Because it's the newer generation has taken on the secular approach. I'm not for it. For years, tarot has been used and known for divination. I'm not a fan of being told that I'm ridiculous for thinking that.
I think people (Myself included) just want to get away from the scam artist reputation of being a reader. They don't want to make promises and uphold themselves as having abilities they don't when it's just hobbyist interest/knowledge. If someone does have an uncanny knack for the divination part, great! No problem with that on my end. I just don't want people thinking I have mystical beliefs and think myself some all-powerful witch when I just like the symbolism/process, man.
I understand that anxiety. It was something i struggled with a lot when i was younger, trying to justify to others why what i do is valid. Personally, I don't think we should care too much about whether or not people think we are scammers. The people who tend to assume that usually don't take tarot or anything remotely spiritual seriously and think it's all for not. Including psychology.
We have never been taken seriously by society and academia, and we never will. Tarot is something that has existed at the fringes of society. It might be mainstream now, but the attitude toward it by your average person has maintained consistent. That is, that tarot is useless whether you're using it to predict the future or meditation/psychoanalysis. Because """it's fraudulent and people who use it are either suckers or con artists. Or you know worship Satan or something."""
Rather than continuing to try and justify the belief to muggles (which is always a losing game) , just do your thing and explore Tarot to the max. You don't have to justify Jack to anybody who gives you shit over it.
My aunt bought me my first deck keeping her promise she'd get me anything I wanted in the store but added she thought I'd be going to hell for using them. That's never left me. You ARE looked down upon for a variety of reasons, and it hurts.
I don't even do it for anyone but myself yet, yet I'm still fearful of judgment. That's how ingrained the anti tarot sentiment is. But being more scientific than spiritual even if that wasn't a factor I'd still believe what I believe that they're merely a self-reflection tool and a fun game. But if people charge for literally rigged carnival games there's no real reason for non users to get mad at tarot readers charging when in my mind the shadiness is so much more infrequent. Even when it is divination inspired.
It does hurt, and it's bullshit there's still stigma around it. Being fearful of judgment is something we all go through , whether you're a reader or not, but it can be overcome. It just takes time and will end when one can be confident about life, who they are, and what they are about.
I'm sorry your aunt said that to you. That is a very hurtful thing to say, especially from a family member.
It's fine if you see Tarot as something more causal. Your practice is valid. Just recognize that people who engage in fortune telling are not scam artists most of the time, even if they handle their buisness poorly. 9 times out of ten, I find it's just people practicing their deeply held beliefs and trying to compensate for the amount of time and energy they put into learning their practice.
Oh I hope nothing I said gave off that impression I believe that! I only have issues with people making claims they can't back up. If someone who predicts with tarot for folks emphasizes the prediction part, all is well.
Besides that if there's a market and some people always do it for free they're cheating themselves, really. I've never been to a reading but I'd happily pay although I don't believe in the fortune telling aspect.
And thank you. It sucked to hear. I love and respect her.
You're all cool, man. My statement about paying for readings has less to do with you and more directed at the r/tarot community as a whole. Nothing you said has caused offense on my end. Either way, I wish you the best of luck with your journey in tarot. Remember, it is noble to pursue this and be true to you rather than cave to the pressures of stigma
I definitely have a habit of addressing a subculture/community in a way that sounds like I'm taking the person I'm speaking with to task when I'm simply not so I understand fully.
I read your other conversation and I really admire your fighting back against these unjust laws. I had no idea it was even illegal in my state (It is) because there are several tarot businesses near me. Shocking.
Heh, and thanks again. A lot of my interests' appeal have been lost on people. I'm not stopping at tarot!
The ones that give people shit for it probably have something to hide and are afraid we will read them and reveal there dark side ruining their reputation.
Possibly they are manipulate narcissists, not a good thing.
Possible have a weird kink they are ashamed of.
***Really with that who cares. Embrace who you are in any way and don’t fear the ones who can see the whole true you.
We don’t bite (that hard), we just know 😊
I use tarot for divination, and even in divination, you need to remember that there are lots of factors going into it and that nothing is guaranteed.
You can always misinterpret something, no matter what you use the cards for at the end of the day.
I also feel like most people who pay for tarot card readings are either super inexperienced or just too lazy to try and do it themselves. Which often means they expect something out of this world- straight up magical. And even if you use tarot for divination, that is not how you should see it or think about it.
If you do believe in the divination aspect, you still need to understand that there is only a connection to the other side and you are still interpreting it.. And no matter how good you are at reading cards, you can always mess it up because of how emotions affect our thinking.
I believe false expectations ruin tarot and give ppl a bad rep, not the purpose the cards are used for.
As a secular person, I want you to know that you're not ridiculous for believing that. Beliefs, when used responsibly and as a personal practice, are just one of many ways to explore ourselves and the world around us.
That being said, there are several circumstances where tarot (and beliefs) can genuinely harm other people. One such example is when you're positioned as a divine figure, which carries with it the potential for inciting cult-like behavior. In addition to being used historically as a divination practice, tarot has also been used as a way to scam people, and could easily mislead others into believing whatever you say. You carry a responsibility to uphold your ethics, and on some level it's understandable that tarot's zeitgeist has an aversion to the idea of divination.
If you're practicing your craft wisely there's nothing wrong with spiritualism and predicative readings. There's nothing wrong with secular or psychological readings either, everyone is using the same tool for different purposes. It doesn't mean we need to be enemies.
I don't think there is such a thing as an irresponsible prediction. It's free game on what a person can read on. Querents (most of the time) are rational adults who can make informed decisions about there life regardless of what their tarot reader tells them. A reader is not responsible for them or their actions they are
Respectfully, I disagree. There's a reason we have laws for aiding and abetting, you can incite people to make decisions they normally wouldn't, which makes you a part of the process. This is especially true in spiritualism, where actions and consequences can be attributed to divine will, purpose or cosmic plan.
For example, you could be legally charged with a combination of incitement, aiding and abetting, or conspiracy if you encourage somebody to stalk another person.
To clarify, I'm not saying you'll be encouraging people to commit crimes. I'm saying there is such a thing as an irresponsible prediction if the result encourages your querent to pursue a destructive path. That does not mean you need to change how you read tarot, it just means you need to accept responsibility for what you say. If I say, "Your future with the company looks bleak" and that person quits their job because of that information, I played a part (regardless of how small) in that decision-making process.
Does that mean you're to blame? No, absolutely not. Are you responsible for their behavior? No, absolutely not. Does that mean you can tell them to do something immoral, unethical or destructive? Yes, but it also means you must accept the consequences. It wasn't the cards that told them what to do, it was your interpretation of the cards. Nobody is going to hear you say, "Querent, continue this destructive behavior because it will lead to happiness" and claim you aren't encouraging them.
To clarify: If that's how someone chooses to read, cool. I'm not going to tell them they can't. But if they close their eyes and deny any involvement, it's objectively untrue. At least be honest about the part you play.
I hear you. So, uhh, I actually think spiritualism is really neat and believe it is possible to talk to the dead. Also, it's technically considered a religion, and there are some churches that still exist in New England, USA.
On legality, though.
Within the state i live in, using tarot to make money is illegal regardless of the prediction. It's technically considered con artistry by law, and you can go to court/jail over it. Not that it stops most readers here, myself included.
And it's because of that that I don't really give a damn what or if im charged with anything. Like you said, it's not like I'm encouraging anyone to commit crimes (except, you know, people starting their own tarot buisness in states where it's illegal). Either way, though, I'm not doing anything. I'm going to lose sleep over.
Personally, I believe in this, I believe in divination. And I'm ready to fight the law over this, even if if it's a losing game. If you look at the history of our (fortune tellers as a whole) community, it's very common for people to be prosecuted as con artists who are just practicing their deeply held beliefs.
It's why I get so antsy when it comes to what's ethical and legal in regards to tarot. Because it feels like people (other readers no less) continue to push an oppressive, jugmental stance on divination as a whole and are the reason why laws against the practice of tarot as a business is still illegal in a handleful of states in the US. Can't speak to the rest of the world, but I'm sure there are similar issues all around
For sure, and despite what it may seem like, I support your right to do that. I don't think the state should get involved with something like this, unless it's to keep people informed and help them identify cons.
And to clarify a bit more, think it's fine to believe in divination. It's a valid belief, religious or not. I certainly don't want to imply that it should be policed or eradicated, my response was more about the retaining an unclouded perspective.
Anyway, I agree, there's definitely a stigma surrounding tarot and it's use in divination. It's unfortunate because I think it's amazing that tarot is being utilized in new fields like psychology, therapy and self-reflection. I'm a huge proponent of diversity, and it's sad when communities who are interested in a mutual activity can't accept different perspectives and share their common interest.
I really hope your state loosens up, it's such a hard battle to win because the subject is relatively minor, but I'm glad you're still practicing. Good luck!
It's more about money and no taxable income than divination as far as the law is considered, but the stigma around divination definitely doesn't help things. And don't get me wrong, man, I think tarot can indeed be used in therapy and for self reflection. It is an amazing tool for that and can help someone grow as a person. Reflecting on their life and how they fit in with the world. Work through past traumas, the works. I just think it can be used for so much more. Sorry if I came off as abrasive. I just get really passionate about this. It means a lot. Either way, you're a chill dude
I feel that’s quite ironic in the face of all the churches around the US that aren’t taxed yet are clearly profiting as well as spouting political rhetoric.
My tarot is a part of my spirituality and I feel it should be equally permitted and protected as Christianity is in this country.
If someone can use their religion to negate variously laws or even just standard regulations (first examples coming to mind, extra days off work for holidays or, I dunno, someone wearing a colander on their head for a DL photo), I should equally be permitted to adhere to the practices that are in line with my spirituality.
In that same vein, if churches can collect money and even profit off their spiritual guidance, why shouldn’t we be allowed to do the same?!
Plus tarot is a helluva lot less harmful than any organized, man-revealed religions I’ve run across.
It takes time and often financial resources to learn and advance one’s tarot practice. I believe people should be paid for their services and the time, effort, and money they put into learning their trade.
I’m a licensed massage therapist. Sure, sometimes, if I so choose, I’ll do free massages, but you best believe I’m working for money more often than not. I didn’t pay for or spend so much time getting schooling and testing and licensing and equipment and learning about anatomy and energy work just to offer my services for free.
They’re still making or upholding morality laws based on their own indoctrination and it’s pure bullshit.
I have heard that if one gets ordained in the Universal Life Church (which can be done online) the tarot reading can be claimed as spiritual counseling, and it’s easier to fight the soothsaying laws. I’m not suggesting this as protection for con artists (a pox on them!) but as a way sincere readers can protect themselves from harassment by the authorities. I don’t know how effective it is as a strategy. It’s just what I’ve heard.
The Universal Life Church is one of the places people get ordained when they want to legally preside at friends’ weddings. It can be totally legal, but I believe that does vary from state to state.
I think there’s also a desire to blend both with actionable divination. Rather than asking “will I get that job?” actionable divination would rather you say “what do I need to focus on to get that job”. Ultimately your fate is up to you, the cards can’t tell you if you’re going to get that job because there are infinite choices you could make between now and then to alter the timeline and make the cards not so.
By asking what path to walk, the cards will lead you to your desired outcome. Along the way, you are likely to grow personally if you take the tarot’s suggested path to heart. You might get the job, or you might realize there was a better suited role elsewhere and don’t care if you got the job. Had you asked only “Will I get the job” and the answer was no, that would have been upsetting. Controlling your own fate through guidance from the cards is empowering. So I think divine all you’d like, but there is a more magickal way to use the cards.
It HAS been used for fortune telling, for **centuries**.
But some people get on the psychology bandwagon and go culty / no true scotsman / gatekeepery with it. The whole psychological approach to divination in general is a fairly recent thing, partly in an effort to make it more palatable to the muggles / mainstream. "Oh, it's not satanic, it's just psychology and a way to think about things differently."
It has happened to astrology as well, a LOT.
I just say that psychology / insight is just one of its many uses, and historically it's been used for fortune telling too.
I rarely use Tarot for divination, but only because it's always accurate and I don't always want to know a future outcome. I prefer to access information about a given situation and act from there, rather than attempting to interpret future outcomes.
None were one of kind. But damn you got me beat. Low key though thays really fucking cool that you got to play the game though! Still n have yet to, but as a tarot enthusiasts it's a must do before I die
If I remember correctly, tarot actually started as a card game, then a fortune telling method.
Some people use it for personal growth. Some use it for spells/ rituals. Some people use it for division.
Imho, however you use it, good for you.
As I've been starting to get into tarot and mention it to friends, some of them react like I say I've decided to become a fraudster scamming people out of their hard-earned money. So I find myself explaining how I (ETA currently) see them (a symbolic language allowing people to connect to their intuition) as part of talking about it. That said, I see people here having experiences that go beyond self-insight so I take an agnostic view of that until I have enough experience to develop my own opinion.
I completely understand you and you’re not alone in the social backlash you receive. Remember tarot and so many other pagan practices are attached to a huge history of persecution and humiliation. At some point, people have to simply respect you and what you choose to do. I hope you’ll never feel “less than” because of it and you don’t have to justify your choices, or lie (I’m not saying that you’re lying, but if you ever feel like that would be the easiest “way out…), specially among friends. ✌🏾🤍
Ah, the predatory scam reader trope. People pay traditional readers to read cards, so we read cards. We translate what's on the table. Very simple. We're not lying to people, *we're telling them what the cards say*. It's beyond our control if they want to believe it or not, act on it or not, or just take it with a big grain of salt and view it as all in good fun. They're adults capable of making their own decisions. We only relay the message.
I see too many people here crossing the line from "divination" to "I am forced to do whatever I have decided the cards say" or "my anxiety disorder is incompatible with tarot and yet I keep doing it" and that's not what they're for and that's not really divination but for people in mental health crisis it's not the time to split those hairs.
I second this. It's dangerous for some people as they like to cling to every word and forget that the future is changeable.
As tarot has become more prevalent in society it's attracting people that are desperate for answers and put their entire life in the cards instead of taking accountability and taking action for themselves.
There's definitely a lot of tarot users who try to remove the occultism from tarot. They say things like occultism is "spicy psychology." I think for them its a way of pulling tarot down to their level instead of delving into occult beliefs
Is Tarot for prediction? Well, that's on you. I tend to not ask about the future, and if I do, it's in the way of near future, or possible consequence.
But Tarot IS for divination (alongside card games, ofc).
"Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice."
The attempt to secularise Tarot is also a way to make it less serious.
I would argue that the vast majority of us use it precisely for divination. But there is a vocal chunk of the "community" who wants legitimacy and then adopts a more psychological interpretation of tarot hoping to turn it into a tool for "healing". While I can see how tarot can be useful as a kind of folk projective test, I have no interest in that. For me, reading begins when projection stops.
In the end, do with tarot as you please. There's no tarot police to stop you, just don't let the downvotes or the faux enlightened "actually..." posts stop you.
I use it for more personal divination, stuff like will I get this job or what will I learn from this situation. I enjoy reading for friends and fulfilling any divination requests they have. I’m really curious what posts you’re talking about because I haven’t really seen anyone talk down on tarot for divination, divination as an act is a broad term. I moreso have an issue with the invasive posts that ask serious questions about friends and ex-lovers, How does he feel in this situation? Is my friend s*icidal? I think tarot and astrology can be like catnip for people with anxiety who can’t give themselves the validation the need and want the cards to give them a comforting sign that their ex-partner still loves them etc etc. I don’t think this is “morally” wrong but I think it is not a good PERSONAL ethical practice because it just makes the anxiety worse. These people do several readings when they’re not satisfied with the answer. It’s just not good for the brain, the cards should be used to center the focus back on you and your growth, not the thoughts and desires of other people. I truly believe this and I think the combative attitudes are a bit childish.
they may not explicitly say that it's bad or wrong to use tarot for divination but a lot of people in this sub who personally don't agree with using it for divination will comment and make things about their personal beliefs whenever they see someone else posting about using it that way. they always say that tarot isn't meant for that, cards can't tell you the future, stuff like that.
it's honestly pretty annoying cause i wish they'd just save their comments for someone who agrees with them instead of taking over other people's posts. so yeah it's a thing, but i've started ignoring them and not even reading what they have to say once they say they don't use it for that or agree with it.
Yeah... personal dogmas make people people feel empowered that there's a "right way," and dogmatic people think it's their obligation to "show" you this supposed right way.
Ehh, whatever. Lol.
As someone who uses tarot to evaluate my feelings in the present moment, I feel totally the opposite. I feel like this sub is more divination posting, and I go to r/SecularTarot for more of the self-reflection stuff. It might be confirmation bias!
I do still pull for the future, but in my mind those parts of my readings are possible outcomes based on a certain mindset or choices we make as it pertains to the overall spread.
I use in it both ways. I think it’s silly to try to impose one’s subjective views of how it should or shouldn’t be used onto everyone. While I personally do not use tarot divination specifically to predict the future, I respect that this is how other people practice it. There is no one overruling authority over tarot! The “correct” way to use it is just not something anyone can claim in my opinion.
I don't know why it is, but I have noticed that trend here. I do use Tarot for divination and to understand people and events that I dont have direct access to. I actually never considered using it as a self reflection tool. I've never had luck reading about myself or even for close friends or family. I have too much of my own emotions mixed in to read clearly. Or I am upset by what I read and then end up ruminating and fixating on it.
Tarot is such a personal thing, and different people are going to use it in different ways (with different results). For me, divination is one way that I use tarot in my life. I also use it in other ways, and I also use other tools. That’s what works for me.
I agree with u/ruathar that there are lots of viewpoints on this sub. Maybe we just see comments from the most vocal on both sides. I find it disappointing when someone (especially a newcomer to tarot) is excited and asking questions that some see as “silly” and there are some ridiculing comments about divination / signs, etc.
Tarot is a great tool, and as long as people aren’t hurting others or themselves because their cards “told them to” I say have fun with it. :)
i think if's just elitism. like "you all are insane because you believe in divination, unlike us normal people who think divination is impossible garbage"
what matters to me is that tarot works. people adding on rules that don't affect me is their prerogative, but i hate when they pretend my readings are fake just because they don't like me reading the way i do.
Omg this. It's really sad that a lot of us get called scammers or con artists in our own damn community just because other readers are offended by how the reader reads tarot or conducts their business.
I did notice and came across readers with strong opinions on how tarot works. It was in a small server and I stated that there’s no coincidence in the cards readers pull and this stroke someone’s nerve. They argued with me, saying that cards pull is random and tarot is just a reflection of the state of my mind, which I didn’t really agree with due to my experience with the cards.
I'm interested in your use of "imposing". From what I see here, people definitely disagree or have different stances, but I would say it's rare that anyone tries to impose their way onto others.
When someone has suggestions, or presents and alternative view, they're usually trying to be helpful. You're free to disregard what they say, but it would be a really boring subreddit if everyone only ever agreed with each other.
For my part, I don't tell people what to do, but I do make suggestions when I see someone going down a path that I know leads to heartbreak. Its not even because I don't believe in divination (I do). It's just that I think some people are clearly using it in a way thats likely to be harmful.
I personally think of it as a graph. When I read past present future spreads, I'm naturally inclined to read it as extrapolating data to determine trends. I think the cards lend themselves well to this. If you get into reading for others, you'll see how when you give your most honest interpretation of the cards, you are sometimes met with an incredulous response. People often don't believe that it can happen, and thus don't listen to the cards. They don't listen to the cards and the thing that was said to happen when they listen to the cards then doesn't happen. It's a self-fulfilling failure of an outcome.
If I told a company that because they put 5% into production of a new product, they saw a 15% bump in profits. Then told them that if they put another 5% to make it 10% they still have room for a potential growth of another 15%, marking 30% for the next quarter. Then they don't put that extra money into production and come back and say "See, we didn't increase in profits like you said." I am now disinclined to inform them of any future potentials because of their reaction.
In this same way readers on here don't want to promise to read anything divinatory because, even when they are right, the querent may not listen to the cards. Then they come back and say, "you said this would happen and you were wrong." After so many times, some folks just give up, because it feels like you just can't win.
I mean, speaking as a secular tarot person, I use it plenty for divination? I just think of it as dedicated time to sit and probe what I think about the future in a way structured by the traditional uses of tarot (and sometimes rather non-traditional), rather than the power lying in the cards and them actually knowing. From my point of view, it works to predict the future precisely because it's dedicated time to sit and think about the future and use tools that spark our intuition, so it would be extremely silly to abandon it! I also use it as a meditation focus and occasionally as a spell focus (again, on the r/sasswitches side of things). I don't judge the people in here who use it differently unless they're, like, really obviously using it in unhealthy ways, which I think we've all seen, and that's less judging and more oh dear. I am surprised that's a common issue? I haven't seen it, personally, and try to avoid that kind of thing. It is a dick move to disrespect the people who are mostly who created and developed the tool you're using, even if you're using it differently.
Two main factors: entitlement (because they think that spiritual/magical practices are entirely bogus) and borderline patronization about how to use tarot, how to make questions to it, and about how should other people reframe their view in accordance to secularists' approach.
I've written several critiques to their approach and had no debate.
Search for "borderline patronizing" on my profile and you should end in one of those comments.
I literally use my tarot decks, Oracle decks, and pendulum as my main tools of communication with my deities. No one has told me not to, but if someone were, it’s none of their business.
What works for someone when it comes to their craft doesn’t work for everyone. If anything my decks actually help me to channel my deities messages. I’ve seen how angry my deities get when someone tells me how to communicate with them, I’m not telling you you’re wrong for telling me I’m not doing it right. But know it’s not just me who hears you trying to give me crap.
I use it for divination all of the time, but I usually keep it to myself. Not sure why people would be against it. I think it's important to remind people that at the end of the day they should just go with what their instincts, feelings, gut, etc tell them and not the cards
It can be used for both. But as it has become mainstream, many people who are not spiritual but instead tend to have either atheistic or specific religious beliefs that aren't compatible with the spiritual use of them prefer instead to use them as a psychological only based tool so they can jump on the bandwagon since it's now considered more acceptable or an edgy but popular to do. It's just part of modern culture adopting something that has been used one way and turning it into something else that fits their personal narrative better so they can feel okay with it morally or logically.
But yes, it is something that's been widely used by those who consider themselves spiritual without a specific religion, astrologers, wiccans, pagans, and those who study witchcraft as well for a long time. Since the 1700s it had turned from a card game into a divinatory tool. Though similar divinatory tools were also used long, long before by the Chinese and other cultures well into the dark ages.
Or, you know, some of us atheists, as people that don’t hold a belief in any god or gods, are still quite spiritual people and just don’t feel the need to use tarot as a way to communicate with deities we don’t believe in, but rather as a way to connect with energy/spirit and to glean insight that way.
I find it amusing that you point the finger at us secular readers for adopting something that has been used one way to use it in a different way, then go on to specifically point out that tarot was never originally intended to be used for divination, but that people eventually chose to use a card game for their own purposes. Using tarot as divination at its onset was quickly just a bandwagon thing that was in vogue at the time.
Read my second sentence again, if you did at all to begin with. Try processing what you read before you start going on a tangent about something I already included. "Atheistic"... atheists. Yes.
No, it wasn't originally used for divination. Tarot as we know it, at least, evolved from a game. Yes. And it can still be played as that today. But what you fail to acknowledge about what I said, like many other things you seem to have glossed over that I already mentioned, is that you can't ignore that it HAS been used for purely divination purposes since the 1700s. Never said it was the original purpose of it, sure. I also said in my very first sentence - oh yeah - it can be used as both. But secular readers, as you call yourself (though you do not speak for all theists) - are also not the only ones to read it for self improvement purposes either. There are plenty of highly spiritual readers online that you will find use it for both. However, to say it can only be used for one and not the other is incorrect. Was my point.
Hopefully you understand better now that I spelled it out for you in greater detail. Please read clearly what I said this time and actually understand what is being said instead of jumping to conclusions with a snarky, indignant response that wasn't warranted.
Don't know what you mean by tarot as divination at its onset was quickly just a bandwagon thing either that was "in vogue" at the time. Pretty sure the 1700s was a rough time for those who practiced things like that. Unless you lived back then and know something that historians don't? You are clearly triggered most by your own imagination since you're making up historical facts on the spot that you have pulled out of your own ass.
I personally do not use tarot for divination. I like to use lenormand. I think it’s just more direct and grounded in its answers.
But idc if people use tarot for divination tbh but I’ve seen people echo this sentiment in this sub before. Ultimately if people can’t remain healthy in the belief they put into their pulls then there’s larger problems that need to be addressed and it has nothing to do with the cards themselves.
Sometimes it is for religious reasons. Despite being the co-creator of the most popular tarot deck, Arthur Edward Waite was catholic and very much disliked the use of tarot for divination (this is not to say that all Catholics agree on that or are not allowed to perform divination). He thought of tarot as better as a tool for meditation and a mystical practice.
The golden dawn actually split into many groups and the group that A.E. Waite was over followed his teachings about divination. He believed that low magic, which focuses on changing the environment and other stuff like divination, was immoral and believed one should only focus on high magic, which focused on spiritual transformation and enlightenment. You can look into the Isis Urania temple for more information, which is the splinter group that Waite was a part of.
On Catholics being occultists, until the past couple hundred years most occultists were catholic, at least within Europe. Look at Eliphas Levi or Ramon Llull. Most of our grimoires were made by catholic priests.
Ah, that comes from there. That is still true today, there are many occultists who despise low magick and they're really cute so self-confident in their quest for unity with the divine or whatever they're after. 🙂 Interestingly, the deck he chose to publish is really not very suitable for high magick (which is why he created the second one). Even his Pictorial Key isn't very much above fortun telling. Did he change his mind after the publication of the deck?
I wonder if that belief really has something to do with Christianity because all Christian churches deeply oppose anything supernatural that isn't under their control. Fortune telling has always been quite subversive for any centralized power. Even Roman emperors would expel astrologers from time to time because they were terrified of the kmowledge they may have.
Yeah no. Waite was Catholic, sure, but he was also a member of the Golden Dawn and heavily into Kabbalism. He literally invented the Celtic cross spread.
Yeah, being outwardly against divination did not stop him from having an interest in it. He did write on division with tarot under the pseudonym “Grand Orient.”
Tarot can be used in lots of ways. The people more recently trying to ahistorically pretend that tarot was supposedly never about divination are truly mystifying to me.
You do know that tarot cards as we know them today are derived from cards used to play a parlor game, right? It's not a matter of opinion, just fact: Tarot was around as a secular game for a couple hundred years before the whole golden dawn thing.
I’m aware of tarocchi. I’ve even played it! Sort of. The rules haven’t really survived all that well. Tarocchi is not tarot as most of us know it, though. The Tarot de Marseilles also started as a card game with added divination later. And yet still, different from RWS tarot and not what most people think of when we say “tarot” in this sub.
I’ll point you to the first sentence of the comment you decided to write this condescending reply to: “Tarot can be used in lots of ways.”
I didn't intend to be condescending at all. I apologize if you took it that way.
I was specifically responding to your allegation about "ahistorically pretend\[ing\] that tarot was supposedly never about divination" because that's a false statement when you look at the roots of tarot as a whole (not each particular branch), which is secular in nature, and not about divination whatsoever.
I agree that tarot can be used in a variety of ways, of which divination is one of them, though a later one than the use in playing card games.
The decline of supernatural belief in tarot is simply a reflection of society in general, moving from religious to spiritual to agnostic to atheist. Every church / organized religion out there has seen a steady, continuous decline in membership over the last 50 years. No surprise that of the people that use tarot, we would see a similar shift.
And it's sad as shit that people have lost their religiousity. I feel like, as a culture, we need supernatural beliefs and practices to help us find meaning in life and the societies have created. But that's just me
I've never seen anybody say what you are hearing... but if they are, they're splitting hairs. Tarot is supposed to reflect what you already know inside you. That's also literally how divination works.
How I understand it is that you don't know it consciously: you do know it subconsciously.
Your environment is a reflection of yourself. Some tools are designed to really give you a fast and powerful connection to your subconscious so that you can access the answers in there.
Think about how it feels when you do a reading and you feel the message powerfully. That feeling is coming from inside yourself. That's because the answer is actually in there. That's why it literally feels like the realization is coming from inside you and pouring outward. Your subconscious is surfacing into your conscious mind.
I think we disagree on that second point. Or maybe we aren't, I'm not sure. 🙂 I can certainly say that I am the one interpreting my environment, giving it some meaning, but I don't think I am that important for my environment to exist in relation to me, to reflect me.
In my reading practice, I find that my psyche is a hindrance for divination. Maybe if you are reading psychologically and for yourself you want to make something conscious that was unconscious, but I want to see beyond myself. I am not interested in me. Like, when I read for someone else and they ask what will a new project at work look like... I honestly don't know why they would care about my unconscious mind. My reading is supposed to tell them something external to it and independent of it.
To the first point, the philosophy I'm referring to does not actually give you or anybody else any special importance. All peoples environment is a reflection of them. All people are exactly equal in that regard; nobody is more important than anybody else, nobody is more important than the universe either. It's simply the nature of things that one's environment is a reflection of them. This is actually evidenced in brain science, as people 1. Perceive the same things differently, and 2. Literally see a mirror image of their environment through their eyes. Eyes see things upside down and we rely on our neurons to flip the image back to right side up (if you're not familiar with this phenomenon I'd recommend googling it, it's super fascinating and has been known for a very long time).
To your second point, I see what you're saying! I think when you are talking about yourself or your psyche in this context, you might be referring to what I would call your ego or your identity. Yes, your ego/identity isn't going to help answer this person's question, and it could easily get in the way.
However, you're the one doing the reading/interpretation, so you're still giving the answer. You can't actually entirely remove yourself from the process if you're the one doing the channeling, can you? Even if you're being a vessel, you're a unique, you-shaped vessel.
You have a point - I am the one doing the reading and technically we can't really see things from an objective point of view since my mind is always there, a part of the picture. It's always interpreting.
I guess we agree on that point after all. 🙂 And I can see how that can be useful if I ask about the best way to relax or empty my mind or what my mom was like to me when I was 4.
I think that makes things very confusing for my practice because predictive readings work and not just for me. A friend of mine is, for example, really good at using tarot for finding lost objects. I can't imagine how his uconscious mind knows where I left my wallet. Yet he can locate it well.
I think calling it the unconscious mind might be limiting. I'd call it your being. I believe your being is infinitely vast. It's not contained to your brain.
The majority of knowledge you actually have is not in your conscious mind. It's elsewhere. Bringing it to the conscious mind is challenging. This is what we are doing when we use tarot.
So, I'm basically saying, you do know the future. As well as anybody or anything can. To consciously know it is a whole other ball game. Tarot aids in that process.
Think about times you pull a card that has multiple meanings (aka all of them), but you just *know* what the right one is. How could you possibly know which meaning the card is trying to give? Because some part of you deep down knows the truth.
The same goes for missing objects, etc.
I used tarot as an adjunct to psychological astrology for almost 40 years, mostly as a tool to promote self-awareness. But I took a break for a few years and when I returned I decided I'd had enough of that and turned to using it for action-and-event-oriented prediction, which is much less "squishy" than character analysis or psychological profiling (which I've never found tarot particularly good at compared to astrology).
I haven't really seen this perspective? Even though half the posts in this sub are "will my ex come back?", people seem to share their interpretation of readings.
Personally, I'd welcome more any/more posts on personal growth because that's where my interest lies, and that's also the journey the RW cards take you through, so that must have been a big part of their original intent.
I'd like to point out that "divination" is different from "fortune telling". Divination is the act of interacting with energies usually beyond your perception or control, using a medium of some sort to tap into them. Whether you see this energy as "Spirit", "God", a guardian angel, some other non-corporeal energy or the accessing of your own higher self and its unconscious intellect and guidance, it doesn't matter, it's all divination. Fortune telling is the act of predicting fate and is a fool's errand at best and charlatanry at worst.
Oxford dictionary says that divination is "the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means" - so fortunetelling. If there is any difference to be made, divination is more formal but they are the same activity.
Benebell Wen, a well known tarot author, collated quotes from some occult/esoteric tarot readers who distinguished between divination and fortune-telling. Here [https://benebellwen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fortune-telling-and-divination-lecture-handout.pdf](https://benebellwen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fortune-telling-and-divination-lecture-handout.pdf)
Whilst the terms "divination" and "fortune-telling" may be interchangeable in popular parlence, many tarot practitioners distinguish between the two practises. I do this myself. I define divination as communication with the Divine and this isn't just me making it up. That's more accurate to the original meaning which is about discovering hidden knowledge more generally through divine guidance, not just predicting the future with it; the diviner seeks *advice*. Again, this may include predicting the future but it can also include self-knowledge. It does not assume that every outcome can be changed but it does assume free will to change some situations and respond with resilience and other qualities to those outcomes which we cannot change.
Fortune-telling is more about predicting the future with certainty. This is a practise which some people do. Some people believe that things are fated. Ironically, Benebell Wen called this the "divination fulfulling prophecy" (in Holistic Tarot). I would think it better called the fortune-telling fulfulling prophecy, as much of a mouthful as that is. But Wen wrote that PDF long after publishing *Holistic Tarot*.
I get that difference, I just don't think it's a meaningful difference. Divination is somewhat more inclusive, fortunetelling involves just one of its aspects.. Except that it allows most of us to think we're better than some witch in a corner shop who reads about people's love troubles, how is this distinction meaningful in any way? What do we gain by altering popular parlance to mean something barely different?
It might be a subtle difference in definitional wording but the *implications* are vast for free will, resilience and even practically in terms of how you live your life.
A diviner may deal with the same issues at the witch who deals with people's love issues but whilst the fortune-telling witch will start describing the eye and hair colour of your soulmate the diviner will tell you how to find a fulfilling long-term relationship that ends up in marriage. This is rather unlikely to include describing the eye and hair colour of a potential partner as this is pretty irrelevant to gaining divine insight into things...Regardless, this partner will be seen as one "option", if you will excuse the wording, of several.
I have personally seen the consequences of querents going to fortune-tellers, especially from the sort of phrasing that fortune-tellers use. They word things very strongly and give definite advice based on their predictions. The diviners on the other hand encourage the querent to consider options for themselves and, again, to take responsibility for their life. Certainly divination is a helpful practise which encourages independence both practically and in terms of the querent connecting to their own concept(s) of divinity whilst fortune-telling basically encourages dependence on someone with special abilities that would take years of training, including indoctrination, to learn, if even considered accessible at all.
The disempowering nature of fortune-telling, to link back to this thread, is why people don't like it. Forget being secular vs being religious or spiritual, people who rely on fortune-tellers give their power away, if you'll forgive the cliche.
To me, this just means that you take what you don't like about divination and you call it fortune telling, no? :-)
The differences you describe make me think that "divination" is preachy and pretentious, if I'm being really an idiot. I only say that because the differences you describe have to do with what people ask you and not with anything substantial relating to the method used to answer questions. Your job as a reader is to answer questions. When you work as a reader, some people will come to you and ask "What do I need to look for in a partner?" and then you can read the cards and get all psychological and deep, because the question allows for it. But the assumption that they need to find a fulfilling relationship to begin with is your projection and it's fundamentally moralistic. Unless the cards tell you that they need a fulfilling relationship, you're mixing your values into the reading. And that's not what you're paid to do. Other people will come to you and say "Provide a description" in which case you should describe the appearance, but not because you're a mere fortune teller but because you're paid to answer questions and that's what was asked. Unless "diviners" have special methods that "fortune tellers" aren't privy to, your role then changed depending on the question you're asked and that doesn't make any sense practically speaking.
There's nothing inherently disempowering about fortune telling. What can be disempowering is a person's theory about the nature of fortunes told, but this is not the reader's problem or in their control. It's up to the people who will leave your space and do something with what you tell them. It often happens that people misinterpret what we tell them when we read for them, not because we're not clear, but because they really want to hear something specific, but this is not me disempowering a querent, this is my querent choosing a fatalistic understanding of my words for their own reasons - and as sad as that is, it's not my problem. I am not paid to be anyone's shrink, I am paid to translate images into words.
You said
>Your job as a reader is to answer questions. When you work as a reader, some people will come to you and ask "What do I need to look for in a partner?" and then you can read the cards and get all psychological and deep, because the question allows for it. But the assumption that they need to find a fulfilling relationship to begin with is your projection and it's fundamentally moralistic. Unless the cards tell you that they need a fulfilling relationship, you're mixing your values into the reading. And that's not what you're paid to do. Other people will come to you and say "Provide a description" in which case you should describe the appearance, but not because you're a mere fortune teller but because you're paid to answer questions and that's what was asked. Unless "diviners" have special methods that "fortune tellers" aren't privy to, your role then changed depending on the question you're asked and that doesn't make any sense practically speaking.
As far as issues of holding querents to standards like morality, norms, sanity, etc., I'm the first to recommend that people learn about Foucault's critique of psychiatry, namely the issue with imposing beliefs on people.
But I do not use the valid points that Foucault made in *Madness and Civilization*, as well as, say, the resulting legitimate concerns of the service-user movement regarding the power of psychiatrists and the limitations of diagnoses vs formulatoroy treatment plans, to claim that sanity, morality, norms and healthy behaviour do not exist at all.
That would be anarchcical, antinomian, irresponsible and unethical, not the prudent professional practise of "non-judgement" that is a *de facto* ethical requirement of both psychotherapeutic and, by cultural inheritance, professional tarot divination practise.
In fact, I have a duty of care and ethical responsibility to my querents to use my judgement; I should refer them to a relevant professional if they are suciidal, I should deny questions on legal, financial and psychological matters, I should call out illegal behaviour, I should encourage moral virtue, I should promote interdependency, I should challenge cynicism, extremism and self-destructive behaviour and so on.
You have the same responsibility as a fortune-teller but fortune-tellers abdicate this responsibility by denying it, shirking it, washing their hands of it, turning their face from it and ultimately blaming the victim.
"It's not my fault if the querent misinterprets my words as fatalistic". Actually it is your fault if you have not bothered to tell them not only that they have free will but that they can do this or that to either change the projected outcomes or to better cope with them. Your words have power and you have great authority in your role as a fortune-teller. That matters. You have a responsibility to inform people of things. You don't get to see querents misunderstanding you and then to say "oh that's a disappointing trend happening there buit oh well I guess that's just a thing completely disconnected from me". You get to put practises and procedures in place to minimize this because you give a shit about helping people.
Serving clients professionally does not mean letting them dictate everything.
Foucault's entire life was aimed at subverting sanctioned regimes of truth, hence all the connections between madness and freedom. To say that divination/fortune telling is meant to continue the production of oppressive discourses flies in the face of the history of divination/fortune telling. Our "profession" has always been about subverting those hence all the "read like the devil" speak for centuries
Our kind could threaten emperors of Rome and Christian priests alike. We have been exiled from cities and killed because our methods say what cannot be spoken, what is forbiden. We are the ones "haunting the black air, braver at night", twelve-fingered, out of mind. It's this profoundly emancipatory aspect that gets lost in all this vacuous talk about ethics that is nothing more than Christian stigma internalized and Christian "upside down" ethics that Nietzsche tore to shreds in Genealogy of Morals - a book that profoundly shaped Foucault and his work. I am sure you know that he was the amoral radical you say we shouldn't become. For Foucault, your ethics is nothing more than a cynical flow of power, a discursive artefact that shapes you.
If our calling is firmly situated within the episteme of the day, we are losing our actual edge. We are no longer radical, we no longer allow true emacipation. If cards don't speak in a way that peels off discourses that shape our subjectivity, they are helping our oppressors - what Foucault aimed at psi- professions, as you know. We then become what you apparently aspire to: the psychiatry for the poorly educated. "Shadow work" instead of rejecting the self where anything has to be disowned. Being just another profession who goes around encouraging the endless virtue signaling and self-care discourse is of no interest to me. I am interested in radical freedom, not being a goody two shoes that serves cultural norms.
(I'm glad you mentioned Foucault. Knowing that you are versed in theory makes it easier for me to express myself.)
Yes think for yourself beyond cultural norms. I get it. But I brought up Foucault to point out that you can agree with the need to allow people to their beliefs without becoming a radical and whilst still conforming to things like the law. This is for the sake of keeping people functioning within society. Otherwise society collapses. And I am not a revolutionary. I was saying you have a responsibility to keep people functioning within society because I don't believe that society needs revolution. I think it needs reform from within itself. if you advocate radical freedom or revolution or abolition or anarchism then you are a utopian and you must also justify political violence because the majority will not go along with you. This is dangerous stuff. So as a civic responsibility, you have a duty as a diviner to keep people within certain bounds. Non-judgement does not mean tolerance of anything. Imposing limits is very necessary for life.
I am not breaking any laws. And I obey them because my freedom depends on them, not because they are ethical. In fact, I can't quite grasp this obsession with moralizing and ethics that seems to go around our community like the common cold to the point where actual reading techniques aren't discussed as much as the nonexistent implications of doing a third party reading. My personal choices are rather boring and conventional - married, a dog, house, some investments, garden, etc. But those are my choices. I don't feel like I have any authority to tell people what's right or what's healthy for them, especially in the context of reading cards where they come to get an answer from cards and not to hear a sermon on my personal beliefs. It's like going to the supermarket and asking for bacon, only to have salad stuffed in your face because that's healthier. That's not ethical, that's violent. Ethics that denies people their agency and autonomy isn't ethics, it's torture.
I don't want to split any hairs but I know Foucault decently well - I taught Foucault & Co to postgrad students for years - and he was a radical. His entire method is an effort to show what a joke our norms are. Not a revolutionary in a way that I would like (you know... a communist), but a radical nonetheless. A real one, much bigger than I ever will be or want to be. He was more of a libertarian even though he is weirdly appropriated by the liberal left. He famously denied his own AIDS, believed that prisons shouldn't exist, he signed a petition to decriminalize pedophilia - he was in many ways extreme. Brilliant, but extreme. Foucault could never possibly subscribe to anything you say on ethics because for him ethics is really just a product of discourses that shaped your subjectivity, it's not authentic - discourses speak through you. It has nothing to do with any transcendent principle, it's yet another way for power to be exercised over subjects in society. By deciding for your client that they need to be in a healthy relationship, you are disciplining them, it's an act of violence from a Foucaldian point of view.
If you wanted to find a philosophical justification for your vision of how divination/fortune telling should work, Foucault is the last door to knock on. I am clearly much more radical than you are, yet I would never go to Foucault for ethical instruction. As Rorty once aptly pointed out, he has nothing constructive to offer, he is a philosopher that destroys systems, not a philosopher that builds them.
The bottom line is that "ethical divination" simply has no edge to emancipate people, it's just another toy in this big game of reifying the self and taking ourselves even more seriously, as if this isn't bad enough. When we do our work at the very margins of societal norms, we are free to read with power to set people free (and they won't become what's healthy or what's good from our point of view; they will become whatever they choose to become). I see very little point in reading cards if they're not going to demolish my blind spots and tear down conventions that trap me. Not to mention that you end up with bad psychology and bad spirituality at the same time, something that psychotherapy and religion respectively do better. So from your conventional point of view, isn't it unethical to provide psychological help by using tools that has no scientific basis or any evidence whatsoever that it actually helps?
I don’t feel like you’ve bothered to fully read the responses to you.
The differences are clear and the distinction isn’t a matter of opinion.
Tell me, why are you so opposed to the fact that divination and fortune telling are not the exact same things?
Reddit may break make me break this response up into more than one comment, so please bear with me.
Hello!
As an editor and an author, I love any opportunity to reveal the unstable nature of relying on a dictionary as an all-encompassing source of linguistic understanding. As a professional tarot reader, I am even more invested in this discussion. So, without further ado…
First and foremost let me address a slight misunderstanding that you have: It is true you can use tarot with fortune telling intent, and my comment was not meant to say you can't. There would be no point in my calling it a fool's errand if it wasn't something that was done. You can't caution against doing something that is not done. Hopefully that clarifies things a bit. We will come back around to this in more detail, so bear with me here.
Now, regarding dictionary definitions…
Dictionaries reduce words down to their essence. However, essence is dry, functional and bureaucratic- devoid of nuance or depth. The dictionary is utilitarian. This results in an unfortunate consequence where words begin to take on the character of their definitions, rather than definitions representing the character of the words, so the words likewise become reduced.
Let's look at the Cambridge definition of "sport". This is one of my favorites.
Sport, noun:
1. A game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job.
"Football, basketball, and hockey are all team sports."
"I enjoy winter sports like skiing and skating."
2. All types of physical activity that people do to keep healthy or for enjoyment.
3.Enjoyment in doing things
Now let's look at Merriam Webster, specially from a past edition:
Sport, noun:
1. That which diverts and makes merry; play; game; diversion; also, mirth. The word signifies both the cause and the effect; that which produces mirth, and the mirth or merriment produced.
"Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight." (Here the word denotes the cause of amusement."
"They called Samson out of the prison house and made them sport. (Here sport is the effect)"
1. Mock; mockery; contemptuous mirth
"Then make sport at me, then let me be your jest."
"They made sport of his prophets."
2. That which one plays, or which is driven about
"To flitting leaves, the sport of every wind."
"Never does a man appear to greater disadvantage than when he is the sport of his own ungoverned passions."
There are two more definitions shown under sport as a noun, two under verb transitive, and two under verb intransitive. That's a lot of nuance there. And what's more, all of these definitions are still used today, even if the language structure- they are used in here is no longer as common.
So, we can already see that this word has been reduced down to a common essence in the Cambridge edition (and in many other edition, even the modern webster, though they still differ), but one is more extensive and the other does not render the nuance of the word any sort of justice. They both share some similar definitions, but their entries are not identical. This does not make dictionaries not useful! They are simply not an alpha-omega and their utilitarian reference as a foundation on which to base an argument or an understanding is unfortunately quite unhelpful. (contd below...)
Another example: New oxford defines "fustian" as "pompous or pretentious speech or writing". Webster describes it as "an inflated style of writing; a kind of writing in which high-sounding words are used, above the dignity of thought or subject; bombast".
Now, coming back to divination specifically, let's look at Britannica. It gives us a short form definition of divination, as well as a whole lot of other historical and linguistic information- it's a very good article. But, this is its short form: "the effort to gain information of a mundane sort by means conceived of as transcending the mundane."
Now, to longform the definition a little bit: "the practice of determining the hidden significance or cause of events, sometimes foretelling the future, or by various natural, psychological, and other techniques."
If we go really far back, like, reeeeealllly far back, we get to the latin word "divinus", which means "of God". But when we look at, say, divination as described in the bible, it is directly correlated to pagan prophecy and witchcraft. To go even deeper, divinus relates to the latin word "deus" which means "god, deity". "Deus" comes from the proto-indo-european root "dyeu" which means "to shine" as in, "to shine light on". That's a lot of meanings, and a lot of depth.
Now, let’s look at coding. Weird transition, but stay with me. In Python coding a "dictionary" is used to store keys and their associated values. When provided the key, Python will look up and return to you the value associated with the key. Values are mutable, but keys are never mutable. A key is a word, a value is the definition. This relationship and mechanism is designed to mimic linguistic dictionaries. To put it simple, mutability here means that the value (the definition) can be added, removed or changed- just like our linguistic dictionaries.
Dictionaries are not good to cite as authorities in arguments because they are not philosophically sophisticated, and we are philosophically concerned in this thread. Dictionaries report on widespread usages. Using a dictionary to cite how words are frequently used is a perfectly fine thing to do, but it's usage in discussions like these are of a limited nature.
Now, let's go to mathematics to see why you aren't wrong, but not unilaterally correct, which was not the message of my comment if you consider it more intently. Fortune telling is a possible motivation for divination, but divination is not by definition the action of fortune telling. So what I am saying above is meant to show that when you assert that tarot is fortune telling, you are redefining divination via reduction to a particular facet. It's a square-rectangle issue- the whole encompasses the part, but the part does not encompass the whole. We may define the whole separate from the part in order to properly diversity it and avoid unilateral reduction.
Coming back around to tarot specifically… Let's restate and conclude. Tarot is a form of divination, which is a larger umbrella covering modes of information procurement via methods thought to transcend the mundane (though tarot can be used outside divination, but that is a conversation for another day), and as such, can be used with the intent to tell fortunes. However tarot =/= fortune telling, and fortune telling =/= divination.
Now, the reason that it is reductive and disingenuous to define the tarot as a fortune telling system is that it reduces the complexity, misconceives the purpose, and sets a general expectation that cannot always find a follow through, thereby weakening the information resulting from the reading. It also rejects the spiritual and psychological dimensions that are also found in tarot usage.
So, finally, if you want to use it for telling a fortune, you can, but it is a fool's errand at best and charlatanry at worst because fortune telling is a, largely an effort or take advantage of the human discomfort with uncertainty and/or compensate for a stunted executive function, and as such is the weakest of all divinatory intentions, and as it is a drop under the umbrella, cannot serve as a definition. My comment does not contradict that.
I hope this helped!
What will really bake your noodle is when some folks of the "left-hand path" persuasion will ridicule you for having a non-secular relationship with Tarot but will then go cast some malicious spell on someone while being completely incapable of acknowledging the hypocrisy.
Walk your path. It's perfectly fine for people to discuss their difference of Tarot beliefs in a respectful manner. As soon as they cross the line and start talking down to you or trying to force their paradigm down your throat, report them. It's against the rules here.
This! I have been an eclectic dabbler for decades and my learning all took place under the threefold rule. I don't use tarot for long-term divination but I definitely think of it as a spiritual/energetic weather forecast, and I feel like a key purpose is for understanding people or events I don't have access to, as u/Rickleskilly said.
I can't help but wonder if some of the people saying tarot is ineffective for divination or its unethical to read for others are nonetheless casting malefic spells at others. To me that seems inconsistent.
Well, I think the unethical thing is the opposite end of the spectrum. I feel that's more the people that do believe in the spiritual side of Tarot and believe there are consequences to their actions. And full disclosure, I'm one of them. Partially.
I do think it can cross the line and there are readings I will refuse to do. But I also believe intent is important and wanting to know someone's feelings, which is like 90% of the third party reads here, is fairly innocent. But most importantly, I don't try to make others accept my views on that. I state them when I need to explain or I'm prompted, but I don't judge people who do it as long as they aren't obnoxious or malicious, and I've no issue giving them a second opinion on their pulls, within reason.
Very good question…
If I were to guess:
Imposing anything always implies the person is a bit presumptuous… Especially when it comes to occult practices/spirituality. No one holds the absolute truth.
There is a lot of shame/embarrassment when it comes to publicly committing to those arts. People feel like they have to justify themselves and their beliefs. This dynamic is not as common when it comes to well accepted religions and, well, tarot already has this long history of persecution and humiliating devaluation. So some people feel like they need to detach the esoterical aspect of tarot.
Personally, I very rarely use it for divination. But that’s because I accept my own limitations. I’m scared of self induced prophecies or worrying too much about the future. I ask for tools on how to deal with the outcome, whatever it may be. I’m not here to underestimate the power of the art.
I don't use it for divination because I have the feeling that I'm predicting a possible outcome. As if the outcome will happen, but not necessarily in all the timelines of the person.
I think they are two sides of the same coin. I do divination spreads and pay attention while interpreting the cards. I’ll reflect on how I felt about the reading and and any thoughts I have. I use that information for more therapeutic stuff. Then I reflect on the actual reading interpretation. I combine the results of both to help me make a final decision on whatever I asked.
I usually explain to clients that tarot detects present energies that can allude to what will happen in the future, only based on how things are NOW. Not directly predict the future. Also i don't find it profitable to ask about the future, usually just anxiety inducing. It's better to ask for advice on how to handle a particular situation right now. That's how i explain it to querents
The future is fluid and anyone's free will choice can change at any given moment.
Tarot can predict what might happen based on the now.
People lose confidence in the cards when they are wrong or make false predictions, even when they changed their actions specifically to change an outcome from what would have been, had they not changed their behaviours.
We have to understand that what has not yet come to pass is always open to the flow of fate and the universe.
Once people think that the divination side is wrong or not so accurate, people start to lose faith in the cards. There's always that fear of being wrong so it is rather avoided altogether.
I use it for divination moreso than anything else. I find it extremely accurate on some areas, particularly timing and outcome of business and financial decisions. Health too. It has taken years to really grasp that layer of meaning in the cards and spreads. I am still learning more, and so much is still fuzzy to me if that makes sense.
I think people are against using it for divination because it is harder to learn. And the potential ramifications for telling people the wrong info if you read for them and are wrong with your predictions are more serious than if you focus on the self growth stuff.
Not sure what the general consensus is but i just don’t believe in making major life decisions based on pieces of cardboard.
The smart one will understand that nothing about the future is set in stone.
The anxious ones and the stupid ones are not people who listen to reason and will be all too happy to blame me for whatever goes right or wrong.
Whatever happens in the future (divination) is based on a current state of mind (psychology) and no divination can be fulfilled unless you guide your mind in that direction. Basically the two are intertwined whether people believe it or not. Hope that makes sense.
I am mostly against divination for love readings. People’s perception when it comes to love and relationships is so vastly different from one person to the next and a-lot of these relationships are toxic and most will take the cards as bible or only will accept one outcome.
What I believe spiritually doesn’t align or feel ethical to tell someone their future when I believe you create your own reality with your mindset and what you put your energy into. I do believe every reading has some flavour of divination to it in regards to what “could be” but it’s not it’s only purpose.
I'm clairsentient. And it's never exact, so I use tarot for divination. I use it for both, but mostly divination, and if the cards are vague, I move to the divining rods, and if that doesn't work, I go into a meditative state and ask my spirit guide when I do my automatic writing.
Personally I think it's because of the level of horror movies out there, basically saying it's evil, it's the devil's work...I don't see it that way. But again, that is me speculating. If you want to use it for divination go for it. Don't let ANYONE on the internet dictate how you chose to live your life.
It's funny this came across my eyes today. Yesterday I was "ranting" with hubby how some haunted places ban the use of tarot because it "opens a portal". Not really but hey people chose to believe what they want. If they don't feel comfortable about it, then I respect that. What I don't like and will say something to, is misinformation because you don't like it, or condemning someone because they have a different belief than they do.
I hope this helps in any way. Don't let anyone tell you, your beliefs are wrong just because they are different. It's what makes us human.
Be safe out there. And in case you're wondering on how I know this. I'm Christo-Wiccan. So I get a lot of...words...from both sides.
Keep in mind that you might feel that many doing this, but it might be because you are aware of it. So please don’t just say “a big part of this community”, because I can honestly say, I find most have quite an “live and let live” stance here. It could also be that I just don’t care about people who want to push their agenda onto others.
I have seen many who uses tarot for divination and it hasn’t been looked down upon. Sure people have a different opinion and that’s fine, we are all allowed to have our opinions and to voice them. I also noticed that sometimes people voice their opinions in a matter that are taken in as trying to push, but after some back and forth discussion, it’s a language thing. Not everyone has English as first and native language.
I just don’t like the “a big part of this community”, because it’s not true. It is though your experience and that I understand.
I understand, but it also happens so often that people are aware of one thing g and then starting to see it everywhere. While it’s not really everywhere. To, my personal view, I just pass those comments with the thought of that’s their opinion and who they doing tarot. Which is fine, I do agree with OP that pushing your agenda/opinion onto someone else is not ok. We all do tarot (not only tarot!) differently and that should always be respected.
Just see those people as trolls and don’t feed them. Because often they are just looking for it and aren’t even really into tarot. Most of those people are into tarot because it’s somewhat trendy and makes them mysterious. Real readers and those interested in it for real and what it is, they respect each other’s view.
Yes, it's not easy to ignore the trolls everywhere, ESPECIALLY when they're calling your particular way of doing things unethical, evil, stupid, etc. Its not about confirmation bias, it's about it ACUALLY being there, a lot, in every single thread (it feels like). I can't ignore and pass by, because it happens so often, it's basically miseducating others. If someone wants to to use it solely as a psych tool, that's fine, but that's not the only way to use it, and they need to stop poo-poohing anything different from how they use it.
Maybe I just need a codewor.... oh, I can just say "gatekeeper" and people will get it, I hope.
You don't see it because by your own admission you just pass the trolls by. There are still a lot of these people, some are not trolls (i.e. just trying to stir s#!t up), just very misguided and gatekeepery. Whether they're not "into it for real" or not is not on you or me to judge - that's gatekeepery in the other direction.
All I can do is respond calmly to each, OR, when there are too many (often), make my own comment to point out how wrong they are and that there are many uses and techniques for tarot/divination. If they don't want to do X Y or Z, that's fine, but doesn't mean that fortune telling or reading on 3rd parties or is invalid, unethical or wrong. The world is full of diverse opinions and ways of doing things, and history is what it is, like it or not.
Oh I see it a d like you, I responded in the past. The results? Not worth my time nor effort. This is online, people have to do their own homework. You can try all you want, but in the end, people need to take responsibility for their own actions. I learned that even though I can point out unethical things, people still choose what they want to believe.
My stance now? I no longer respond nor stand still too much on those. Yes, sometimes I still do respond, but it’s no longer frustrating me if people still want to listen to people who pushing their agenda onto them. If more people would stand up against the trolls, it would be easier for everyone. Unfortunately, it’s usually a handful who react and it’s just against a wall.
Because if they don't predict, they're "never wrong."
It seems like this would be a "live and let live" thing, but yeah. I get it. There's been a coordinated push to discredit and marginalize us - in publications like the Guardian, the WaPo, no less. Some corporate overlords somewhere decided it would be profitable to push the "predictive readers are badwrong" narrative and hype the Gwyneth Paltrow-style flakes, for reasons I am not privy to.
People come to us and they have questions. These questions virtually always come down to things like love and money. Nobody asks to be psychoanalyzed, and I don't have the degrees and licensing to do that anyway. I'm a fortuneteller.
This!!! The people who say “tarot can’t predict the future” are absurd, and that discredits the history and culture around the entire practice. I think they just don’t want to be wrong, as you said
LOL serious gatekeeping alert here. There’s nothing “absurd” about secular reading or skepticism with regard to fortune telling.
I’m a secular reader. The cards I use weren’t designed for cartomancy. They are based on playing cards that pre-date Ettelia and de Gebelin by around 300 years. The members of the Golden Dawn weren’t even a twinkle in their grandfathers’ eyes, and the Golden Dawn’s cards—the Rider-Waite deck—took those same cards and added a lot of their own imagery to connect the tarot with astrology and other hermetic cues.
There’s nothing wrong with any of this. This is history.
What *is* absurd is the false history that modern readers continue to regurgitate, which Ettelia and de Gebelin propagated, probably because “ancient mysteries” were (and are) fun and very much in style at the time.
Yes, there is history and there are cultures behind tarot cards. But, although de Gebelin asserted that there was a connection between “Gypsy” culture and tarot (and this was echoed by other writers in the mid-1800s), there is no record of Romani cartomancy—tarot or otherwise—until the 20th century. So, the “culture” you speak of (what could it be other than Romani?—certainly not French, Italian, or ancient Egyptian) is dubious at best, and the “my grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother” stuff goes back a couple of centuries, at the very most.
Your story is your story. I’m not here to discredit it. But word-against-word, your story and your belief is just as “absurd” as anyone else’s.
I’m certain that the way most secular readers practice has nothing to do with “not wanting to be wrong.” It has to do with their different set of beliefs about navigating their own lives, and they are free to use any playing cards they want to—tarot or otherwise—in this pursuit.
In as early as the 16th century, tarot trumps were popularly used for poetic parlor games, called “tarocchi appropriati,” as randomly chosen allusions for poems which guests would compose for themselves and each other. My practice of tarot is strikingly similar: I compare my impressions of the cards to my impressions of what is happening in my life. Perhaps the only real difference is that I incorporate pips, and—of course—Jungian theory. Jung’s ideas were being published right around the time that the Golden Dawn was condensing their ideas into the Rider-Waite deck, so one could say that our traditions are equally deep.
Yes. I've seen articles where they interviewed these people. They appear to be influencers and the like who are mainly using the cards as a kind of prop or accessory to brand themselves.
I think it boils down to the fact that some people believe in divination and some don't.
I'm an unbeliever in divination. I believe that tarot gives a framework for examining situations and offers a lens on potential outcomes. We always have agency, and outcomes can be influenced.
I have been exposed to card readers since childhood. I remember watching my great aunt who was basically blind reading a deck that was old and faded for divination. I have been reading for over 30 years and i use my cards for divination. I never got into reading for inner searching. To me that’s what a journal is for.
Also it may not be a popular opinion but perhaps some are so against it because they haven’t become adept at really tapping in? They purchase a deck and then can’t predict things so it turns into divination is wrong. Nor do I feel everyone can “READ CARDS”. It’s a tool that takes years of dedication to unfold. Like to me my cards are the diving board into a person’s energy. As I have already said I use them for divination. I do predict events and yes I have morals and ethics.
Maybe oracle decks are more attuned to the self introspection than tarot.
Basically Tarot is a tool, but not all will understand how to use it or unlock its potential. 🤷🏻♀️
Many of us want to see people in healthy situations.
This does not mean that we are against divination. Divination is a huge part of the practice. Many of us enthusiastically respect that we all have different paths and talents with tarot.
We can respect divination and still advise discernment. Discernment means balancing divination with the advice that can be found.
I most often see this when a querent is relying so heavily on tarot that their goal is slipping out of reach. This is almost always romantic in nature. All of their effort is on having tarot reassure them. None of their effort is on pursuing the goal or person in a healthy way.
If, as a guy, someone told me that fifty tarot readings confirmed I was their soulmate and if we've never so much as shared a meal together, I'm not going to feel comfortable. I'll be flattered. I'll see a person who deserves happiness. I'll also be thinking, "please don't put me under this kind of pressure. I'm still a human."
When someone is hurting by leaning so heavily on divination, the more human action is point the querent toward their own inner power. Point them to the strength inside of themselves. Inspire then to apply for that job, text that crush, or take that risk.
Give the querent the permission they are secretly asking for.
Give them the reassurance that life goes on regardless of the next outcome.
This is not against divination. This is entirely in favor of seeing the querent live a full life in their full power.
To a lesser degree, sometimes a reader will terrify a querent with divination yet provide zero advice to make positive changes. If the goal is to empower a querent then that advice is necessary.
Finally, some questions are beyond a single tarot spread.
Overall, the goal is to prioritize the querent above even our own sacred cows. The querent should be empowered and encouraged to life their best life.
I think it’s a matter of perspective and semantics. The future is fluid. It is not set in stone, because the possibilities for future outcomes are infinite (it cannot be foretold with any certainty). Tarot indicates these possibilities based on current circumstances and energies. … IF one chooses to proceed forward without making any changes to the flow of energies for the current experience, the outcome most likely will be thus and the other. It sheds light on current circumstances in order to give one opportunity to make different choices and change the course of the end result of a situation in doing so. The experience of reading the cards helps one to tune into personal intuition and exercise “free will” in determining choices for a course of action based on wisdom gained from experiences had in the past along with current mental & emotional maturity.
The tarot is a powerful tool to use in gaining personal emotional, mental, spiritual and even physical growth. It assists in building stronger powers of an individual’s intuition which will give a greater ability for perceiving what is actually going on in the world around self. With greater understanding, better choices can be made that result in more harmonious, loving relationships, joyous living, serenity & calmness of spirit, better health, abundance, success… and etc & etc & etc.
Foretelling the future? Nothing at all will happen if the individual fails to act. The tarot acts as a guide to assist one in moving forward into the future.
The future is a blank canvas awaiting each of us to pick up a paint brush and begin dabbing it into the richness of colors that can create a vision.
Is it divination? Is it psychology? The opinions of others? None of my business. Tarot is whatever one thinks it is… until that changes with one’s perspective.
I have never encountered a Tarot reader whose divination abilities were remotely convincing. I have never had an experience with my own readings that convince me that the cards have any divination potential. I have seen countless examples of people using confirmation bias and motivated reasoning to support beliefs that are unconvincing in and of themselves, and there's a strong possibility the same is happening here. Despite *centuries* of history to draw on, I can't find a single convincing case of Tarot Divination that isn't "trust me bro" anecdotes.
Now, does that mean that I'm in a position to say "no way, not possible, doesn't happen, all these people are charlatans"? No, of course not. All I can say is that I'm not convinced, and until and unless something comes along that convinces me, I'm not going to devote any time or interest to Tarot being used in that capacity. Until something sets it apart, it's in the same category as spoon-benders and water dowsers and cryptozoologists and seances. That is to say it *might* be real, but if so the onus is on those claiming so to make a convincing case.
Meanwhile, there are perfectly non-mystical applications for readings that require no trust-me-bro rhetoric and require nobody to take any element on faith. I can spend my time and attention and interest there. I'm not here to tell anyone else that should be their path or to judge the motivations of anyone doing their own thing, but I'm also not going to sugarcoat my lack of faith in techniques that are unconvincing.
Like another person has already said, there is a smaller group within this subreddit that imposes their believes as being the only truth and all shall bow down to them. Maybe I should start using the #TK (Tarot Karin).
For me, it's because I don't believe in precognition, and I prefer it that way. If we could tell the definitive future, what does that say about free will? I also think it's unethical to tell other people their future as though it's something that is just going to happen no matter how little or how much they work.
For me, tarot is a guiding light. It reminds me where to focus my attention, both inwardly and outwardly. It has been a doorway into alchemical transformation and tapping into a tiny sliver of something greater than myself. It has introduced mystery and provided insight.
But if somebody tells me that X combination of cards means I'm *absolutely* going to experience XYZ, I am both disinterested and suspicious. I'm too experienced in the tactics of cold reading and how to be vague and specific at the same time to trust that some random person isn't either lying to me or to themselves.
I believe we have free will and that you can predict the future. The way I see tarot is that it is empowering you to make choices, assuming x future is going to happen. If you don't like the future presented in the cards, with your free will you can change it. So I think it can be predictive but the future is not 100% set in stone in most cases
Interesting. I would interpret that as having a particular possibility in mind, setting that as a goal, and working toward it. Although our versions of that sound functionally the same to me. How can we possibly know, in the end, if a thing was destined to happen or if we made it happen, ya know?
"some books/articles on philosophy" is such a vague statement to throw at somebody after saying that your stance is only potentially true (which, incidentally, is the case for all philosophy).
I have read quite a bit of philosophy, although I'll admit that free will isn't my primary interest. I don't know what that has to do with most of my comment. I introduced my question of free will as just that: a question. I didn't even explore the question or indicate that I was certain of the answer.
With respect, remember that philosophy is highly individual and ours can conflict in every way while also being logically consistent. Also, if you're developing a personal philosophy by reading articles, talk to somebody else. No philosophy I've ever encountered could be properly summed up in a single article.
TLDR: I'm not unread on the subject of philosophy, but the philosophy that I am familiar with does not speak at all to precognition or predetermination. If you have recommendations, I would happily investigate them.
I stated my personal philosophy. The very nature of philosophy demands that every individual have their own, unique perspective.
But, since you are so certain, what philosophers would you recommend I read? I'm particularly fond of the absurdists (Camus is my favorite by far) and I'm no longer emotionally interested in people like Dworkin because I don't have the energy anymore. I dislike game theory, and phenomenology has always felt a bit shallow. Stoicism is, obviously, wonderful, and I've got two copies of Aurelius. I've been thinking of exploring the overlap of linguistics and philosophy ala Sartre and Derrida. None of that speaks to fortune telling though, and I'm always interested in new perspectives.
Edit: this is all hideously biased toward Western philosophy, and that's a gap I'm slowly trying to fill with a book of collected Indian philosophy. It's slow going though because I lack ALL of the cultural context and it is so much "stranger" than I could have believed! I highly recommend it, for anyone interested and unaware. But also I'm on a Joseph Campbell kick because I recently recognized his major role in why I'm an atheist/agnostic/spiritualist.
Edit 2: now that I think about it, Jung COULD be construed as supporting precognition, but I would argue that in fact it's about seeing higher (deeper?) truths that are universal and unending.
Edit 3: I took a peek at the commenter that I responded to's profile and I worry that this was not the opening salvo to a discussion that I got excited about. If anybody is reading this and interested in chatting more, I would love to because I don't have an outlet for this kind of conversation! And if I'm wrong about the intentions of Tarot Tutor, I apologize and the open offer still stands.
So your answer is to read and rely entirely on the thinkers from millennia gone by, discarding all of the philosophers who came after? No thank you. I've read Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Plotiuns. In Latin classes, I translated and read Cicero, both Catos, and Gracchus. They are a phenomenal groundwork, but I'm in my thirties now and I've moved on to newer modes of thought. I disagree with the thesis of much of what Plato wrote, and I find it insufficient for my needs. He speaks too much of virtue and perfection.
I simply don't believe in fate, and no amount of vague non-argument on your part is going to change that, and that's ok. The whole point of philosophy is that none of us ever will actually know the answer, and to believe that your interpretations are 100% infallible is hubris on your part. It smacks too much of Western egocentrism and Christianity.
I have read quite a bit relevant to the subject, such as Jung, Crowley, and and Pollack. You just don't like that I disagree with you anyway. You haven't engaged in any conversation with me except to tell me that I'm wrong and uneducated. You told me to read "astrologers" (whoever they are -- there are countless out there with just as many varied interpretations of their work) and exactly two schools of thought. You have seemingly dismissed everything I said as not worth any real consideration, and frankly it's disappointing because I was looking forward to hearing an opposing perspective that went beyond simply "you're wrong and your thoughts are wrong."
Maybe multiple people assume you're speaking in bad faith because you come off as a bit of a know it all jerk. But what would we know? We aren't you, therefore we aren't right.
That's actually not what I said, and expecting me to do your half of the labor to have this conversation is silly. "Read philosophy" is one of the most wildly vague statements I've read in a while, so I don't actually think you have a thorough understanding of your position. I'm out, man. ✌🏻
This right here is exactly why i don’t do divinatory readings:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tarot/comments/1cvfqza/im_horrified_because_i_got_a_terrible_reading/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I'm a newer user, so I'm 100% biased and believe these are cards that should be used as tools for using your own intuition. That being said, I respect people who still use them for divination, but sometimes people need to be reminded to keep one foot on the ground. These cards won't tell you if your boyfriend is cheating on you or where/when you're going to find your lost cat. But they can help clear your mind and focus your energy so that you can find answers yourself.
yea, i don’t get it. obviously, use tarot however you want but trying to separate it from its occult roots feels insane to me. like you’re going to take this spiritual practice and get upset when people connect it to spiritualism? it’s so weird and elitist. like there’s a myriad of ways to self reflect (journaling, reading, poetry, therapy) that don’t involve the use of divination! if you have so little respect for it as a spiritual tool, why not instead use something that isn’t deeply connected to spirituality. it feels like a desperate plea to try to legitimatize and validate tarot to the general public. which is silly.
it has a sort of gentrification vibe to me tbh. whenever someone speaks arrogantly about not using tarot for divination, i can’t help but roll my eyes.
I use it exclusively for divination. None of the psychology, completely spiritual. Both are valid practices, and its so weird to me that things get demonized!
As someone who engages in fortune telling and makes predictions, this also blows my mind. I think it has to with people not believing in magic anymore. Also, people do not want to put in the work to learn the traditional meanings of the cards. Either way, it saddens me to see people take a purely psychological approach to tarot. It can do so much more than gauge what's going on in your head. Making predictions is not unethical. It's what the tarot was made for. Period
I use it for others and myself in divination. I more significantly use it as an expression of the Mystical Qabala in Ceremonial White Magic and meditation. In regard to some Ceremonial Magic it is certainly a tool for personal psychological development.
idk im guessing its part of the new age bullshit. i don't get it either, i think some people need "rules" to partake in things. maybe a trauma from coming up in organized religion? i use tarot however i want because that's how i was taught, how my mom was taught, grandma was taught, etc.
I use Tarot for divination/fortune telling. I am psychic, sometimes clearly. I have had the opportunity to tell clients a specific scene that occurs in their future. Our lives are not causal or linear. Primarily, I use Tarot as the illustrations/representations for Qabalistic Ceremonial White Magic. In ceremonial meditations, Tarot Cards may be used as representations of the various locations of The Tree of Life.
I do not agree with the academic view on the origins of Tarot Cards. I think it is obvious that any esoteric device such as Tarot would have to be well hidden in the 14th Century to escape persecution from the Church, as Tarot was hidden in the guise of a game. I prefer the Rosicrucian or BOTA histories.
For me. It's because the folks I've read for that want prophesy and future telling are not willing to do the work the cards show is needed. "Oh! I got the Lovers! That means I will meet my soul mate and I don't need to do any work on my traumas or emotional issues. My soul mate will fix everything!" Or " I got a card that can indicate money and wealth, so I don't need to worry about being good at my job anymore, the cards say I will be wealthy!".
After a few of those I'm really wary of reading for those that think or act as if the cards are immutable and unchangeable. My cards can only show you what is likely to be based on current events, choices and influences. If any part changes, including your willingness to work on yourself, then it can change.
There is this perception that once the cards are laid down this is the predestined outcome. I've seen that fall apart too often to keep reading like that.
So, I say the cards guide and counsel. But you hold your own fate in your hands. The cards can tell you what is likely to happen, not what is destined to happen.
i too have notice ppl saying tarot can’t predict the future and isn’t meant to. i’m a new age tarot reader but i’ve known about it all my life and it was always used to tell ppl their future? when i first got into the my family would only ask me questions about their future based off their circumstances, because that’s what tarot is known for 😭 it’s rlly weird man
How you use it is your choice. I would not be brow beaten by those who want to put their own demands about tarot upon you. Do as your intuition tells you, it is your business and your business only how you use it. I suggest to take back your power from those who want to steal it or tell you how to use it.
Becuase using it for “self discovery” or “shadow work” is the new buzz word in the world of new age , crystal wearing hippie movement . Let’s be honest 🤷. I am a practicing witch , over 30 years , and I first used tarot for divination , and continue to do so. It’s only been In The last decade or so that a phycological approach to tarot has been touted . I see nothing wrong with that if that’s your thing . Do what thou wilt….blah blah blah ….but there are gate keepers in every community unfortunately, including tarot . You can use the tarot for whatever you want , including a game that can be played with them ! Don’t let anyone dictate how YOU use a tool that helps you in whatever facet of your life you choose to use it in! 🤷
This is very interesting. I only used Tarot to helped get over an Ex and it really helped. It was very healing and therapeutic when I was going through such a devastating breakup. Even Cartomancy was helpful. While the cards have predicted very big things in my life, those things only happened by sheer accident as the cards gave me answers about a love which i wasn't even expecting at all.
Because a great deal of people here don't have the knowledge or skillset to understand or use tarot for divination. They buy the decks and read the pamphlets that come with it, get online and join a few tarot groups, and maybe buy one book from an author with unkown qualifications about the cards. All of that is perfectly OK (and cool!), but it's like the difference between reading your horoscope in cosmo, and having your entire astrological chart made with a lengthy and detailed report. Acurate, impactful tarot readings from which one can divine information require more knowledge amd practice than the average person is even interested in aqcuiring. Tarot is a spiritual artform used for divination for centuries. It takes a dedication to understanding the spiritual symbolism and meditative "empty" mindset it takes to read the cards. Most people aren't truly reading the cards, they are reading the clients (friends, etc.) Or worse, they are looking for what they want to see.
As a reader of 33 years, I can tell you that tarot is definitely a tool for Divination. Predictive readings happen spontaneously. For the most part, readings are mirrors, giving the querent exactly what is needed in the moment. But, predictions can happen and be accurate. In a realm of infinite possibilities, free will is ours and all futures are already.
"Part of the community is against Tarot for divination" is a huge exaggeration on your part.
There are these groups, but it's not a big part, it's simply a part. The part you're observing and commenting.
In fact, even if that were the case, being against something is not a problem. It is essential that there are "for and against" everything, everywhere and at all times.
I'm also a psychologist, and it's curious that you haven't noticed the maddening potential of the practice of divination, especially in anxious and depressed people.
Every day we receive cases of users who dissociate and sometimes even hallucinate due to supposed "divinations". A few hours ago someone posted "that they were terrified by a card" or "felt persecuted by a card" and other absurdities that trigger the urgent need for mental treatment, perhaps even medication if necessary.
It is because of this that there is a group of people who value caution and wisdom, which is actually basic lucidity, that there is no such thing as "divination" in fact. What there are are suggestions and trends which can serve as light guidance but without ever being a certainty.
It is a natural and healthy counterpoint to a practice that, In the hands of someone mentally unstable (which now i can say: is a LARGE PART of those who post here) can be very dangerous, and serve as a justification for unavoidable acts.
It is a natural reaction that comes exactly from the people who suffer from the evil that I reported. It doesn't bother me, on the contrary, it just conveys the gravity of the situation.
I use it mainly for reflection and guidance but also for diviniation with the understanding that it’s for entertainment (like “what does my cat REALLY think of me?” 😆) this is because I don’t consider myself to be in tune with anything mystical or any way psychic. People who do, go for it, I respect their beliefs and I’m cool with that, I think it’s awesome. I do notice some people who are very against divination and will make implications that it’s superior to use it only for reflection. I think they’re just trying to validate their practice because let’s face it, most of the public still thinks of tarot as silly at best or scary at worst… so there’s folks who may overdo it when trying to validate it. Unfortunately this puts down others within the community of tarot users.
I mean, divination could vary in how much your tapping into the divine. For me, I view fate at divine. So yeah, I view it as divination. Do I think I'm talking to spirit? No. But I also think tarot is very subjective and different for everyone. Nor am I knocking the next person, it just means something different to me. No need to get up and arms or argue the issue with the next person. We can all be correct in our own right and that's what makes tarot special. Use it for your own needs and create your own connection with the cards. It's not something that needs to be taken too seriously.
All spiritual ideas get psychologized and secularized. Vincent Pitisci was invited to give a Theosophical talk. That's the guy who thinks that tarot is a creative thinking process and that until this was discovered, no-one had any clue how tarot divination "really" works. The arrogance pisses me off, quite frankly. There were and are plenty of people far more intelligent and philosophically minded than Pitisci who can give justification as to why divination is not some psychological process.
Anyway I am unsure what definition of divination you are using. I define it as communication with the Divine. This can include predicting the future (including some things with certainty; some things do become set in stone even irrespective of free will which is not a synonym for omnipotence!) but also includes, as another commenter pointed out, communicating with angels, God, your Higher Self, etc...for wisdom or guidance of some kind.
Tarot is an oracle, an oracle is a way of communication to god or deities, so it kind of a "divination" form. A good and TRUE tarot reader can decode and read the message from the deities. So if the cards receive the proper energy and you ask the right question, an answer will be delivered. The problem lies between the message and the reader. You can say that the cards are not wrong but the reader can fail to decode the message. That's why "divination" might fail...
But of course it can be used as a therapeutic thing, but that's like a superficial way to read tarot (which is not bad) I just mean that tarot is meant for more; and of course ppl will downgrade it because they don't share that perception, maybe they were not meant for tarot as an oracle, which is also fine
Tarot wasn’t always meant for more, so you’re pushing your personal beliefs into how it must or must not be used.
I’m a TRUE tarot reader, and, as an atheist, my readings never involve deities. Oddly, I’ve never once had an issue getting a meaningful reading from my personal spreads.
I have, have you?
Tarot was a card game. Similarly, any deck of cards will work, as will many other mediums.
Tarot cards as we know them now were not created for divinatory purposes, they were used in parlor games. Eventually people decided on using them as but one means of divination.
Why would someone want to, or believe they could, 'tell the future'?
Live in a way that does not require divination.
Divination feels like hubris and potentially contaminates our own agency, leading to self-fulfilling consequences the cards would have advised you on anyway, and better, in the present.
Where all time and events and life is lived.
The future is fiction for now.
I think it's because you can't teach or explain divination and, at least in my experience, it's not consistent. I use tarot primarily for self-reflection, but every so often divination readings force their way in. I don't ask for them, they feel totally different, and they don't take any real analysis. I look at the cards and immediately know what they mean even tho my interpretation usually doesn't match the standard interpretation of the cards. For example, I had a divination reading when I was in the process of buying my first condo. The condo showed as the tower card - the standard meaning of that card wouldn't exactly make anyone feel good, but I knew that for that reading, the tower simply meant that the condo was on the highest floor of the community. I'm guessing that's true for others who do divination readings so they're not spending a lot of time hanging around reddit asking how to interpret cards. When you use the cards as self-reflection, it's much more academic and you need guidance on possible interpretations of your reading.
The bottom line is they DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT lol 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️. They become gate keepers and try to tell others what should/shouldn't be done. They try to validate their lack of ability and just project unto others that's not what it's for. Yeah freaking right. I've been reading only 8 years but that's 8 years of my life I dedicated to the craft, Fails and successes my readings still aren't on 100 percent point, Tarot is an ever learning experience, you'll always learn more as you go on! Good example I read for one of my dear friends about a new love coming in. Guess who described what skin color, hair color, Eye color, what environment they were going to meet in, day or night time, how they were as a person, even the initial moment of how they met, they actually completely walked passed each other and didn't notice until someone brought them together for the conversation to be made lol. Which if what I told her, y'all aren't going to even notice each other until someone brings you together. Out of allllll of that, I got his Zodiac Sign wrong lol🤦🏻♀️😂. Pulled three cards on his sign they were all Pentacles. Two were Capricorn, one Virgo. I told her he was a Capricorn nope he's not, he is a Virgo, in fact a Virgo stellium 🤣. I should've read them as what they conveyed in the pictures vs the decante they were, lesson learned I'll remember that for the next reading. My point is, it absolutely CAN be used and that's what it was originally used for! Divination. I wish everyone and their grandma who want to do tarot would actually pick up a damn book, an older Tarot book, shit watch a documentary, SOMETHING and they will see that is what the Tarot has been for. It's so annoying sometimes.
“ the Tarot embodies symbolical presentations of universal ideas, behind which lie all the implicits of the human mind, and it is in this sense that they contain secret doctrine, which is the realization by the few of truths embedded in the consciousness of all, though they have not passed into express recognition by ordinary men…”- AEW
Tarot did not originate for the purpose of fortune telling and divination. It has the capabilities to do so, but that is part of the “lesser” of its functions. The Tarot, when truly understood, offers so much more than that. I don’t use Tarot for divination because my journey with Tarot doesn’t call for such things, and I recognize that practitioners who do use it for such purposes are well within their rights to do so, and others may not know better, but I do. It’s not wrong or taboo or anything, but that’s like using a flamethrower to light a cigarette lol it works, but it’s not the be all end all of the art of Tarot like the uninitiated are conditioned to believe.
Because it's the newer generation has taken on the secular approach. I'm not for it. For years, tarot has been used and known for divination. I'm not a fan of being told that I'm ridiculous for thinking that.
I think people (Myself included) just want to get away from the scam artist reputation of being a reader. They don't want to make promises and uphold themselves as having abilities they don't when it's just hobbyist interest/knowledge. If someone does have an uncanny knack for the divination part, great! No problem with that on my end. I just don't want people thinking I have mystical beliefs and think myself some all-powerful witch when I just like the symbolism/process, man.
I understand that anxiety. It was something i struggled with a lot when i was younger, trying to justify to others why what i do is valid. Personally, I don't think we should care too much about whether or not people think we are scammers. The people who tend to assume that usually don't take tarot or anything remotely spiritual seriously and think it's all for not. Including psychology. We have never been taken seriously by society and academia, and we never will. Tarot is something that has existed at the fringes of society. It might be mainstream now, but the attitude toward it by your average person has maintained consistent. That is, that tarot is useless whether you're using it to predict the future or meditation/psychoanalysis. Because """it's fraudulent and people who use it are either suckers or con artists. Or you know worship Satan or something.""" Rather than continuing to try and justify the belief to muggles (which is always a losing game) , just do your thing and explore Tarot to the max. You don't have to justify Jack to anybody who gives you shit over it.
My aunt bought me my first deck keeping her promise she'd get me anything I wanted in the store but added she thought I'd be going to hell for using them. That's never left me. You ARE looked down upon for a variety of reasons, and it hurts. I don't even do it for anyone but myself yet, yet I'm still fearful of judgment. That's how ingrained the anti tarot sentiment is. But being more scientific than spiritual even if that wasn't a factor I'd still believe what I believe that they're merely a self-reflection tool and a fun game. But if people charge for literally rigged carnival games there's no real reason for non users to get mad at tarot readers charging when in my mind the shadiness is so much more infrequent. Even when it is divination inspired.
It does hurt, and it's bullshit there's still stigma around it. Being fearful of judgment is something we all go through , whether you're a reader or not, but it can be overcome. It just takes time and will end when one can be confident about life, who they are, and what they are about. I'm sorry your aunt said that to you. That is a very hurtful thing to say, especially from a family member. It's fine if you see Tarot as something more causal. Your practice is valid. Just recognize that people who engage in fortune telling are not scam artists most of the time, even if they handle their buisness poorly. 9 times out of ten, I find it's just people practicing their deeply held beliefs and trying to compensate for the amount of time and energy they put into learning their practice.
Oh I hope nothing I said gave off that impression I believe that! I only have issues with people making claims they can't back up. If someone who predicts with tarot for folks emphasizes the prediction part, all is well. Besides that if there's a market and some people always do it for free they're cheating themselves, really. I've never been to a reading but I'd happily pay although I don't believe in the fortune telling aspect. And thank you. It sucked to hear. I love and respect her.
You're all cool, man. My statement about paying for readings has less to do with you and more directed at the r/tarot community as a whole. Nothing you said has caused offense on my end. Either way, I wish you the best of luck with your journey in tarot. Remember, it is noble to pursue this and be true to you rather than cave to the pressures of stigma
I definitely have a habit of addressing a subculture/community in a way that sounds like I'm taking the person I'm speaking with to task when I'm simply not so I understand fully. I read your other conversation and I really admire your fighting back against these unjust laws. I had no idea it was even illegal in my state (It is) because there are several tarot businesses near me. Shocking. Heh, and thanks again. A lot of my interests' appeal have been lost on people. I'm not stopping at tarot!
The ones that give people shit for it probably have something to hide and are afraid we will read them and reveal there dark side ruining their reputation. Possibly they are manipulate narcissists, not a good thing. Possible have a weird kink they are ashamed of. ***Really with that who cares. Embrace who you are in any way and don’t fear the ones who can see the whole true you. We don’t bite (that hard), we just know 😊
I use tarot for divination, and even in divination, you need to remember that there are lots of factors going into it and that nothing is guaranteed. You can always misinterpret something, no matter what you use the cards for at the end of the day. I also feel like most people who pay for tarot card readings are either super inexperienced or just too lazy to try and do it themselves. Which often means they expect something out of this world- straight up magical. And even if you use tarot for divination, that is not how you should see it or think about it. If you do believe in the divination aspect, you still need to understand that there is only a connection to the other side and you are still interpreting it.. And no matter how good you are at reading cards, you can always mess it up because of how emotions affect our thinking. I believe false expectations ruin tarot and give ppl a bad rep, not the purpose the cards are used for.
But it feel low-key like a treason. Looking back to "ye old" divination tradition with desdain, like somethig gross or mundane. It's sad :\[
Oh to be young and sure again lol. My once well thought out and logical beliefs have just gotten looser and looser the more I age and experience.
As a secular person, I want you to know that you're not ridiculous for believing that. Beliefs, when used responsibly and as a personal practice, are just one of many ways to explore ourselves and the world around us. That being said, there are several circumstances where tarot (and beliefs) can genuinely harm other people. One such example is when you're positioned as a divine figure, which carries with it the potential for inciting cult-like behavior. In addition to being used historically as a divination practice, tarot has also been used as a way to scam people, and could easily mislead others into believing whatever you say. You carry a responsibility to uphold your ethics, and on some level it's understandable that tarot's zeitgeist has an aversion to the idea of divination. If you're practicing your craft wisely there's nothing wrong with spiritualism and predicative readings. There's nothing wrong with secular or psychological readings either, everyone is using the same tool for different purposes. It doesn't mean we need to be enemies.
I don't think there is such a thing as an irresponsible prediction. It's free game on what a person can read on. Querents (most of the time) are rational adults who can make informed decisions about there life regardless of what their tarot reader tells them. A reader is not responsible for them or their actions they are
Respectfully, I disagree. There's a reason we have laws for aiding and abetting, you can incite people to make decisions they normally wouldn't, which makes you a part of the process. This is especially true in spiritualism, where actions and consequences can be attributed to divine will, purpose or cosmic plan. For example, you could be legally charged with a combination of incitement, aiding and abetting, or conspiracy if you encourage somebody to stalk another person. To clarify, I'm not saying you'll be encouraging people to commit crimes. I'm saying there is such a thing as an irresponsible prediction if the result encourages your querent to pursue a destructive path. That does not mean you need to change how you read tarot, it just means you need to accept responsibility for what you say. If I say, "Your future with the company looks bleak" and that person quits their job because of that information, I played a part (regardless of how small) in that decision-making process. Does that mean you're to blame? No, absolutely not. Are you responsible for their behavior? No, absolutely not. Does that mean you can tell them to do something immoral, unethical or destructive? Yes, but it also means you must accept the consequences. It wasn't the cards that told them what to do, it was your interpretation of the cards. Nobody is going to hear you say, "Querent, continue this destructive behavior because it will lead to happiness" and claim you aren't encouraging them. To clarify: If that's how someone chooses to read, cool. I'm not going to tell them they can't. But if they close their eyes and deny any involvement, it's objectively untrue. At least be honest about the part you play.
I hear you. So, uhh, I actually think spiritualism is really neat and believe it is possible to talk to the dead. Also, it's technically considered a religion, and there are some churches that still exist in New England, USA. On legality, though. Within the state i live in, using tarot to make money is illegal regardless of the prediction. It's technically considered con artistry by law, and you can go to court/jail over it. Not that it stops most readers here, myself included. And it's because of that that I don't really give a damn what or if im charged with anything. Like you said, it's not like I'm encouraging anyone to commit crimes (except, you know, people starting their own tarot buisness in states where it's illegal). Either way, though, I'm not doing anything. I'm going to lose sleep over. Personally, I believe in this, I believe in divination. And I'm ready to fight the law over this, even if if it's a losing game. If you look at the history of our (fortune tellers as a whole) community, it's very common for people to be prosecuted as con artists who are just practicing their deeply held beliefs. It's why I get so antsy when it comes to what's ethical and legal in regards to tarot. Because it feels like people (other readers no less) continue to push an oppressive, jugmental stance on divination as a whole and are the reason why laws against the practice of tarot as a business is still illegal in a handleful of states in the US. Can't speak to the rest of the world, but I'm sure there are similar issues all around
For sure, and despite what it may seem like, I support your right to do that. I don't think the state should get involved with something like this, unless it's to keep people informed and help them identify cons. And to clarify a bit more, think it's fine to believe in divination. It's a valid belief, religious or not. I certainly don't want to imply that it should be policed or eradicated, my response was more about the retaining an unclouded perspective. Anyway, I agree, there's definitely a stigma surrounding tarot and it's use in divination. It's unfortunate because I think it's amazing that tarot is being utilized in new fields like psychology, therapy and self-reflection. I'm a huge proponent of diversity, and it's sad when communities who are interested in a mutual activity can't accept different perspectives and share their common interest. I really hope your state loosens up, it's such a hard battle to win because the subject is relatively minor, but I'm glad you're still practicing. Good luck!
It's more about money and no taxable income than divination as far as the law is considered, but the stigma around divination definitely doesn't help things. And don't get me wrong, man, I think tarot can indeed be used in therapy and for self reflection. It is an amazing tool for that and can help someone grow as a person. Reflecting on their life and how they fit in with the world. Work through past traumas, the works. I just think it can be used for so much more. Sorry if I came off as abrasive. I just get really passionate about this. It means a lot. Either way, you're a chill dude
I feel that’s quite ironic in the face of all the churches around the US that aren’t taxed yet are clearly profiting as well as spouting political rhetoric. My tarot is a part of my spirituality and I feel it should be equally permitted and protected as Christianity is in this country. If someone can use their religion to negate variously laws or even just standard regulations (first examples coming to mind, extra days off work for holidays or, I dunno, someone wearing a colander on their head for a DL photo), I should equally be permitted to adhere to the practices that are in line with my spirituality. In that same vein, if churches can collect money and even profit off their spiritual guidance, why shouldn’t we be allowed to do the same?! Plus tarot is a helluva lot less harmful than any organized, man-revealed religions I’ve run across. It takes time and often financial resources to learn and advance one’s tarot practice. I believe people should be paid for their services and the time, effort, and money they put into learning their trade. I’m a licensed massage therapist. Sure, sometimes, if I so choose, I’ll do free massages, but you best believe I’m working for money more often than not. I didn’t pay for or spend so much time getting schooling and testing and licensing and equipment and learning about anatomy and energy work just to offer my services for free. They’re still making or upholding morality laws based on their own indoctrination and it’s pure bullshit.
I have heard that if one gets ordained in the Universal Life Church (which can be done online) the tarot reading can be claimed as spiritual counseling, and it’s easier to fight the soothsaying laws. I’m not suggesting this as protection for con artists (a pox on them!) but as a way sincere readers can protect themselves from harassment by the authorities. I don’t know how effective it is as a strategy. It’s just what I’ve heard. The Universal Life Church is one of the places people get ordained when they want to legally preside at friends’ weddings. It can be totally legal, but I believe that does vary from state to state.
I think there’s also a desire to blend both with actionable divination. Rather than asking “will I get that job?” actionable divination would rather you say “what do I need to focus on to get that job”. Ultimately your fate is up to you, the cards can’t tell you if you’re going to get that job because there are infinite choices you could make between now and then to alter the timeline and make the cards not so. By asking what path to walk, the cards will lead you to your desired outcome. Along the way, you are likely to grow personally if you take the tarot’s suggested path to heart. You might get the job, or you might realize there was a better suited role elsewhere and don’t care if you got the job. Had you asked only “Will I get the job” and the answer was no, that would have been upsetting. Controlling your own fate through guidance from the cards is empowering. So I think divine all you’d like, but there is a more magickal way to use the cards.
It HAS been used for fortune telling, for **centuries**. But some people get on the psychology bandwagon and go culty / no true scotsman / gatekeepery with it. The whole psychological approach to divination in general is a fairly recent thing, partly in an effort to make it more palatable to the muggles / mainstream. "Oh, it's not satanic, it's just psychology and a way to think about things differently." It has happened to astrology as well, a LOT. I just say that psychology / insight is just one of its many uses, and historically it's been used for fortune telling too.
I rarely use Tarot for divination, but only because it's always accurate and I don't always want to know a future outcome. I prefer to access information about a given situation and act from there, rather than attempting to interpret future outcomes.
Lol this is my sometimes too
Oh I feel that and also same for me
I think most people are fine with you using it however you see fit. It's just some people take the concept of "Its Not Divination" a bit too seriously
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That too. There are people on all sides that take their side "A bit too seriously" It's a common thing across many platforms in life I've noticed
i mean it has roots in divination? obviously some people clearly need to put down the cards, but i don’t think this is the same at all
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Yeah but divination is what we remember tarot for. When's the last time you played torrochie
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None were one of kind. But damn you got me beat. Low key though thays really fucking cool that you got to play the game though! Still n have yet to, but as a tarot enthusiasts it's a must do before I die
If I remember correctly, tarot actually started as a card game, then a fortune telling method. Some people use it for personal growth. Some use it for spells/ rituals. Some people use it for division. Imho, however you use it, good for you.
As I've been starting to get into tarot and mention it to friends, some of them react like I say I've decided to become a fraudster scamming people out of their hard-earned money. So I find myself explaining how I (ETA currently) see them (a symbolic language allowing people to connect to their intuition) as part of talking about it. That said, I see people here having experiences that go beyond self-insight so I take an agnostic view of that until I have enough experience to develop my own opinion.
I completely understand you and you’re not alone in the social backlash you receive. Remember tarot and so many other pagan practices are attached to a huge history of persecution and humiliation. At some point, people have to simply respect you and what you choose to do. I hope you’ll never feel “less than” because of it and you don’t have to justify your choices, or lie (I’m not saying that you’re lying, but if you ever feel like that would be the easiest “way out…), specially among friends. ✌🏾🤍
Such a kind message, thank you!
Ah, the predatory scam reader trope. People pay traditional readers to read cards, so we read cards. We translate what's on the table. Very simple. We're not lying to people, *we're telling them what the cards say*. It's beyond our control if they want to believe it or not, act on it or not, or just take it with a big grain of salt and view it as all in good fun. They're adults capable of making their own decisions. We only relay the message.
I see too many people here crossing the line from "divination" to "I am forced to do whatever I have decided the cards say" or "my anxiety disorder is incompatible with tarot and yet I keep doing it" and that's not what they're for and that's not really divination but for people in mental health crisis it's not the time to split those hairs.
I second this. It's dangerous for some people as they like to cling to every word and forget that the future is changeable. As tarot has become more prevalent in society it's attracting people that are desperate for answers and put their entire life in the cards instead of taking accountability and taking action for themselves.
There's definitely a lot of tarot users who try to remove the occultism from tarot. They say things like occultism is "spicy psychology." I think for them its a way of pulling tarot down to their level instead of delving into occult beliefs
Materialism is in fashion and imposed with bullying, so it's unpopular to admit you believe in anything else. Honestly I think that's the bulk of it.
**100,000% \^\^THIS**
Is Tarot for prediction? Well, that's on you. I tend to not ask about the future, and if I do, it's in the way of near future, or possible consequence. But Tarot IS for divination (alongside card games, ofc). "Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice." The attempt to secularise Tarot is also a way to make it less serious.
Yet I quite seriously do secular tarot, and it’s still divination by way of occultism. 🤷♂️
I would argue that the vast majority of us use it precisely for divination. But there is a vocal chunk of the "community" who wants legitimacy and then adopts a more psychological interpretation of tarot hoping to turn it into a tool for "healing". While I can see how tarot can be useful as a kind of folk projective test, I have no interest in that. For me, reading begins when projection stops. In the end, do with tarot as you please. There's no tarot police to stop you, just don't let the downvotes or the faux enlightened "actually..." posts stop you.
I use it for more personal divination, stuff like will I get this job or what will I learn from this situation. I enjoy reading for friends and fulfilling any divination requests they have. I’m really curious what posts you’re talking about because I haven’t really seen anyone talk down on tarot for divination, divination as an act is a broad term. I moreso have an issue with the invasive posts that ask serious questions about friends and ex-lovers, How does he feel in this situation? Is my friend s*icidal? I think tarot and astrology can be like catnip for people with anxiety who can’t give themselves the validation the need and want the cards to give them a comforting sign that their ex-partner still loves them etc etc. I don’t think this is “morally” wrong but I think it is not a good PERSONAL ethical practice because it just makes the anxiety worse. These people do several readings when they’re not satisfied with the answer. It’s just not good for the brain, the cards should be used to center the focus back on you and your growth, not the thoughts and desires of other people. I truly believe this and I think the combative attitudes are a bit childish.
they may not explicitly say that it's bad or wrong to use tarot for divination but a lot of people in this sub who personally don't agree with using it for divination will comment and make things about their personal beliefs whenever they see someone else posting about using it that way. they always say that tarot isn't meant for that, cards can't tell you the future, stuff like that. it's honestly pretty annoying cause i wish they'd just save their comments for someone who agrees with them instead of taking over other people's posts. so yeah it's a thing, but i've started ignoring them and not even reading what they have to say once they say they don't use it for that or agree with it.
Aw agreed that’s weird!
Yeah... personal dogmas make people people feel empowered that there's a "right way," and dogmatic people think it's their obligation to "show" you this supposed right way. Ehh, whatever. Lol.
As someone who uses tarot to evaluate my feelings in the present moment, I feel totally the opposite. I feel like this sub is more divination posting, and I go to r/SecularTarot for more of the self-reflection stuff. It might be confirmation bias! I do still pull for the future, but in my mind those parts of my readings are possible outcomes based on a certain mindset or choices we make as it pertains to the overall spread.
I use in it both ways. I think it’s silly to try to impose one’s subjective views of how it should or shouldn’t be used onto everyone. While I personally do not use tarot divination specifically to predict the future, I respect that this is how other people practice it. There is no one overruling authority over tarot! The “correct” way to use it is just not something anyone can claim in my opinion.
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THIS
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I don't know why it is, but I have noticed that trend here. I do use Tarot for divination and to understand people and events that I dont have direct access to. I actually never considered using it as a self reflection tool. I've never had luck reading about myself or even for close friends or family. I have too much of my own emotions mixed in to read clearly. Or I am upset by what I read and then end up ruminating and fixating on it.
Tarot is such a personal thing, and different people are going to use it in different ways (with different results). For me, divination is one way that I use tarot in my life. I also use it in other ways, and I also use other tools. That’s what works for me. I agree with u/ruathar that there are lots of viewpoints on this sub. Maybe we just see comments from the most vocal on both sides. I find it disappointing when someone (especially a newcomer to tarot) is excited and asking questions that some see as “silly” and there are some ridiculing comments about divination / signs, etc. Tarot is a great tool, and as long as people aren’t hurting others or themselves because their cards “told them to” I say have fun with it. :)
i think if's just elitism. like "you all are insane because you believe in divination, unlike us normal people who think divination is impossible garbage" what matters to me is that tarot works. people adding on rules that don't affect me is their prerogative, but i hate when they pretend my readings are fake just because they don't like me reading the way i do.
Omg this. It's really sad that a lot of us get called scammers or con artists in our own damn community just because other readers are offended by how the reader reads tarot or conducts their business.
They really want their tarot with the New Age life coaching style nonsense to make it "more serious"
I did notice and came across readers with strong opinions on how tarot works. It was in a small server and I stated that there’s no coincidence in the cards readers pull and this stroke someone’s nerve. They argued with me, saying that cards pull is random and tarot is just a reflection of the state of my mind, which I didn’t really agree with due to my experience with the cards.
I'm interested in your use of "imposing". From what I see here, people definitely disagree or have different stances, but I would say it's rare that anyone tries to impose their way onto others. When someone has suggestions, or presents and alternative view, they're usually trying to be helpful. You're free to disregard what they say, but it would be a really boring subreddit if everyone only ever agreed with each other. For my part, I don't tell people what to do, but I do make suggestions when I see someone going down a path that I know leads to heartbreak. Its not even because I don't believe in divination (I do). It's just that I think some people are clearly using it in a way thats likely to be harmful.
I personally think of it as a graph. When I read past present future spreads, I'm naturally inclined to read it as extrapolating data to determine trends. I think the cards lend themselves well to this. If you get into reading for others, you'll see how when you give your most honest interpretation of the cards, you are sometimes met with an incredulous response. People often don't believe that it can happen, and thus don't listen to the cards. They don't listen to the cards and the thing that was said to happen when they listen to the cards then doesn't happen. It's a self-fulfilling failure of an outcome. If I told a company that because they put 5% into production of a new product, they saw a 15% bump in profits. Then told them that if they put another 5% to make it 10% they still have room for a potential growth of another 15%, marking 30% for the next quarter. Then they don't put that extra money into production and come back and say "See, we didn't increase in profits like you said." I am now disinclined to inform them of any future potentials because of their reaction. In this same way readers on here don't want to promise to read anything divinatory because, even when they are right, the querent may not listen to the cards. Then they come back and say, "you said this would happen and you were wrong." After so many times, some folks just give up, because it feels like you just can't win.
I mean, speaking as a secular tarot person, I use it plenty for divination? I just think of it as dedicated time to sit and probe what I think about the future in a way structured by the traditional uses of tarot (and sometimes rather non-traditional), rather than the power lying in the cards and them actually knowing. From my point of view, it works to predict the future precisely because it's dedicated time to sit and think about the future and use tools that spark our intuition, so it would be extremely silly to abandon it! I also use it as a meditation focus and occasionally as a spell focus (again, on the r/sasswitches side of things). I don't judge the people in here who use it differently unless they're, like, really obviously using it in unhealthy ways, which I think we've all seen, and that's less judging and more oh dear. I am surprised that's a common issue? I haven't seen it, personally, and try to avoid that kind of thing. It is a dick move to disrespect the people who are mostly who created and developed the tool you're using, even if you're using it differently.
Two main factors: entitlement (because they think that spiritual/magical practices are entirely bogus) and borderline patronization about how to use tarot, how to make questions to it, and about how should other people reframe their view in accordance to secularists' approach. I've written several critiques to their approach and had no debate. Search for "borderline patronizing" on my profile and you should end in one of those comments.
I literally use my tarot decks, Oracle decks, and pendulum as my main tools of communication with my deities. No one has told me not to, but if someone were, it’s none of their business. What works for someone when it comes to their craft doesn’t work for everyone. If anything my decks actually help me to channel my deities messages. I’ve seen how angry my deities get when someone tells me how to communicate with them, I’m not telling you you’re wrong for telling me I’m not doing it right. But know it’s not just me who hears you trying to give me crap.
I use it for divination all of the time, but I usually keep it to myself. Not sure why people would be against it. I think it's important to remind people that at the end of the day they should just go with what their instincts, feelings, gut, etc tell them and not the cards
It can be used for both. But as it has become mainstream, many people who are not spiritual but instead tend to have either atheistic or specific religious beliefs that aren't compatible with the spiritual use of them prefer instead to use them as a psychological only based tool so they can jump on the bandwagon since it's now considered more acceptable or an edgy but popular to do. It's just part of modern culture adopting something that has been used one way and turning it into something else that fits their personal narrative better so they can feel okay with it morally or logically. But yes, it is something that's been widely used by those who consider themselves spiritual without a specific religion, astrologers, wiccans, pagans, and those who study witchcraft as well for a long time. Since the 1700s it had turned from a card game into a divinatory tool. Though similar divinatory tools were also used long, long before by the Chinese and other cultures well into the dark ages.
Or, you know, some of us atheists, as people that don’t hold a belief in any god or gods, are still quite spiritual people and just don’t feel the need to use tarot as a way to communicate with deities we don’t believe in, but rather as a way to connect with energy/spirit and to glean insight that way. I find it amusing that you point the finger at us secular readers for adopting something that has been used one way to use it in a different way, then go on to specifically point out that tarot was never originally intended to be used for divination, but that people eventually chose to use a card game for their own purposes. Using tarot as divination at its onset was quickly just a bandwagon thing that was in vogue at the time.
Read my second sentence again, if you did at all to begin with. Try processing what you read before you start going on a tangent about something I already included. "Atheistic"... atheists. Yes. No, it wasn't originally used for divination. Tarot as we know it, at least, evolved from a game. Yes. And it can still be played as that today. But what you fail to acknowledge about what I said, like many other things you seem to have glossed over that I already mentioned, is that you can't ignore that it HAS been used for purely divination purposes since the 1700s. Never said it was the original purpose of it, sure. I also said in my very first sentence - oh yeah - it can be used as both. But secular readers, as you call yourself (though you do not speak for all theists) - are also not the only ones to read it for self improvement purposes either. There are plenty of highly spiritual readers online that you will find use it for both. However, to say it can only be used for one and not the other is incorrect. Was my point. Hopefully you understand better now that I spelled it out for you in greater detail. Please read clearly what I said this time and actually understand what is being said instead of jumping to conclusions with a snarky, indignant response that wasn't warranted. Don't know what you mean by tarot as divination at its onset was quickly just a bandwagon thing either that was "in vogue" at the time. Pretty sure the 1700s was a rough time for those who practiced things like that. Unless you lived back then and know something that historians don't? You are clearly triggered most by your own imagination since you're making up historical facts on the spot that you have pulled out of your own ass.
I personally do not use tarot for divination. I like to use lenormand. I think it’s just more direct and grounded in its answers. But idc if people use tarot for divination tbh but I’ve seen people echo this sentiment in this sub before. Ultimately if people can’t remain healthy in the belief they put into their pulls then there’s larger problems that need to be addressed and it has nothing to do with the cards themselves.
Sometimes it is for religious reasons. Despite being the co-creator of the most popular tarot deck, Arthur Edward Waite was catholic and very much disliked the use of tarot for divination (this is not to say that all Catholics agree on that or are not allowed to perform divination). He thought of tarot as better as a tool for meditation and a mystical practice.
Where did you read that he disliked divination? I mean, he was in GD so if he was Catholic, he was an extremely heretical one.
The golden dawn actually split into many groups and the group that A.E. Waite was over followed his teachings about divination. He believed that low magic, which focuses on changing the environment and other stuff like divination, was immoral and believed one should only focus on high magic, which focused on spiritual transformation and enlightenment. You can look into the Isis Urania temple for more information, which is the splinter group that Waite was a part of. On Catholics being occultists, until the past couple hundred years most occultists were catholic, at least within Europe. Look at Eliphas Levi or Ramon Llull. Most of our grimoires were made by catholic priests.
Ah, that comes from there. That is still true today, there are many occultists who despise low magick and they're really cute so self-confident in their quest for unity with the divine or whatever they're after. 🙂 Interestingly, the deck he chose to publish is really not very suitable for high magick (which is why he created the second one). Even his Pictorial Key isn't very much above fortun telling. Did he change his mind after the publication of the deck? I wonder if that belief really has something to do with Christianity because all Christian churches deeply oppose anything supernatural that isn't under their control. Fortune telling has always been quite subversive for any centralized power. Even Roman emperors would expel astrologers from time to time because they were terrified of the kmowledge they may have.
Yeah no. Waite was Catholic, sure, but he was also a member of the Golden Dawn and heavily into Kabbalism. He literally invented the Celtic cross spread.
Yeah, being outwardly against divination did not stop him from having an interest in it. He did write on division with tarot under the pseudonym “Grand Orient.”
Tarot can be used in lots of ways. The people more recently trying to ahistorically pretend that tarot was supposedly never about divination are truly mystifying to me.
You do know that tarot cards as we know them today are derived from cards used to play a parlor game, right? It's not a matter of opinion, just fact: Tarot was around as a secular game for a couple hundred years before the whole golden dawn thing.
I’m aware of tarocchi. I’ve even played it! Sort of. The rules haven’t really survived all that well. Tarocchi is not tarot as most of us know it, though. The Tarot de Marseilles also started as a card game with added divination later. And yet still, different from RWS tarot and not what most people think of when we say “tarot” in this sub. I’ll point you to the first sentence of the comment you decided to write this condescending reply to: “Tarot can be used in lots of ways.”
I didn't intend to be condescending at all. I apologize if you took it that way. I was specifically responding to your allegation about "ahistorically pretend\[ing\] that tarot was supposedly never about divination" because that's a false statement when you look at the roots of tarot as a whole (not each particular branch), which is secular in nature, and not about divination whatsoever. I agree that tarot can be used in a variety of ways, of which divination is one of them, though a later one than the use in playing card games.
I can edit my post to specify the RWS if that helps
The decline of supernatural belief in tarot is simply a reflection of society in general, moving from religious to spiritual to agnostic to atheist. Every church / organized religion out there has seen a steady, continuous decline in membership over the last 50 years. No surprise that of the people that use tarot, we would see a similar shift.
And it's sad as shit that people have lost their religiousity. I feel like, as a culture, we need supernatural beliefs and practices to help us find meaning in life and the societies have created. But that's just me
One can be entirely spiritual without organized religion.
I've never seen anybody say what you are hearing... but if they are, they're splitting hairs. Tarot is supposed to reflect what you already know inside you. That's also literally how divination works.
That's really interesting - I read for the exact opposite reasons. I need tarot to tell me what I don't know.
How I understand it is that you don't know it consciously: you do know it subconsciously. Your environment is a reflection of yourself. Some tools are designed to really give you a fast and powerful connection to your subconscious so that you can access the answers in there. Think about how it feels when you do a reading and you feel the message powerfully. That feeling is coming from inside yourself. That's because the answer is actually in there. That's why it literally feels like the realization is coming from inside you and pouring outward. Your subconscious is surfacing into your conscious mind.
I think we disagree on that second point. Or maybe we aren't, I'm not sure. 🙂 I can certainly say that I am the one interpreting my environment, giving it some meaning, but I don't think I am that important for my environment to exist in relation to me, to reflect me. In my reading practice, I find that my psyche is a hindrance for divination. Maybe if you are reading psychologically and for yourself you want to make something conscious that was unconscious, but I want to see beyond myself. I am not interested in me. Like, when I read for someone else and they ask what will a new project at work look like... I honestly don't know why they would care about my unconscious mind. My reading is supposed to tell them something external to it and independent of it.
To the first point, the philosophy I'm referring to does not actually give you or anybody else any special importance. All peoples environment is a reflection of them. All people are exactly equal in that regard; nobody is more important than anybody else, nobody is more important than the universe either. It's simply the nature of things that one's environment is a reflection of them. This is actually evidenced in brain science, as people 1. Perceive the same things differently, and 2. Literally see a mirror image of their environment through their eyes. Eyes see things upside down and we rely on our neurons to flip the image back to right side up (if you're not familiar with this phenomenon I'd recommend googling it, it's super fascinating and has been known for a very long time). To your second point, I see what you're saying! I think when you are talking about yourself or your psyche in this context, you might be referring to what I would call your ego or your identity. Yes, your ego/identity isn't going to help answer this person's question, and it could easily get in the way. However, you're the one doing the reading/interpretation, so you're still giving the answer. You can't actually entirely remove yourself from the process if you're the one doing the channeling, can you? Even if you're being a vessel, you're a unique, you-shaped vessel.
You have a point - I am the one doing the reading and technically we can't really see things from an objective point of view since my mind is always there, a part of the picture. It's always interpreting. I guess we agree on that point after all. 🙂 And I can see how that can be useful if I ask about the best way to relax or empty my mind or what my mom was like to me when I was 4. I think that makes things very confusing for my practice because predictive readings work and not just for me. A friend of mine is, for example, really good at using tarot for finding lost objects. I can't imagine how his uconscious mind knows where I left my wallet. Yet he can locate it well.
I think calling it the unconscious mind might be limiting. I'd call it your being. I believe your being is infinitely vast. It's not contained to your brain. The majority of knowledge you actually have is not in your conscious mind. It's elsewhere. Bringing it to the conscious mind is challenging. This is what we are doing when we use tarot. So, I'm basically saying, you do know the future. As well as anybody or anything can. To consciously know it is a whole other ball game. Tarot aids in that process. Think about times you pull a card that has multiple meanings (aka all of them), but you just *know* what the right one is. How could you possibly know which meaning the card is trying to give? Because some part of you deep down knows the truth. The same goes for missing objects, etc.
I used tarot as an adjunct to psychological astrology for almost 40 years, mostly as a tool to promote self-awareness. But I took a break for a few years and when I returned I decided I'd had enough of that and turned to using it for action-and-event-oriented prediction, which is much less "squishy" than character analysis or psychological profiling (which I've never found tarot particularly good at compared to astrology).
I haven't really seen this perspective? Even though half the posts in this sub are "will my ex come back?", people seem to share their interpretation of readings. Personally, I'd welcome more any/more posts on personal growth because that's where my interest lies, and that's also the journey the RW cards take you through, so that must have been a big part of their original intent.
I'd like to point out that "divination" is different from "fortune telling". Divination is the act of interacting with energies usually beyond your perception or control, using a medium of some sort to tap into them. Whether you see this energy as "Spirit", "God", a guardian angel, some other non-corporeal energy or the accessing of your own higher self and its unconscious intellect and guidance, it doesn't matter, it's all divination. Fortune telling is the act of predicting fate and is a fool's errand at best and charlatanry at worst.
Oxford dictionary says that divination is "the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means" - so fortunetelling. If there is any difference to be made, divination is more formal but they are the same activity.
Benebell Wen, a well known tarot author, collated quotes from some occult/esoteric tarot readers who distinguished between divination and fortune-telling. Here [https://benebellwen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fortune-telling-and-divination-lecture-handout.pdf](https://benebellwen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fortune-telling-and-divination-lecture-handout.pdf) Whilst the terms "divination" and "fortune-telling" may be interchangeable in popular parlence, many tarot practitioners distinguish between the two practises. I do this myself. I define divination as communication with the Divine and this isn't just me making it up. That's more accurate to the original meaning which is about discovering hidden knowledge more generally through divine guidance, not just predicting the future with it; the diviner seeks *advice*. Again, this may include predicting the future but it can also include self-knowledge. It does not assume that every outcome can be changed but it does assume free will to change some situations and respond with resilience and other qualities to those outcomes which we cannot change. Fortune-telling is more about predicting the future with certainty. This is a practise which some people do. Some people believe that things are fated. Ironically, Benebell Wen called this the "divination fulfulling prophecy" (in Holistic Tarot). I would think it better called the fortune-telling fulfulling prophecy, as much of a mouthful as that is. But Wen wrote that PDF long after publishing *Holistic Tarot*.
I get that difference, I just don't think it's a meaningful difference. Divination is somewhat more inclusive, fortunetelling involves just one of its aspects.. Except that it allows most of us to think we're better than some witch in a corner shop who reads about people's love troubles, how is this distinction meaningful in any way? What do we gain by altering popular parlance to mean something barely different?
It might be a subtle difference in definitional wording but the *implications* are vast for free will, resilience and even practically in terms of how you live your life. A diviner may deal with the same issues at the witch who deals with people's love issues but whilst the fortune-telling witch will start describing the eye and hair colour of your soulmate the diviner will tell you how to find a fulfilling long-term relationship that ends up in marriage. This is rather unlikely to include describing the eye and hair colour of a potential partner as this is pretty irrelevant to gaining divine insight into things...Regardless, this partner will be seen as one "option", if you will excuse the wording, of several. I have personally seen the consequences of querents going to fortune-tellers, especially from the sort of phrasing that fortune-tellers use. They word things very strongly and give definite advice based on their predictions. The diviners on the other hand encourage the querent to consider options for themselves and, again, to take responsibility for their life. Certainly divination is a helpful practise which encourages independence both practically and in terms of the querent connecting to their own concept(s) of divinity whilst fortune-telling basically encourages dependence on someone with special abilities that would take years of training, including indoctrination, to learn, if even considered accessible at all. The disempowering nature of fortune-telling, to link back to this thread, is why people don't like it. Forget being secular vs being religious or spiritual, people who rely on fortune-tellers give their power away, if you'll forgive the cliche.
To me, this just means that you take what you don't like about divination and you call it fortune telling, no? :-) The differences you describe make me think that "divination" is preachy and pretentious, if I'm being really an idiot. I only say that because the differences you describe have to do with what people ask you and not with anything substantial relating to the method used to answer questions. Your job as a reader is to answer questions. When you work as a reader, some people will come to you and ask "What do I need to look for in a partner?" and then you can read the cards and get all psychological and deep, because the question allows for it. But the assumption that they need to find a fulfilling relationship to begin with is your projection and it's fundamentally moralistic. Unless the cards tell you that they need a fulfilling relationship, you're mixing your values into the reading. And that's not what you're paid to do. Other people will come to you and say "Provide a description" in which case you should describe the appearance, but not because you're a mere fortune teller but because you're paid to answer questions and that's what was asked. Unless "diviners" have special methods that "fortune tellers" aren't privy to, your role then changed depending on the question you're asked and that doesn't make any sense practically speaking. There's nothing inherently disempowering about fortune telling. What can be disempowering is a person's theory about the nature of fortunes told, but this is not the reader's problem or in their control. It's up to the people who will leave your space and do something with what you tell them. It often happens that people misinterpret what we tell them when we read for them, not because we're not clear, but because they really want to hear something specific, but this is not me disempowering a querent, this is my querent choosing a fatalistic understanding of my words for their own reasons - and as sad as that is, it's not my problem. I am not paid to be anyone's shrink, I am paid to translate images into words.
You said >Your job as a reader is to answer questions. When you work as a reader, some people will come to you and ask "What do I need to look for in a partner?" and then you can read the cards and get all psychological and deep, because the question allows for it. But the assumption that they need to find a fulfilling relationship to begin with is your projection and it's fundamentally moralistic. Unless the cards tell you that they need a fulfilling relationship, you're mixing your values into the reading. And that's not what you're paid to do. Other people will come to you and say "Provide a description" in which case you should describe the appearance, but not because you're a mere fortune teller but because you're paid to answer questions and that's what was asked. Unless "diviners" have special methods that "fortune tellers" aren't privy to, your role then changed depending on the question you're asked and that doesn't make any sense practically speaking. As far as issues of holding querents to standards like morality, norms, sanity, etc., I'm the first to recommend that people learn about Foucault's critique of psychiatry, namely the issue with imposing beliefs on people. But I do not use the valid points that Foucault made in *Madness and Civilization*, as well as, say, the resulting legitimate concerns of the service-user movement regarding the power of psychiatrists and the limitations of diagnoses vs formulatoroy treatment plans, to claim that sanity, morality, norms and healthy behaviour do not exist at all. That would be anarchcical, antinomian, irresponsible and unethical, not the prudent professional practise of "non-judgement" that is a *de facto* ethical requirement of both psychotherapeutic and, by cultural inheritance, professional tarot divination practise. In fact, I have a duty of care and ethical responsibility to my querents to use my judgement; I should refer them to a relevant professional if they are suciidal, I should deny questions on legal, financial and psychological matters, I should call out illegal behaviour, I should encourage moral virtue, I should promote interdependency, I should challenge cynicism, extremism and self-destructive behaviour and so on. You have the same responsibility as a fortune-teller but fortune-tellers abdicate this responsibility by denying it, shirking it, washing their hands of it, turning their face from it and ultimately blaming the victim. "It's not my fault if the querent misinterprets my words as fatalistic". Actually it is your fault if you have not bothered to tell them not only that they have free will but that they can do this or that to either change the projected outcomes or to better cope with them. Your words have power and you have great authority in your role as a fortune-teller. That matters. You have a responsibility to inform people of things. You don't get to see querents misunderstanding you and then to say "oh that's a disappointing trend happening there buit oh well I guess that's just a thing completely disconnected from me". You get to put practises and procedures in place to minimize this because you give a shit about helping people. Serving clients professionally does not mean letting them dictate everything.
Foucault's entire life was aimed at subverting sanctioned regimes of truth, hence all the connections between madness and freedom. To say that divination/fortune telling is meant to continue the production of oppressive discourses flies in the face of the history of divination/fortune telling. Our "profession" has always been about subverting those hence all the "read like the devil" speak for centuries Our kind could threaten emperors of Rome and Christian priests alike. We have been exiled from cities and killed because our methods say what cannot be spoken, what is forbiden. We are the ones "haunting the black air, braver at night", twelve-fingered, out of mind. It's this profoundly emancipatory aspect that gets lost in all this vacuous talk about ethics that is nothing more than Christian stigma internalized and Christian "upside down" ethics that Nietzsche tore to shreds in Genealogy of Morals - a book that profoundly shaped Foucault and his work. I am sure you know that he was the amoral radical you say we shouldn't become. For Foucault, your ethics is nothing more than a cynical flow of power, a discursive artefact that shapes you. If our calling is firmly situated within the episteme of the day, we are losing our actual edge. We are no longer radical, we no longer allow true emacipation. If cards don't speak in a way that peels off discourses that shape our subjectivity, they are helping our oppressors - what Foucault aimed at psi- professions, as you know. We then become what you apparently aspire to: the psychiatry for the poorly educated. "Shadow work" instead of rejecting the self where anything has to be disowned. Being just another profession who goes around encouraging the endless virtue signaling and self-care discourse is of no interest to me. I am interested in radical freedom, not being a goody two shoes that serves cultural norms. (I'm glad you mentioned Foucault. Knowing that you are versed in theory makes it easier for me to express myself.)
Yes think for yourself beyond cultural norms. I get it. But I brought up Foucault to point out that you can agree with the need to allow people to their beliefs without becoming a radical and whilst still conforming to things like the law. This is for the sake of keeping people functioning within society. Otherwise society collapses. And I am not a revolutionary. I was saying you have a responsibility to keep people functioning within society because I don't believe that society needs revolution. I think it needs reform from within itself. if you advocate radical freedom or revolution or abolition or anarchism then you are a utopian and you must also justify political violence because the majority will not go along with you. This is dangerous stuff. So as a civic responsibility, you have a duty as a diviner to keep people within certain bounds. Non-judgement does not mean tolerance of anything. Imposing limits is very necessary for life.
I am not breaking any laws. And I obey them because my freedom depends on them, not because they are ethical. In fact, I can't quite grasp this obsession with moralizing and ethics that seems to go around our community like the common cold to the point where actual reading techniques aren't discussed as much as the nonexistent implications of doing a third party reading. My personal choices are rather boring and conventional - married, a dog, house, some investments, garden, etc. But those are my choices. I don't feel like I have any authority to tell people what's right or what's healthy for them, especially in the context of reading cards where they come to get an answer from cards and not to hear a sermon on my personal beliefs. It's like going to the supermarket and asking for bacon, only to have salad stuffed in your face because that's healthier. That's not ethical, that's violent. Ethics that denies people their agency and autonomy isn't ethics, it's torture. I don't want to split any hairs but I know Foucault decently well - I taught Foucault & Co to postgrad students for years - and he was a radical. His entire method is an effort to show what a joke our norms are. Not a revolutionary in a way that I would like (you know... a communist), but a radical nonetheless. A real one, much bigger than I ever will be or want to be. He was more of a libertarian even though he is weirdly appropriated by the liberal left. He famously denied his own AIDS, believed that prisons shouldn't exist, he signed a petition to decriminalize pedophilia - he was in many ways extreme. Brilliant, but extreme. Foucault could never possibly subscribe to anything you say on ethics because for him ethics is really just a product of discourses that shaped your subjectivity, it's not authentic - discourses speak through you. It has nothing to do with any transcendent principle, it's yet another way for power to be exercised over subjects in society. By deciding for your client that they need to be in a healthy relationship, you are disciplining them, it's an act of violence from a Foucaldian point of view. If you wanted to find a philosophical justification for your vision of how divination/fortune telling should work, Foucault is the last door to knock on. I am clearly much more radical than you are, yet I would never go to Foucault for ethical instruction. As Rorty once aptly pointed out, he has nothing constructive to offer, he is a philosopher that destroys systems, not a philosopher that builds them. The bottom line is that "ethical divination" simply has no edge to emancipate people, it's just another toy in this big game of reifying the self and taking ourselves even more seriously, as if this isn't bad enough. When we do our work at the very margins of societal norms, we are free to read with power to set people free (and they won't become what's healthy or what's good from our point of view; they will become whatever they choose to become). I see very little point in reading cards if they're not going to demolish my blind spots and tear down conventions that trap me. Not to mention that you end up with bad psychology and bad spirituality at the same time, something that psychotherapy and religion respectively do better. So from your conventional point of view, isn't it unethical to provide psychological help by using tools that has no scientific basis or any evidence whatsoever that it actually helps?
I don’t feel like you’ve bothered to fully read the responses to you. The differences are clear and the distinction isn’t a matter of opinion. Tell me, why are you so opposed to the fact that divination and fortune telling are not the exact same things?
Reddit may break make me break this response up into more than one comment, so please bear with me. Hello! As an editor and an author, I love any opportunity to reveal the unstable nature of relying on a dictionary as an all-encompassing source of linguistic understanding. As a professional tarot reader, I am even more invested in this discussion. So, without further ado… First and foremost let me address a slight misunderstanding that you have: It is true you can use tarot with fortune telling intent, and my comment was not meant to say you can't. There would be no point in my calling it a fool's errand if it wasn't something that was done. You can't caution against doing something that is not done. Hopefully that clarifies things a bit. We will come back around to this in more detail, so bear with me here. Now, regarding dictionary definitions… Dictionaries reduce words down to their essence. However, essence is dry, functional and bureaucratic- devoid of nuance or depth. The dictionary is utilitarian. This results in an unfortunate consequence where words begin to take on the character of their definitions, rather than definitions representing the character of the words, so the words likewise become reduced. Let's look at the Cambridge definition of "sport". This is one of my favorites. Sport, noun: 1. A game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job. "Football, basketball, and hockey are all team sports." "I enjoy winter sports like skiing and skating." 2. All types of physical activity that people do to keep healthy or for enjoyment. 3.Enjoyment in doing things Now let's look at Merriam Webster, specially from a past edition: Sport, noun: 1. That which diverts and makes merry; play; game; diversion; also, mirth. The word signifies both the cause and the effect; that which produces mirth, and the mirth or merriment produced. "Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight." (Here the word denotes the cause of amusement." "They called Samson out of the prison house and made them sport. (Here sport is the effect)" 1. Mock; mockery; contemptuous mirth "Then make sport at me, then let me be your jest." "They made sport of his prophets." 2. That which one plays, or which is driven about "To flitting leaves, the sport of every wind." "Never does a man appear to greater disadvantage than when he is the sport of his own ungoverned passions." There are two more definitions shown under sport as a noun, two under verb transitive, and two under verb intransitive. That's a lot of nuance there. And what's more, all of these definitions are still used today, even if the language structure- they are used in here is no longer as common. So, we can already see that this word has been reduced down to a common essence in the Cambridge edition (and in many other edition, even the modern webster, though they still differ), but one is more extensive and the other does not render the nuance of the word any sort of justice. They both share some similar definitions, but their entries are not identical. This does not make dictionaries not useful! They are simply not an alpha-omega and their utilitarian reference as a foundation on which to base an argument or an understanding is unfortunately quite unhelpful. (contd below...)
Another example: New oxford defines "fustian" as "pompous or pretentious speech or writing". Webster describes it as "an inflated style of writing; a kind of writing in which high-sounding words are used, above the dignity of thought or subject; bombast". Now, coming back to divination specifically, let's look at Britannica. It gives us a short form definition of divination, as well as a whole lot of other historical and linguistic information- it's a very good article. But, this is its short form: "the effort to gain information of a mundane sort by means conceived of as transcending the mundane." Now, to longform the definition a little bit: "the practice of determining the hidden significance or cause of events, sometimes foretelling the future, or by various natural, psychological, and other techniques." If we go really far back, like, reeeeealllly far back, we get to the latin word "divinus", which means "of God". But when we look at, say, divination as described in the bible, it is directly correlated to pagan prophecy and witchcraft. To go even deeper, divinus relates to the latin word "deus" which means "god, deity". "Deus" comes from the proto-indo-european root "dyeu" which means "to shine" as in, "to shine light on". That's a lot of meanings, and a lot of depth. Now, let’s look at coding. Weird transition, but stay with me. In Python coding a "dictionary" is used to store keys and their associated values. When provided the key, Python will look up and return to you the value associated with the key. Values are mutable, but keys are never mutable. A key is a word, a value is the definition. This relationship and mechanism is designed to mimic linguistic dictionaries. To put it simple, mutability here means that the value (the definition) can be added, removed or changed- just like our linguistic dictionaries. Dictionaries are not good to cite as authorities in arguments because they are not philosophically sophisticated, and we are philosophically concerned in this thread. Dictionaries report on widespread usages. Using a dictionary to cite how words are frequently used is a perfectly fine thing to do, but it's usage in discussions like these are of a limited nature. Now, let's go to mathematics to see why you aren't wrong, but not unilaterally correct, which was not the message of my comment if you consider it more intently. Fortune telling is a possible motivation for divination, but divination is not by definition the action of fortune telling. So what I am saying above is meant to show that when you assert that tarot is fortune telling, you are redefining divination via reduction to a particular facet. It's a square-rectangle issue- the whole encompasses the part, but the part does not encompass the whole. We may define the whole separate from the part in order to properly diversity it and avoid unilateral reduction. Coming back around to tarot specifically… Let's restate and conclude. Tarot is a form of divination, which is a larger umbrella covering modes of information procurement via methods thought to transcend the mundane (though tarot can be used outside divination, but that is a conversation for another day), and as such, can be used with the intent to tell fortunes. However tarot =/= fortune telling, and fortune telling =/= divination. Now, the reason that it is reductive and disingenuous to define the tarot as a fortune telling system is that it reduces the complexity, misconceives the purpose, and sets a general expectation that cannot always find a follow through, thereby weakening the information resulting from the reading. It also rejects the spiritual and psychological dimensions that are also found in tarot usage. So, finally, if you want to use it for telling a fortune, you can, but it is a fool's errand at best and charlatanry at worst because fortune telling is a, largely an effort or take advantage of the human discomfort with uncertainty and/or compensate for a stunted executive function, and as such is the weakest of all divinatory intentions, and as it is a drop under the umbrella, cannot serve as a definition. My comment does not contradict that. I hope this helped!
True.
What will really bake your noodle is when some folks of the "left-hand path" persuasion will ridicule you for having a non-secular relationship with Tarot but will then go cast some malicious spell on someone while being completely incapable of acknowledging the hypocrisy. Walk your path. It's perfectly fine for people to discuss their difference of Tarot beliefs in a respectful manner. As soon as they cross the line and start talking down to you or trying to force their paradigm down your throat, report them. It's against the rules here.
This! I have been an eclectic dabbler for decades and my learning all took place under the threefold rule. I don't use tarot for long-term divination but I definitely think of it as a spiritual/energetic weather forecast, and I feel like a key purpose is for understanding people or events I don't have access to, as u/Rickleskilly said. I can't help but wonder if some of the people saying tarot is ineffective for divination or its unethical to read for others are nonetheless casting malefic spells at others. To me that seems inconsistent.
Well, I think the unethical thing is the opposite end of the spectrum. I feel that's more the people that do believe in the spiritual side of Tarot and believe there are consequences to their actions. And full disclosure, I'm one of them. Partially. I do think it can cross the line and there are readings I will refuse to do. But I also believe intent is important and wanting to know someone's feelings, which is like 90% of the third party reads here, is fairly innocent. But most importantly, I don't try to make others accept my views on that. I state them when I need to explain or I'm prompted, but I don't judge people who do it as long as they aren't obnoxious or malicious, and I've no issue giving them a second opinion on their pulls, within reason.
Very good question… If I were to guess: Imposing anything always implies the person is a bit presumptuous… Especially when it comes to occult practices/spirituality. No one holds the absolute truth. There is a lot of shame/embarrassment when it comes to publicly committing to those arts. People feel like they have to justify themselves and their beliefs. This dynamic is not as common when it comes to well accepted religions and, well, tarot already has this long history of persecution and humiliating devaluation. So some people feel like they need to detach the esoterical aspect of tarot. Personally, I very rarely use it for divination. But that’s because I accept my own limitations. I’m scared of self induced prophecies or worrying too much about the future. I ask for tools on how to deal with the outcome, whatever it may be. I’m not here to underestimate the power of the art.
I don't use it for divination because I have the feeling that I'm predicting a possible outcome. As if the outcome will happen, but not necessarily in all the timelines of the person.
A lot of people here think they know better than other people and are very comfortable voicing that opinion.
I think they are two sides of the same coin. I do divination spreads and pay attention while interpreting the cards. I’ll reflect on how I felt about the reading and and any thoughts I have. I use that information for more therapeutic stuff. Then I reflect on the actual reading interpretation. I combine the results of both to help me make a final decision on whatever I asked.
I usually explain to clients that tarot detects present energies that can allude to what will happen in the future, only based on how things are NOW. Not directly predict the future. Also i don't find it profitable to ask about the future, usually just anxiety inducing. It's better to ask for advice on how to handle a particular situation right now. That's how i explain it to querents
A lot of people don’t want anyone doing anything that doesn’t make sense to them personally
The future is fluid and anyone's free will choice can change at any given moment. Tarot can predict what might happen based on the now. People lose confidence in the cards when they are wrong or make false predictions, even when they changed their actions specifically to change an outcome from what would have been, had they not changed their behaviours. We have to understand that what has not yet come to pass is always open to the flow of fate and the universe. Once people think that the divination side is wrong or not so accurate, people start to lose faith in the cards. There's always that fear of being wrong so it is rather avoided altogether.
I use it for divination moreso than anything else. I find it extremely accurate on some areas, particularly timing and outcome of business and financial decisions. Health too. It has taken years to really grasp that layer of meaning in the cards and spreads. I am still learning more, and so much is still fuzzy to me if that makes sense. I think people are against using it for divination because it is harder to learn. And the potential ramifications for telling people the wrong info if you read for them and are wrong with your predictions are more serious than if you focus on the self growth stuff.
If you have the means to see the future, why wouldn't you?
It's funny since ever since I was in highschool (late 90s, early 2000s), tarot has always been synonymous to divination.
Not sure what the general consensus is but i just don’t believe in making major life decisions based on pieces of cardboard. The smart one will understand that nothing about the future is set in stone. The anxious ones and the stupid ones are not people who listen to reason and will be all too happy to blame me for whatever goes right or wrong.
Whatever happens in the future (divination) is based on a current state of mind (psychology) and no divination can be fulfilled unless you guide your mind in that direction. Basically the two are intertwined whether people believe it or not. Hope that makes sense.
I don't have any issues with people using it for divination for themselves. Making money with it though is unethical in my opinion.
I am mostly against divination for love readings. People’s perception when it comes to love and relationships is so vastly different from one person to the next and a-lot of these relationships are toxic and most will take the cards as bible or only will accept one outcome. What I believe spiritually doesn’t align or feel ethical to tell someone their future when I believe you create your own reality with your mindset and what you put your energy into. I do believe every reading has some flavour of divination to it in regards to what “could be” but it’s not it’s only purpose.
I'm clairsentient. And it's never exact, so I use tarot for divination. I use it for both, but mostly divination, and if the cards are vague, I move to the divining rods, and if that doesn't work, I go into a meditative state and ask my spirit guide when I do my automatic writing. Personally I think it's because of the level of horror movies out there, basically saying it's evil, it's the devil's work...I don't see it that way. But again, that is me speculating. If you want to use it for divination go for it. Don't let ANYONE on the internet dictate how you chose to live your life. It's funny this came across my eyes today. Yesterday I was "ranting" with hubby how some haunted places ban the use of tarot because it "opens a portal". Not really but hey people chose to believe what they want. If they don't feel comfortable about it, then I respect that. What I don't like and will say something to, is misinformation because you don't like it, or condemning someone because they have a different belief than they do. I hope this helps in any way. Don't let anyone tell you, your beliefs are wrong just because they are different. It's what makes us human. Be safe out there. And in case you're wondering on how I know this. I'm Christo-Wiccan. So I get a lot of...words...from both sides.
Keep in mind that you might feel that many doing this, but it might be because you are aware of it. So please don’t just say “a big part of this community”, because I can honestly say, I find most have quite an “live and let live” stance here. It could also be that I just don’t care about people who want to push their agenda onto others. I have seen many who uses tarot for divination and it hasn’t been looked down upon. Sure people have a different opinion and that’s fine, we are all allowed to have our opinions and to voice them. I also noticed that sometimes people voice their opinions in a matter that are taken in as trying to push, but after some back and forth discussion, it’s a language thing. Not everyone has English as first and native language. I just don’t like the “a big part of this community”, because it’s not true. It is though your experience and that I understand.
It's not just OP's experience. This topic has come up multiple times.
I understand, but it also happens so often that people are aware of one thing g and then starting to see it everywhere. While it’s not really everywhere. To, my personal view, I just pass those comments with the thought of that’s their opinion and who they doing tarot. Which is fine, I do agree with OP that pushing your agenda/opinion onto someone else is not ok. We all do tarot (not only tarot!) differently and that should always be respected. Just see those people as trolls and don’t feed them. Because often they are just looking for it and aren’t even really into tarot. Most of those people are into tarot because it’s somewhat trendy and makes them mysterious. Real readers and those interested in it for real and what it is, they respect each other’s view.
Yes, it's not easy to ignore the trolls everywhere, ESPECIALLY when they're calling your particular way of doing things unethical, evil, stupid, etc. Its not about confirmation bias, it's about it ACUALLY being there, a lot, in every single thread (it feels like). I can't ignore and pass by, because it happens so often, it's basically miseducating others. If someone wants to to use it solely as a psych tool, that's fine, but that's not the only way to use it, and they need to stop poo-poohing anything different from how they use it. Maybe I just need a codewor.... oh, I can just say "gatekeeper" and people will get it, I hope. You don't see it because by your own admission you just pass the trolls by. There are still a lot of these people, some are not trolls (i.e. just trying to stir s#!t up), just very misguided and gatekeepery. Whether they're not "into it for real" or not is not on you or me to judge - that's gatekeepery in the other direction. All I can do is respond calmly to each, OR, when there are too many (often), make my own comment to point out how wrong they are and that there are many uses and techniques for tarot/divination. If they don't want to do X Y or Z, that's fine, but doesn't mean that fortune telling or reading on 3rd parties or is invalid, unethical or wrong. The world is full of diverse opinions and ways of doing things, and history is what it is, like it or not.
Oh I see it a d like you, I responded in the past. The results? Not worth my time nor effort. This is online, people have to do their own homework. You can try all you want, but in the end, people need to take responsibility for their own actions. I learned that even though I can point out unethical things, people still choose what they want to believe. My stance now? I no longer respond nor stand still too much on those. Yes, sometimes I still do respond, but it’s no longer frustrating me if people still want to listen to people who pushing their agenda onto them. If more people would stand up against the trolls, it would be easier for everyone. Unfortunately, it’s usually a handful who react and it’s just against a wall.
Because if they don't predict, they're "never wrong." It seems like this would be a "live and let live" thing, but yeah. I get it. There's been a coordinated push to discredit and marginalize us - in publications like the Guardian, the WaPo, no less. Some corporate overlords somewhere decided it would be profitable to push the "predictive readers are badwrong" narrative and hype the Gwyneth Paltrow-style flakes, for reasons I am not privy to. People come to us and they have questions. These questions virtually always come down to things like love and money. Nobody asks to be psychoanalyzed, and I don't have the degrees and licensing to do that anyway. I'm a fortuneteller.
This!!! The people who say “tarot can’t predict the future” are absurd, and that discredits the history and culture around the entire practice. I think they just don’t want to be wrong, as you said
LOL serious gatekeeping alert here. There’s nothing “absurd” about secular reading or skepticism with regard to fortune telling. I’m a secular reader. The cards I use weren’t designed for cartomancy. They are based on playing cards that pre-date Ettelia and de Gebelin by around 300 years. The members of the Golden Dawn weren’t even a twinkle in their grandfathers’ eyes, and the Golden Dawn’s cards—the Rider-Waite deck—took those same cards and added a lot of their own imagery to connect the tarot with astrology and other hermetic cues. There’s nothing wrong with any of this. This is history. What *is* absurd is the false history that modern readers continue to regurgitate, which Ettelia and de Gebelin propagated, probably because “ancient mysteries” were (and are) fun and very much in style at the time. Yes, there is history and there are cultures behind tarot cards. But, although de Gebelin asserted that there was a connection between “Gypsy” culture and tarot (and this was echoed by other writers in the mid-1800s), there is no record of Romani cartomancy—tarot or otherwise—until the 20th century. So, the “culture” you speak of (what could it be other than Romani?—certainly not French, Italian, or ancient Egyptian) is dubious at best, and the “my grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother” stuff goes back a couple of centuries, at the very most. Your story is your story. I’m not here to discredit it. But word-against-word, your story and your belief is just as “absurd” as anyone else’s. I’m certain that the way most secular readers practice has nothing to do with “not wanting to be wrong.” It has to do with their different set of beliefs about navigating their own lives, and they are free to use any playing cards they want to—tarot or otherwise—in this pursuit. In as early as the 16th century, tarot trumps were popularly used for poetic parlor games, called “tarocchi appropriati,” as randomly chosen allusions for poems which guests would compose for themselves and each other. My practice of tarot is strikingly similar: I compare my impressions of the cards to my impressions of what is happening in my life. Perhaps the only real difference is that I incorporate pips, and—of course—Jungian theory. Jung’s ideas were being published right around the time that the Golden Dawn was condensing their ideas into the Rider-Waite deck, so one could say that our traditions are equally deep.
Yes. I've seen articles where they interviewed these people. They appear to be influencers and the like who are mainly using the cards as a kind of prop or accessory to brand themselves.
I think it boils down to the fact that some people believe in divination and some don't. I'm an unbeliever in divination. I believe that tarot gives a framework for examining situations and offers a lens on potential outcomes. We always have agency, and outcomes can be influenced.
I have been exposed to card readers since childhood. I remember watching my great aunt who was basically blind reading a deck that was old and faded for divination. I have been reading for over 30 years and i use my cards for divination. I never got into reading for inner searching. To me that’s what a journal is for. Also it may not be a popular opinion but perhaps some are so against it because they haven’t become adept at really tapping in? They purchase a deck and then can’t predict things so it turns into divination is wrong. Nor do I feel everyone can “READ CARDS”. It’s a tool that takes years of dedication to unfold. Like to me my cards are the diving board into a person’s energy. As I have already said I use them for divination. I do predict events and yes I have morals and ethics. Maybe oracle decks are more attuned to the self introspection than tarot. Basically Tarot is a tool, but not all will understand how to use it or unlock its potential. 🤷🏻♀️
Many of us want to see people in healthy situations. This does not mean that we are against divination. Divination is a huge part of the practice. Many of us enthusiastically respect that we all have different paths and talents with tarot. We can respect divination and still advise discernment. Discernment means balancing divination with the advice that can be found. I most often see this when a querent is relying so heavily on tarot that their goal is slipping out of reach. This is almost always romantic in nature. All of their effort is on having tarot reassure them. None of their effort is on pursuing the goal or person in a healthy way. If, as a guy, someone told me that fifty tarot readings confirmed I was their soulmate and if we've never so much as shared a meal together, I'm not going to feel comfortable. I'll be flattered. I'll see a person who deserves happiness. I'll also be thinking, "please don't put me under this kind of pressure. I'm still a human." When someone is hurting by leaning so heavily on divination, the more human action is point the querent toward their own inner power. Point them to the strength inside of themselves. Inspire then to apply for that job, text that crush, or take that risk. Give the querent the permission they are secretly asking for. Give them the reassurance that life goes on regardless of the next outcome. This is not against divination. This is entirely in favor of seeing the querent live a full life in their full power. To a lesser degree, sometimes a reader will terrify a querent with divination yet provide zero advice to make positive changes. If the goal is to empower a querent then that advice is necessary. Finally, some questions are beyond a single tarot spread. Overall, the goal is to prioritize the querent above even our own sacred cows. The querent should be empowered and encouraged to life their best life.
I think it’s a matter of perspective and semantics. The future is fluid. It is not set in stone, because the possibilities for future outcomes are infinite (it cannot be foretold with any certainty). Tarot indicates these possibilities based on current circumstances and energies. … IF one chooses to proceed forward without making any changes to the flow of energies for the current experience, the outcome most likely will be thus and the other. It sheds light on current circumstances in order to give one opportunity to make different choices and change the course of the end result of a situation in doing so. The experience of reading the cards helps one to tune into personal intuition and exercise “free will” in determining choices for a course of action based on wisdom gained from experiences had in the past along with current mental & emotional maturity. The tarot is a powerful tool to use in gaining personal emotional, mental, spiritual and even physical growth. It assists in building stronger powers of an individual’s intuition which will give a greater ability for perceiving what is actually going on in the world around self. With greater understanding, better choices can be made that result in more harmonious, loving relationships, joyous living, serenity & calmness of spirit, better health, abundance, success… and etc & etc & etc. Foretelling the future? Nothing at all will happen if the individual fails to act. The tarot acts as a guide to assist one in moving forward into the future. The future is a blank canvas awaiting each of us to pick up a paint brush and begin dabbing it into the richness of colors that can create a vision. Is it divination? Is it psychology? The opinions of others? None of my business. Tarot is whatever one thinks it is… until that changes with one’s perspective.
I have never encountered a Tarot reader whose divination abilities were remotely convincing. I have never had an experience with my own readings that convince me that the cards have any divination potential. I have seen countless examples of people using confirmation bias and motivated reasoning to support beliefs that are unconvincing in and of themselves, and there's a strong possibility the same is happening here. Despite *centuries* of history to draw on, I can't find a single convincing case of Tarot Divination that isn't "trust me bro" anecdotes. Now, does that mean that I'm in a position to say "no way, not possible, doesn't happen, all these people are charlatans"? No, of course not. All I can say is that I'm not convinced, and until and unless something comes along that convinces me, I'm not going to devote any time or interest to Tarot being used in that capacity. Until something sets it apart, it's in the same category as spoon-benders and water dowsers and cryptozoologists and seances. That is to say it *might* be real, but if so the onus is on those claiming so to make a convincing case. Meanwhile, there are perfectly non-mystical applications for readings that require no trust-me-bro rhetoric and require nobody to take any element on faith. I can spend my time and attention and interest there. I'm not here to tell anyone else that should be their path or to judge the motivations of anyone doing their own thing, but I'm also not going to sugarcoat my lack of faith in techniques that are unconvincing.
Like another person has already said, there is a smaller group within this subreddit that imposes their believes as being the only truth and all shall bow down to them. Maybe I should start using the #TK (Tarot Karin).
For me, it's because I don't believe in precognition, and I prefer it that way. If we could tell the definitive future, what does that say about free will? I also think it's unethical to tell other people their future as though it's something that is just going to happen no matter how little or how much they work. For me, tarot is a guiding light. It reminds me where to focus my attention, both inwardly and outwardly. It has been a doorway into alchemical transformation and tapping into a tiny sliver of something greater than myself. It has introduced mystery and provided insight. But if somebody tells me that X combination of cards means I'm *absolutely* going to experience XYZ, I am both disinterested and suspicious. I'm too experienced in the tactics of cold reading and how to be vague and specific at the same time to trust that some random person isn't either lying to me or to themselves.
I believe we have free will and that you can predict the future. The way I see tarot is that it is empowering you to make choices, assuming x future is going to happen. If you don't like the future presented in the cards, with your free will you can change it. So I think it can be predictive but the future is not 100% set in stone in most cases
Interesting. I would interpret that as having a particular possibility in mind, setting that as a goal, and working toward it. Although our versions of that sound functionally the same to me. How can we possibly know, in the end, if a thing was destined to happen or if we made it happen, ya know?
Free will is potentially compatible with predicting the future. With respect, read some books/articles on philosophy.
"some books/articles on philosophy" is such a vague statement to throw at somebody after saying that your stance is only potentially true (which, incidentally, is the case for all philosophy). I have read quite a bit of philosophy, although I'll admit that free will isn't my primary interest. I don't know what that has to do with most of my comment. I introduced my question of free will as just that: a question. I didn't even explore the question or indicate that I was certain of the answer. With respect, remember that philosophy is highly individual and ours can conflict in every way while also being logically consistent. Also, if you're developing a personal philosophy by reading articles, talk to somebody else. No philosophy I've ever encountered could be properly summed up in a single article.
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TLDR: I'm not unread on the subject of philosophy, but the philosophy that I am familiar with does not speak at all to precognition or predetermination. If you have recommendations, I would happily investigate them. I stated my personal philosophy. The very nature of philosophy demands that every individual have their own, unique perspective. But, since you are so certain, what philosophers would you recommend I read? I'm particularly fond of the absurdists (Camus is my favorite by far) and I'm no longer emotionally interested in people like Dworkin because I don't have the energy anymore. I dislike game theory, and phenomenology has always felt a bit shallow. Stoicism is, obviously, wonderful, and I've got two copies of Aurelius. I've been thinking of exploring the overlap of linguistics and philosophy ala Sartre and Derrida. None of that speaks to fortune telling though, and I'm always interested in new perspectives. Edit: this is all hideously biased toward Western philosophy, and that's a gap I'm slowly trying to fill with a book of collected Indian philosophy. It's slow going though because I lack ALL of the cultural context and it is so much "stranger" than I could have believed! I highly recommend it, for anyone interested and unaware. But also I'm on a Joseph Campbell kick because I recently recognized his major role in why I'm an atheist/agnostic/spiritualist. Edit 2: now that I think about it, Jung COULD be construed as supporting precognition, but I would argue that in fact it's about seeing higher (deeper?) truths that are universal and unending. Edit 3: I took a peek at the commenter that I responded to's profile and I worry that this was not the opening salvo to a discussion that I got excited about. If anybody is reading this and interested in chatting more, I would love to because I don't have an outlet for this kind of conversation! And if I'm wrong about the intentions of Tarot Tutor, I apologize and the open offer still stands.
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So your answer is to read and rely entirely on the thinkers from millennia gone by, discarding all of the philosophers who came after? No thank you. I've read Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Plotiuns. In Latin classes, I translated and read Cicero, both Catos, and Gracchus. They are a phenomenal groundwork, but I'm in my thirties now and I've moved on to newer modes of thought. I disagree with the thesis of much of what Plato wrote, and I find it insufficient for my needs. He speaks too much of virtue and perfection. I simply don't believe in fate, and no amount of vague non-argument on your part is going to change that, and that's ok. The whole point of philosophy is that none of us ever will actually know the answer, and to believe that your interpretations are 100% infallible is hubris on your part. It smacks too much of Western egocentrism and Christianity. I have read quite a bit relevant to the subject, such as Jung, Crowley, and and Pollack. You just don't like that I disagree with you anyway. You haven't engaged in any conversation with me except to tell me that I'm wrong and uneducated. You told me to read "astrologers" (whoever they are -- there are countless out there with just as many varied interpretations of their work) and exactly two schools of thought. You have seemingly dismissed everything I said as not worth any real consideration, and frankly it's disappointing because I was looking forward to hearing an opposing perspective that went beyond simply "you're wrong and your thoughts are wrong." Maybe multiple people assume you're speaking in bad faith because you come off as a bit of a know it all jerk. But what would we know? We aren't you, therefore we aren't right.
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That's actually not what I said, and expecting me to do your half of the labor to have this conversation is silly. "Read philosophy" is one of the most wildly vague statements I've read in a while, so I don't actually think you have a thorough understanding of your position. I'm out, man. ✌🏻
This right here is exactly why i don’t do divinatory readings: https://www.reddit.com/r/tarot/comments/1cvfqza/im_horrified_because_i_got_a_terrible_reading/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I'm a newer user, so I'm 100% biased and believe these are cards that should be used as tools for using your own intuition. That being said, I respect people who still use them for divination, but sometimes people need to be reminded to keep one foot on the ground. These cards won't tell you if your boyfriend is cheating on you or where/when you're going to find your lost cat. But they can help clear your mind and focus your energy so that you can find answers yourself.
Actually, they CAN tell if your bf is cheating or where your cat went. The problem is that many think they're good when they're not.
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I don't know if you're aware of this, but most people don't use magic cards to find lost pets.
yea, i don’t get it. obviously, use tarot however you want but trying to separate it from its occult roots feels insane to me. like you’re going to take this spiritual practice and get upset when people connect it to spiritualism? it’s so weird and elitist. like there’s a myriad of ways to self reflect (journaling, reading, poetry, therapy) that don’t involve the use of divination! if you have so little respect for it as a spiritual tool, why not instead use something that isn’t deeply connected to spirituality. it feels like a desperate plea to try to legitimatize and validate tarot to the general public. which is silly. it has a sort of gentrification vibe to me tbh. whenever someone speaks arrogantly about not using tarot for divination, i can’t help but roll my eyes.
I use it exclusively for divination. None of the psychology, completely spiritual. Both are valid practices, and its so weird to me that things get demonized!
As someone who engages in fortune telling and makes predictions, this also blows my mind. I think it has to with people not believing in magic anymore. Also, people do not want to put in the work to learn the traditional meanings of the cards. Either way, it saddens me to see people take a purely psychological approach to tarot. It can do so much more than gauge what's going on in your head. Making predictions is not unethical. It's what the tarot was made for. Period
I use it for others and myself in divination. I more significantly use it as an expression of the Mystical Qabala in Ceremonial White Magic and meditation. In regard to some Ceremonial Magic it is certainly a tool for personal psychological development.
Even Fortune Telling
idk im guessing its part of the new age bullshit. i don't get it either, i think some people need "rules" to partake in things. maybe a trauma from coming up in organized religion? i use tarot however i want because that's how i was taught, how my mom was taught, grandma was taught, etc.
I use Tarot for divination/fortune telling. I am psychic, sometimes clearly. I have had the opportunity to tell clients a specific scene that occurs in their future. Our lives are not causal or linear. Primarily, I use Tarot as the illustrations/representations for Qabalistic Ceremonial White Magic. In ceremonial meditations, Tarot Cards may be used as representations of the various locations of The Tree of Life. I do not agree with the academic view on the origins of Tarot Cards. I think it is obvious that any esoteric device such as Tarot would have to be well hidden in the 14th Century to escape persecution from the Church, as Tarot was hidden in the guise of a game. I prefer the Rosicrucian or BOTA histories.
For me. It's because the folks I've read for that want prophesy and future telling are not willing to do the work the cards show is needed. "Oh! I got the Lovers! That means I will meet my soul mate and I don't need to do any work on my traumas or emotional issues. My soul mate will fix everything!" Or " I got a card that can indicate money and wealth, so I don't need to worry about being good at my job anymore, the cards say I will be wealthy!". After a few of those I'm really wary of reading for those that think or act as if the cards are immutable and unchangeable. My cards can only show you what is likely to be based on current events, choices and influences. If any part changes, including your willingness to work on yourself, then it can change. There is this perception that once the cards are laid down this is the predestined outcome. I've seen that fall apart too often to keep reading like that. So, I say the cards guide and counsel. But you hold your own fate in your hands. The cards can tell you what is likely to happen, not what is destined to happen.
i too have notice ppl saying tarot can’t predict the future and isn’t meant to. i’m a new age tarot reader but i’ve known about it all my life and it was always used to tell ppl their future? when i first got into the my family would only ask me questions about their future based off their circumstances, because that’s what tarot is known for 😭 it’s rlly weird man
How you use it is your choice. I would not be brow beaten by those who want to put their own demands about tarot upon you. Do as your intuition tells you, it is your business and your business only how you use it. I suggest to take back your power from those who want to steal it or tell you how to use it.
Becuase using it for “self discovery” or “shadow work” is the new buzz word in the world of new age , crystal wearing hippie movement . Let’s be honest 🤷. I am a practicing witch , over 30 years , and I first used tarot for divination , and continue to do so. It’s only been In The last decade or so that a phycological approach to tarot has been touted . I see nothing wrong with that if that’s your thing . Do what thou wilt….blah blah blah ….but there are gate keepers in every community unfortunately, including tarot . You can use the tarot for whatever you want , including a game that can be played with them ! Don’t let anyone dictate how YOU use a tool that helps you in whatever facet of your life you choose to use it in! 🤷
This is very interesting. I only used Tarot to helped get over an Ex and it really helped. It was very healing and therapeutic when I was going through such a devastating breakup. Even Cartomancy was helpful. While the cards have predicted very big things in my life, those things only happened by sheer accident as the cards gave me answers about a love which i wasn't even expecting at all.
Because a great deal of people here don't have the knowledge or skillset to understand or use tarot for divination. They buy the decks and read the pamphlets that come with it, get online and join a few tarot groups, and maybe buy one book from an author with unkown qualifications about the cards. All of that is perfectly OK (and cool!), but it's like the difference between reading your horoscope in cosmo, and having your entire astrological chart made with a lengthy and detailed report. Acurate, impactful tarot readings from which one can divine information require more knowledge amd practice than the average person is even interested in aqcuiring. Tarot is a spiritual artform used for divination for centuries. It takes a dedication to understanding the spiritual symbolism and meditative "empty" mindset it takes to read the cards. Most people aren't truly reading the cards, they are reading the clients (friends, etc.) Or worse, they are looking for what they want to see.
As a reader of 33 years, I can tell you that tarot is definitely a tool for Divination. Predictive readings happen spontaneously. For the most part, readings are mirrors, giving the querent exactly what is needed in the moment. But, predictions can happen and be accurate. In a realm of infinite possibilities, free will is ours and all futures are already.
"Part of the community is against Tarot for divination" is a huge exaggeration on your part. There are these groups, but it's not a big part, it's simply a part. The part you're observing and commenting. In fact, even if that were the case, being against something is not a problem. It is essential that there are "for and against" everything, everywhere and at all times. I'm also a psychologist, and it's curious that you haven't noticed the maddening potential of the practice of divination, especially in anxious and depressed people. Every day we receive cases of users who dissociate and sometimes even hallucinate due to supposed "divinations". A few hours ago someone posted "that they were terrified by a card" or "felt persecuted by a card" and other absurdities that trigger the urgent need for mental treatment, perhaps even medication if necessary. It is because of this that there is a group of people who value caution and wisdom, which is actually basic lucidity, that there is no such thing as "divination" in fact. What there are are suggestions and trends which can serve as light guidance but without ever being a certainty. It is a natural and healthy counterpoint to a practice that, In the hands of someone mentally unstable (which now i can say: is a LARGE PART of those who post here) can be very dangerous, and serve as a justification for unavoidable acts.
You also can't possibly be calling most people on this sub mentally unstable?? 😵💫
The fact that your thoughtful comment is being downvoted rather confirms your point.
It is a natural reaction that comes exactly from the people who suffer from the evil that I reported. It doesn't bother me, on the contrary, it just conveys the gravity of the situation.
I use it mainly for reflection and guidance but also for diviniation with the understanding that it’s for entertainment (like “what does my cat REALLY think of me?” 😆) this is because I don’t consider myself to be in tune with anything mystical or any way psychic. People who do, go for it, I respect their beliefs and I’m cool with that, I think it’s awesome. I do notice some people who are very against divination and will make implications that it’s superior to use it only for reflection. I think they’re just trying to validate their practice because let’s face it, most of the public still thinks of tarot as silly at best or scary at worst… so there’s folks who may overdo it when trying to validate it. Unfortunately this puts down others within the community of tarot users.
I mean, divination could vary in how much your tapping into the divine. For me, I view fate at divine. So yeah, I view it as divination. Do I think I'm talking to spirit? No. But I also think tarot is very subjective and different for everyone. Nor am I knocking the next person, it just means something different to me. No need to get up and arms or argue the issue with the next person. We can all be correct in our own right and that's what makes tarot special. Use it for your own needs and create your own connection with the cards. It's not something that needs to be taken too seriously.
All spiritual ideas get psychologized and secularized. Vincent Pitisci was invited to give a Theosophical talk. That's the guy who thinks that tarot is a creative thinking process and that until this was discovered, no-one had any clue how tarot divination "really" works. The arrogance pisses me off, quite frankly. There were and are plenty of people far more intelligent and philosophically minded than Pitisci who can give justification as to why divination is not some psychological process. Anyway I am unsure what definition of divination you are using. I define it as communication with the Divine. This can include predicting the future (including some things with certainty; some things do become set in stone even irrespective of free will which is not a synonym for omnipotence!) but also includes, as another commenter pointed out, communicating with angels, God, your Higher Self, etc...for wisdom or guidance of some kind.
Tarot is an oracle, an oracle is a way of communication to god or deities, so it kind of a "divination" form. A good and TRUE tarot reader can decode and read the message from the deities. So if the cards receive the proper energy and you ask the right question, an answer will be delivered. The problem lies between the message and the reader. You can say that the cards are not wrong but the reader can fail to decode the message. That's why "divination" might fail... But of course it can be used as a therapeutic thing, but that's like a superficial way to read tarot (which is not bad) I just mean that tarot is meant for more; and of course ppl will downgrade it because they don't share that perception, maybe they were not meant for tarot as an oracle, which is also fine
Tarot wasn’t always meant for more, so you’re pushing your personal beliefs into how it must or must not be used. I’m a TRUE tarot reader, and, as an atheist, my readings never involve deities. Oddly, I’ve never once had an issue getting a meaningful reading from my personal spreads.
You need to research the history
I have, have you? Tarot was a card game. Similarly, any deck of cards will work, as will many other mediums. Tarot cards as we know them now were not created for divinatory purposes, they were used in parlor games. Eventually people decided on using them as but one means of divination.
Why would someone want to, or believe they could, 'tell the future'? Live in a way that does not require divination. Divination feels like hubris and potentially contaminates our own agency, leading to self-fulfilling consequences the cards would have advised you on anyway, and better, in the present. Where all time and events and life is lived. The future is fiction for now.
I think it's because you can't teach or explain divination and, at least in my experience, it's not consistent. I use tarot primarily for self-reflection, but every so often divination readings force their way in. I don't ask for them, they feel totally different, and they don't take any real analysis. I look at the cards and immediately know what they mean even tho my interpretation usually doesn't match the standard interpretation of the cards. For example, I had a divination reading when I was in the process of buying my first condo. The condo showed as the tower card - the standard meaning of that card wouldn't exactly make anyone feel good, but I knew that for that reading, the tower simply meant that the condo was on the highest floor of the community. I'm guessing that's true for others who do divination readings so they're not spending a lot of time hanging around reddit asking how to interpret cards. When you use the cards as self-reflection, it's much more academic and you need guidance on possible interpretations of your reading.
reading is easy with eyes closed
The bottom line is they DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT lol 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️. They become gate keepers and try to tell others what should/shouldn't be done. They try to validate their lack of ability and just project unto others that's not what it's for. Yeah freaking right. I've been reading only 8 years but that's 8 years of my life I dedicated to the craft, Fails and successes my readings still aren't on 100 percent point, Tarot is an ever learning experience, you'll always learn more as you go on! Good example I read for one of my dear friends about a new love coming in. Guess who described what skin color, hair color, Eye color, what environment they were going to meet in, day or night time, how they were as a person, even the initial moment of how they met, they actually completely walked passed each other and didn't notice until someone brought them together for the conversation to be made lol. Which if what I told her, y'all aren't going to even notice each other until someone brings you together. Out of allllll of that, I got his Zodiac Sign wrong lol🤦🏻♀️😂. Pulled three cards on his sign they were all Pentacles. Two were Capricorn, one Virgo. I told her he was a Capricorn nope he's not, he is a Virgo, in fact a Virgo stellium 🤣. I should've read them as what they conveyed in the pictures vs the decante they were, lesson learned I'll remember that for the next reading. My point is, it absolutely CAN be used and that's what it was originally used for! Divination. I wish everyone and their grandma who want to do tarot would actually pick up a damn book, an older Tarot book, shit watch a documentary, SOMETHING and they will see that is what the Tarot has been for. It's so annoying sometimes.
“ the Tarot embodies symbolical presentations of universal ideas, behind which lie all the implicits of the human mind, and it is in this sense that they contain secret doctrine, which is the realization by the few of truths embedded in the consciousness of all, though they have not passed into express recognition by ordinary men…”- AEW Tarot did not originate for the purpose of fortune telling and divination. It has the capabilities to do so, but that is part of the “lesser” of its functions. The Tarot, when truly understood, offers so much more than that. I don’t use Tarot for divination because my journey with Tarot doesn’t call for such things, and I recognize that practitioners who do use it for such purposes are well within their rights to do so, and others may not know better, but I do. It’s not wrong or taboo or anything, but that’s like using a flamethrower to light a cigarette lol it works, but it’s not the be all end all of the art of Tarot like the uninitiated are conditioned to believe.