a card game. You might as well use Monopoly pieces for divination.
(I remember staying with a rather conservative French Protestant family whose son set my cognitive dissonance into overdrive by naming tarot as one of his hobbies. Turns out to be like whist for people who think conventional playing cards aren't arbitrary enough ...)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
@LeRoc. I love it when a liberal is common sensibly cautious.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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RainbowGirl
Apprentice
# 18543
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Posted
I have tarot cards and I use them occasionally. I don't think they tell the future or that they do anything mystical. Each card has a whole host of meanings, which means when you do a reading your mind or your subconscious picks the applicable one out. Ouija boards work in a similar way. I studied them as part of my uni studies in psychology, which is how I got in to them (tarot cards I mean). I just find them amusing more than anything else. Sometimes when you are really tangled in your thoughts they can help straighten them out. For example: I'm not sure if I want to do this thing, you draw a card, read the meaning and your mind goes, oh it says I should do this thing. The card didn't tell you that, you told yourself that. You can use a magic eight ball the same way. Or you can open a bible randomly and read the pages it falls open on.
A traditional spread in the tarot is past, present, future. One card for each. I can guarantee you it won't tell you anything you didn't already know. The interpretation of the future card will change depending on what you are currently looking for in your future.
They are also really pretty, and are works of art in their own right.
Posts: 32 | From: Australia | Registered: Jan 2016
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
And aye, they are beautiful, atavistic and helpful I'm sure the way staring in to a candle or rose is. I collect trees.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
I wouldn't use them, and I'd dissuade my kids from getting into it if I could.
Folks I've known who have been into occult stuff have generally been pretty unhappy. I'm not necessarily claiming causality, just correlation, but I don't know - all that 'what's going to happen, what should I do' anxiety is bad enough, without stoking it. I think I'd include opening bibles and inserting a pin into the same kind of category - there's something desperate and grasping about it which seems unlikely to lead to freedom and peace. Rather, find the lectionary and puzzle over whatever the day's reading happens to give you - take some ego out of the situation, which is almost always a good idea.
Very sensible. A learned friend once told me that you don't need weird beliefs to go crazy, but it sure helps. We can't divine anything useful; if all info gathering and statistical analysis can barely predict the weather, how can a ridiculous deck of cards unconnected with anything predict anything.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
A learned friend once told me that you don't need weird beliefs to go crazy, but it sure helps.
Weird beliefs? Like, a guy walked on water, fed thousands of people with provisions that wouldn't normally have fed 50, raised a friend from the dead, and later came back from the dead himself? Christians aren't exactly in a position to criticize others for having weird beliefs.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
A learned friend once told me that you don't need weird beliefs to go crazy, but it sure helps.
Weird beliefs? Like, a guy walked on water, fed thousands of people with provisions that wouldn't normally have fed 50, raised a friend from the dead, and later came back from the dead himself? Christians aren't exactly in a position to criticize others for having weird beliefs.
Viewed from the outside, all religions are mad.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
While agreeing with what RuthW and lilBuddha say I will just add that having weird beliefs in comparison to the wider cultural beliefs of society around you is probably the thing that will help you go crazy. A lot of sociology and psychology indicates that 'out groups' usually face higher rates of mental illness and deprivation.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
how can a ridiculous deck of cards unconnected with anything predict anything.
Because they can help you access your own knowledge of the future. As can dreams.
That knowledge is nomally highly personal, short range, and either trivial ( if the matter is indifferent), or if not, only if it is the subject of intense feeling.
So, unfortunately, I can never manage to foreknow the lottery numbers. But my life is littered with instances which suggests to me that I stand not on an absolute line which is this present moment, with everything in front of that line unknowable - but rather in a blurry circle, with events or outcomes minutes, hours or even longer 'in the future' available to me. The knowledge comes either as a feeling of certainty, or a narrative (dreams) or is indicated by a suggestive image, such as the Tarot.
I think this level of precognition is ordinary and universal but generally ignored - though how often, in speaking of some crisis, do you not hear people say they 'just knew' something which shortly after turned out to be the case?
[ 03. February 2016, 07:06: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
Thank you for some interesting responses.
I think, having thought it through in the light of these, there is a problem with the occult, including tarot, if it is used as a crutch or a thing of power which determines your future and all that is there. The same can be said of those who rely on "Christian" ways of abdicating responsibility - look at WBC, and tell me they are not as damaged as someone who has been scarred by tarot, Ouija or whatever.
I think it is people like myself, natural obsessives, who are at risk from any form of fortune telling.
At the same time, I can see that a tool to help focus the mind is a positive. It gives you a framework to think about the problem and so move it to a resolution. As RainbowGirl said, they don't tell you anything you don't already know. Fortune tellers who argue differently are simply cold-reading people, and we all know there are those who are exceptionally good at that.
One could argue that it is a form of cold-reading yourself.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
No angels, no demons, it's all Us. But then we thought up the angels and demons to begin with, so if we convince ourselves that something is imbued with uncanny power, then it is. Particularly if we are under stress.
I can remember a particularly trying time in work when the daily Dilbert seemed so spot on that it became quite easy to believe it was Speaking To Us and that Scott Adam would come on the last day with fire and judgement....
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I'm not sure I can remember a time when Dilbert didn't speak to my work situation.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
Have 3 sets - well 2 now as I gave my Rider Waite deck to my younger son to look at and he spread it out on the FLOOR not on its silk scarf ... so as far as I was concerned nearly 40 years of carefully accumulated and preserved "vibrations" dissipated into the tiles...
I've used them for clarification of various Matters and found them helpful. They made me look at things from angles my rational mind might not have come up with. Staring at the images and pictures can influence my frame of mind and calm me to see The Matter more clearly. I also find certain cards turning up all the time to me - and that has given me insight into deep parts of myself or patterns in my life.
It can get nutty... like anything... fasting and rigorous hand-washing before touching them or using a 13-card spread to decide between muesli or granola for breakfast. But I think such people would have had some predisposition to that kind of behaviour anyway - it's not the Tarot causing it.
I would not class them as a Dark Art at all. All sorts have used them down the centuries and mostly positively and helpfully
I don't know of anyone (apart from Mili above) who has had a very negative experience. It's either pleasant, useful and helpful or "nothing much happened and wouldn't bother again". I also think it is quite a mild experience - even those of us who make a point of having them about don't get "wild" or "high" from a spread or suffer if we don't use them for a while.
If you're drawn to them... go ahead. If not... don't force yourself. There is no "should" here. Like most things some people are more drawn to them than others and so they are more useful and helpful to them.
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
No angels, no demons, it's all Us. But then we thought up the angels and demons to begin with, so if we convince ourselves that something is imbued with uncanny power, then it is. Particularly if we are under stress.
Did 'we' think up angels and demons, or were they observations brought into our language?
I know someone who is convinced that his 'dabblings' with the occult had resulted in a demon possession which was leading him down the road to an early death until he became a Christian.
Perhaps, in the same way that we invite the Holy Spirit of God into our lives through prayer and worship, so may occult practices open an invitation for whatever dark forces there are to come into our lives.... if such things exist. Shouldn't we be sufficiently cautious to steer clear, without becoming neurotic?
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Mili
Shipmate
# 3254
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Posted
I don't know for sure that it was just the tarot cards that spooked my housemates. Who knows what they got up to while I was away - I never did ask. Perhaps they told a lot of ghost stories or had a séance or something. We were in our early to mid twenties so perhaps at a stage of life to be spooked more easily than at a later stage. I definitely felt the fear in the house when I got back though and I do believe in the supernatural.
I have had dreams and 'visions' that came true now and then, but I don't like to encourage it as sometimes they were really bad ones about violence in the world etc. As a Christian I'm not sure I should be messing with that stuff. I don't want to know the future, especially when there's nothing I can do about it. Sometimes I know something really mundane in advance which can be more useful, but it's totally random when this happens.
I never heard of people using tarot cards in a non-spiritual way to sort through thoughts and feelings before, so this has been an interesting conversation to read. Still not for me though.
Posts: 1015 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
It was either Winnie the Pooh, or someone chanelling him, who said dreams are little bits of fluff which blow into my head by mistake, and get mixed up with the grass clippings, dead leaves, and things I forgot to completely digest. I can only accept emotional themes without details from some dreams while being mindful of wishful thinking and confirmatory bias.
Re weird beliefs in Christianity, I don't find it necessary to believe in the miraculous to maintain a Christian life. It was never about the magical. Or maybe I should say magical realism.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Being a fairly orthodox CofE person, I accept the conventional view that I wouldn't touch Tarot cards with a barge pole. It's probably not something I think about much most of the time, but it's in the same sort of territory as attending a seance, Ouija boards or reverencing an image of Ganesh.
I don't really get the notion that it isn't really divination if one tries to persuade oneself one is consulting one's own subconscious rather than a familiar spirit.
Something that is strange though, is that when I was an adolescent 50 years ago, everybody knew that Christians took the line that you should wait until you were married before you had sex. People were a lot less aware that Christianity regarded things like table-rapping as wrong and dangerous. These days, as Mili has related, most people know that Christians don't do the occult. As a converse, the standards of 50 years ago, both the public and Christians have become spectacularly lax about premarital sex. The occult and premarital sex have swapped places.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Enoch: The occult and premarital sex have swapped places.
I personally prefer the sex.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
Tarot cards are best used as a form of counselling e.g. if someone turns up a card to do with death it might prompt thoughts about which behaviours and situastions are death-dealing and how might one change one's life in order to flourish.
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Tarot cards are best used as a form of counselling e.g. if someone turns up a card to do with death it might prompt thoughts about which behaviours and situastions are death-dealing and how might one change one's life in order to flourish.
Many years ago I regularly used the I Ching. The 'answers' were totally gnomic and could fit any, all or no question asked. I think of it as giving my mind the chance to relax. Considering what seems to be irrelevant responses is quite a good way of breaking out of ingrained habits of thought. And it often suggested uncertainties or alternatives I hadn't considered.
No one has, I think, mentioned the value of a ritual process: tossing the I Ching coins, unwrapping and dealing your tarot etc. There are obvious religious parallels in having a structured, physical process which, with time and famiarity, allows you to adopt a more receptive state of mind and recognise that everyday concerns are temporarily on hold.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I used to have a lot of New Age friends, who had tons of Tarot packs, some of them quite beautiful. We used to mess around with them, and the I Ching, but I remember the point made by leo, that you could use them as 'pointers to the unconscious'. For example, I remember vividly that the death card was usually seen as a symbol of change, not death.
A further point, that it's highly irresponsible to make predictions about other people's lives. So we used to use them in a kind of 'client-centred' way, hence, deal out some cards, now which ones appeal to you?
Nowadays, I prefer to study the foam on top of the beer. I see a tall dark woman, from the Major Arcana, who hasn't done the washing up for ages, damn, that's my wife.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Something that is strange though, is that when I was an adolescent 50 years ago, everybody knew that Christians took the line that you should wait until you were married before you had sex. People were a lot less aware that Christianity regarded things like table-rapping as wrong and dangerous. These days, as Mili has related, most people know that Christians don't do the occult. [/QB]
Perhaps more accurate to say that most people know that certain types of Christians don't do the occult.
I'm gonna speculate that if you include everyone who ever had a seance at a teenage slumber party, glanced at the astrology column in the newspaper or the Chinese zodiac on a noodle-house menu, or even just made sure to always include the number 7 in his weekly lottery selections, without feeling the least bit remoreseful about any of it, you'd find a large minority, possibly even an outright majority, of Christians who "do the occult".
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
.. if such things exist. Shouldn't we be sufficiently cautious to steer clear, without becoming neurotic?
You wouldn't be Irish, would you? There does be no such things as faeries, but that's no reason to be disobliging to them.
The existence of invisible, immaterial, non-carbon-based life forms is an interesting proposition, but I do find it easier to credit the amazing fecundity of the human imagination. We have, after all, millenia of art, architecture, philosophies, technologies, stories and events in evidence (not saying all good, but indubitably amazing) - but anything like the same trace level for the supernatural?
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Subjective validation and what we used to call the "barnum effect" operate with all of this. If something fits a little bit, it is easy to get excited and think the whole thing is true and valid.
Tarot and other forms of divination are about making general statements that most people find some kernel of truth in. I don't think any of it accesses the unconscious or subconscious. Rather it provides some way of fulfilling some wish or desire, or confronting some fear. If I was ever required to do a form of divination, I'd choose phrenology. Because having someone massage the bumps on my ever balder head would at least be relaxing.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
No one has, I think, mentioned the value of a ritual process: tossing the I Ching coins, unwrapping and dealing your tarot etc. There are obvious religious parallels in having a structured, physical process which, with time and famiarity, allows you to adopt a more receptive state of mind and recognise that everyday concerns are temporarily on hold.
Oh definitely...kept wrapped up specially, unwrapped, shuffled, cut to the left 3 times with the left hand. That's what someone taught me and I just did it.
But I think anything works if it means something to you. As long as it isn't too long or complicated
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I do wonder whether it is something to do with the pictorial and interpretive nature of the cards that explains the negativity.
Of course words, like cards with bible phrases on them are very clear and unambiguous. ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I do wonder whether it is something to do with the pictorial and interpretive nature of the cards that explains the negativity.
Of course it is. If you didn't have the Hanged Man, the Devil and Death in the pack, people wouldn't be half as spooked by them. They are, however, common medieval images. The Magician tends to be a juggler in the older packs, a street entertainer. The High Priestess may just originally have been a nun or an allegory of Mother Church. And so it goes.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I was meaning less the nature of the pictures as the fact that they are pictures. The Victorian-era-evangelicalism promoted words over pictures (part of the intellectualism that crept in).
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Blog
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Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Being a fairly orthodox CofE person, I accept the conventional view that I wouldn't touch Tarot cards with a barge pole. It's probably not something I think about much most of the time, but it's in the same sort of territory as attending a seance, Ouija boards or reverencing an image of Ganesh.
Well, not quite, because those things (probably) involve an explicit appeal to a supernatural entity outside the usual Christian spiritual directory. That's at least one step away, in the direction of "practising another religion" from horoscopes, tea-leaves, Tarot cards and the like. Divination may be a sin, but it's not apostasy.
But I'm still quite surprised by some of the responses here. I think I've always taken it for granted that the various forms of divination are forbidden to Christians. Even specifically Christian forms, like opening the Bible at random and picking a verse to speak to you has always been deprecated whenever it's been discussed in the evangelical and MOTR Anglican churches I've been involved in.
And I'm not even particular bothered by (or impressed with) Christian arguments against "the Occult" - as a life-long FRPG enthusiast, I've spent far too many hours defending my "Occult" hobbies* against (mostly) well-meaning ignoramuses for that. I don't think that reading an astrology column or using Tarot cards lets the Devil into your life, or shit like that. I also don't think that it "works", but whether it works or not, I've always classed it as just something we're told not to do.
(*I do have a set of Tarot cards, somewhere, which I've used as a LARP prop. I'd do (and have done) an 'in-character' Tarot reading without a qualm. But that's not divination. It's just pretend. Even when it works.)
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
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Posted
I've never had anything to do with them myself, but CS Lewis's friend Charles Williams wrote a novel about Tarot cards, "The Greater Trumps" which was enjoyable and thought-provoking.
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
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Beenster
Shipmate
# 242
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Posted
What I love about Tarot is it helps me think. So if I have a quandry or am in a tizzy, then I can think better.
I love my tarot tho. Just bought a new deck, it helps me see things differently.
The other thing, I find it opens me up to what I want to do. So if I ask the q "should I leave my job" and the answer comes back as "yes", what I will find is actually I don't want to leave. That sounds peverse and isn't a great example. But I did a reading for someone recently who was umming and ahhing about moving out of her flat. The cards showed how much more there was for her out there if she moved. She decided to stay. I don't see that as a dud reading, more of an empowerment for her to know what to do. Two months down the line, she is back to square 1 tho and moving out now.
For divination, again, it helps me think. We can't know the future, or we can - but only as so far as "all other things being equal". The problem is - free will - sends things awry - or can do.
I worry about those who cling to tarot for answers or directions. It's only going to lead to loss of £££ or $$$ and disappointment in one shape or form, but used with wisdom and caution - can be amazingly empowering.
There are too many young, impressionable, vulnerable people out there and plenty of charlatans.
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Being a fairly orthodox CofE person, I accept the conventional view that I wouldn't touch Tarot cards with a barge pole. It's probably not something I think about much most of the time, but it's in the same sort of territory as attending a seance, Ouija boards or reverencing an image of Ganesh.
Well, ISTM that endowing tarot cards with malevolent power is as superstitious as endowing them with benevolent power*. They are playing cards in origin - in most of Europe, they still are.
Also I don't think the activities you list form a single category. Séances do I think claim to be tapping into some spiritual power, whereas Ouija boards were explicitly developed as a parlour game, not as a hotline to the dead. Images of Ganesh AIUI have the same ritual significance in Hinduism as icons in Orthodoxy (and whether Ganesh is a separate entity or an aspect of godhead will send you down philosophical avenues that make the Trinity seem straightforward).
(*It is interesting that the OT diatribes against idols are not that they are malevolent powers but that they have no power at all. And idolaters are condemned not for meddling with unclean spirits but for being stupid.)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I don't think any of it accesses the unconscious or subconscious. Rather it provides some way of fulfilling some wish or desire, or confronting some fear.
And wishes, desires and fears aren't rooted in the unconscious? Why do I fear darkness or sp*ders? What is so acutely distressing about being momentarily physically hampered? Why am I drawn to the colour turquoise or to the scent of roses? I - and everyone IMO - is driven by memories, experiences and impulses lost to any conscious recollection. Possibly even coded into our DNA like a big nose or a bad temper.
We are largely irrational and we need ways of sidestepping rationality to understand that.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I stay away from tarot (much as I love the pics) for the same reason I stay away from the random Bible opening, Ouija, etc. etc. etc. and even reading the horoscope in the paper. Because I know that I'm way too prone to start putting hopes and fears in it, even in things that are far more clearly nonsense. If some coincidence seemed to validate the reading/horoscope/random verse, I would become slightly more convinced every time, until the bloody thing had wormed its way into the place God should occupy in my life--that is, being the one I look to for help, strength, comfort, and direction.
I'm just weak that way. Maybe there are a lot of people who aren't, but given a chance to create an idol, I'll fucking do it. ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
And I am partly Irish, too. Tarot may be totally innocent--but why give the devil a possibility?
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I don't think any of it accesses the unconscious or subconscious. Rather it provides some way of fulfilling some wish or desire, or confronting some fear.
And wishes, desires and fears aren't rooted in the unconscious?
No, don't think so. Unconscious by definition means you're not aware of it. I might allow not fully realized or partly conscious, but that is wishes and desires. Such as those exploited by advertisers and getting us to buy things.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beenster:
The other thing, I find it opens me up to what I want to do. So if I ask the q "should I leave my job" and the answer comes back as "yes", what I will find is actually I don't want to leave. That sounds peverse and isn't a great example.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense. However, it seems to be contradicted by what you say next:
quote:
Originally posted by Beenster:
But I did a reading for someone recently who was umming and ahhing about moving out of her flat. The cards showed how much more there was for her out there if she moved. She decided to stay. I don't see that as a dud reading, more of an empowerment for her to know what to do. Two months down the line, she is back to square 1 tho and moving out now.
For divination, again, it helps me think. We can't know the future, or we can - but only as so far as "all other things being equal".
Which then in turn seems to be contradicted by what follows next:
quote:
Originally posted by Beenster:
I worry about those who cling to tarot for answers or directions. It's only going to lead to loss of £££ or $$$ and disappointment in one shape or form.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
how can a ridiculous deck of cards unconnected with anything predict anything.
Because they can help you access your own knowledge of the future. As can dreams.
That knowledge is nomally highly personal, short range, and either trivial ( if the matter is indifferent), or if not, only if it is the subject of intense feeling.
So, unfortunately, I can never manage to foreknow the lottery numbers. But my life is littered with instances which suggests to me that I stand not on an absolute line which is this present moment, with everything in front of that line unknowable - but rather in a blurry circle, with events or outcomes minutes, hours or even longer 'in the future' available to me. The knowledge comes either as a feeling of certainty, or a narrative (dreams) or is indicated by a suggestive image, such as the Tarot.
I think this level of precognition is ordinary and universal but generally ignored - though how often, in speaking of some crisis, do you not hear people say they 'just knew' something which shortly after turned out to be the case?
I hear this sort of thing quite a lot, both in Christian and non-Christian circles. Even when studying spiritual direction, we were taught to "trust our intuition". I had to speak up and question that-- maybe that's true for some people, but in my experience, it hasn't for been me. As I've reflected on it, my "inner truth" or intuition is almost always fear-based. If I'm asking myself a "should I..." question, the intuitive answer is always going to be "no."
And yet, I've found this fear-based intuition to be remarkably unreliable. Very, very few of my "what if" fears have actually transpired. I've found setting aside "intuitive" feelings and relying more on just raw reason and analysis to have a much better return rate.
That's all different from discernment, of course. I have had a couple of experiences where I felt what I would claim to be a true leading from God. I've found them compelling, and, no matter how they turned out, I've never regretted when I followed such a leading. But these experiences have been remarkably different from my "intuition". For one thing, they are relatively rare-- and cannot be summoned up on demand (fear-based intuition, otoh, is always eager to come to the party). For another, they are usually the exact opposite of what my intuition tells me in the situation (e.g. taking a risk).
Again, ymmv. But I do find it curious how many seem to assume intuition is a reliable predictor.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
Intuition is all I have. There is an argument that it is all anyone has, but that is another discussion, but for me (MBTI well off the scale of I) I have to use my intuition, not a logical process. I suspect that the use of cards would help to direct that, which is one reason I stay away. I could be unduly influenced, without the logical process getting in the way.
Is it reliable? IME yes, in that it gets to a conclusion quickly. It may not be the best conclusion, but it is usually pretty good. However, I have had a few years of training it and understanding it.
For me, I think it would be my logic that is driven by fear. If I worked out all that could go wrong, I would do nothing. If I just jump to an option without that, I can see the positive.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I don't think any of it accesses the unconscious or subconscious. Rather it provides some way of fulfilling some wish or desire, or confronting some fear.
And wishes, desires and fears aren't rooted in the unconscious? Why do I fear darkness or sp*ders? What is so acutely distressing about being momentarily physically hampered? Why am I drawn to the colour turquoise or to the scent of roses? I - and everyone IMO - is driven by memories, experiences and impulses lost to any conscious recollection. Possibly even coded into our DNA like a big nose or a bad temper.
We are largely irrational and we need ways of sidestepping rationality to understand that.
I agree with most of that, but the point about Tarot is that it contains a collection of symbols, or pictures, if you like. And symbols can connect us with unconscious stuff. I say 'can' because it's not automatic (for the people!).
But then you can find symbols anywhere, a particular tree on a walk, or a particular sky, can evoke stuff in me.
Incidentally, 'unconscious' doesn't mean not known, it means repressed, at least in psychoanalytic language. I don't know the capital of Peru, but it's not unconscious.
PS. I agree with cliffdweller, I think intuition is pretty unreliable. You also have to think.
[ 04. February 2016, 09:17: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Yes, by 'unconscious' I mean present, but not acknowledged or recognised.
Like SC, for me it is the conscious, reasoning mind which is prone to timidity and panic and the intuitive which is calmer and more positive. I have had occasion to study some texts on Mindfulness lately, written by clinical psychologists from a CBT perspective. They seem to premise a calmer, stronger inner core that, by the recommended practices, can redress the stresses of the 'monkey mind'.
Certainly, as I have had recourse to it recently, I've seen the Tarot as belonging with the body awareness and breathing and candle staring and the like, as a means not of predicting the future, but of bringing me into the present moment.
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