
The truth about tarot - Vigier
https://aeon.co/essays/tarot-cards-a-tool-of-cold-tricksters-or-wise-therapists
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arrakeen
great article! i've always considered tarot to be both a parlor trick and an
introspection tool. the cards are so rich in symbols that your mind will find
some way to connect the dots to make them applicable to your life. in this way
the cards can bring to the fore certain things about yourself that maybe you
wouldn't have consciously thought about otherwise.

if you're interested, the best book on the subject that i've read is "the way
of tarot" by jodorowsky (yes that jodorowsky).

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zzalpha
This sounds very similar to a basic technique I find useful for making
difficult decisions: the coin flip.

If I can't seem to decide between A or B, I flip a coin. If, in doing so, the
answer is A, one of three things happens: I find I like the answer, and it
turns out it was my preference all along. I find I prefer B after all, and
just didn't realize it. Or, I really don't care in which case the coin flip
was as good an answer as any I could've come to.

The coin didn't tell me anything. But by forcing a decision it revealed
something I didn't consciously understand.

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Pamar
Yes, precisely that - I use I-Ching instead.

I plan to write a bit more about this, but I haven't got around it yet. In the
meantime, everyone interested in using I-Ching (or any other kind of "oracle
device") to re-evaluate your options can read this:
[https://aeon.co/essays/forget-prophecy-the-i-ching-is-an-
unc...](https://aeon.co/essays/forget-prophecy-the-i-ching-is-an-uncertainty-
machine)

~~~
52-6F-62
Funny, while I stray from mysticism of any kind after growing up in a
Christian church (most of my youth, anyway), I enjoy the I-Ching for that very
reason and have for a few years. It's taken me down the road from a life where
I was far more miserable than I realized, and to one that more aligns with my
hopes.

I have to say it also, just the practice of re-evaluation of my own opinions
and feelings, has helped me to be more honest with myself and the people I
care about regarding my feelings -- shirking the old "stiff upper lip" until
I'm miserable again. It's freeing, even if the practicals don't change on the
timeline you want.

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chrisbennet
My girlfriend used to be read them. I thought it was silly. One day I said to
her: "Maybe the cards don't _tell_ the future. Maybe they _make_ the future."
She stopped reading them after that.

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metaphorm
I think that's the wrong perspective. They don't tell or make the future. They
have very little to do with the future. They take advantage of psychological
archetypes to encourage examination of the present in a new context, which
might lead to thinking about the future differently.

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cicero
A fun speculative fiction book involving Tarot cards is _Last Call_ by Tim
Powers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Call_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Call_\(novel\))

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flylikeabanana
Surprised to not see my personal metaphors for the suits and trumps: the four
alchemical elements and the steps in the Hero's Journey, respectively.
Probably goes to show how open to interpretation it is, and how it can be used
to channel meaning when you can ascribe whatever meaning fits.

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armitron
The idea behind ascribing meaning to the tarot is one of reinforcing symbols.

Think of the Tarot as a programming language for the mind. The more one uses
it, the more the rich symbols become grounded to one's individual psyche.

In the Western esoteric tradition (Hermetism), the human mind is viewed as a
collection of disparate, autonomous, intelligences. What one considers to be
his "Ego", his personality, can be modeled as an emergent illusion that arises
out of the interplay of these underlying intelligences that are buried in the
unconscious mind. What the alchemists called the King and Queen, the Eagle and
the Lion, Mercury and Sulfur, what Carl Jung described as Anima, Animus and
Shadow, what the Jewish Kabbalists describe as Sephirot, are all essentially
these different aspects of the unconscious mind.

Using the Tarot in this fashion is an essential technique for bridging the gap
between the conscious and the unconscious, as through repeated symbol
reinforcement the unconscious obtains a way to "talk" to the conscious mind.
Initially, through abstract "impressions" and "daydreams" and, if the process
continues, through further crystallization and rigidity -- one may start
seeing visions or hearing voices in his mind -- till the dissolution of the
conscious ego and full-blown mystical experiences. One of the axioms of
Alchemy -- Solve et Coagula -- refers to the practice of taking the human mind
apart and reintegrating it. In the Hermetic tradition this is called
Initiation. Carl Jung calls it Individuation.

The Tarot has been used in this fashion for hundreds of years, but this
practical knowledge kept occult whilst different explanations ("divination")
allowed to propagate in the popular sphere.

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CuriouslyC
While Jungian archetypes describe compelling characters in terms of mythology,
I don't believe they represent fundamental dimensions of the unconscious mind.
Our neural wiring is unique enough that I don't think it can be reduced that
way. If you look at brain activation in response to stimuli, it's remarkably
inconsistent between individuals.

I do like the idea that Tarot cards let people more easily assume alternate
positions with conviction. If this is accompanied by a mystical experience all
the better - as long as it doesn't lead to doing something stupid.

~~~
52-6F-62
Yet the brain still relies on hierarchies of models (or archetypes) to make
any sense of the world at all. I mean, surely there is little variation in
what people consider a nose or the sensation from touching a bumpy surface and
how they would describe it. (I'm speculating here, of course.)

Thee difference you're referring to in activation in response to stimuli, as I
understand it, is a result of the way and timeline that the models were
learned, but it doesn't change the fact that the cortex relies on hierarchies
of models to form a representation that we understand to be reality.

That is, if I understand you correctly and am not too outdated here.

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gglitch
I like thinking of the cards as a language system like any other: there are
semantic units (the cards) and syntactic units (the layouts).

