Can Tarot really foretell the Future ?

[Teheuti]

if only yin and yang were that simple and related that easily to the left-right brain, fate-free-will comtroversies but it does provide a nice context for contemplation.

 

[LeFou]

Yin and Yang aren't simple?

 

[frejasphere]

Did you watch the video?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI

In looking at left vs right brain, he "explains how our 'divided brain' has profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society" (the animation is brilliant)... It also connects (for me) with how Tarot can offer a more visual (non rational) connection to the subconscious mind.

Yin and Yang may well explain this in a similar way, from your comment LeFou, it sounds as though it can - although I am not an expert

 

[Zephyros]

Except the brain isn't divided and the separation between left and right brain is in itself a crude simplification... and of course yin and yang aren't simple.

A mathematician can feel passionate about her work, and will often use her "emotion centers" of the brain rather than the logic centers. Plus the two parts work together, neither separate. The idea of left and right is almost as absurd as humans using only ten per cent of their brains.

 

[Nikita_]

I believe we can choose but only as long as it doesn't clash with another person's will. E.g. we can't choose to be with person A if person A doesn't want that, but we can choose person B if they're willing. When it concerns 'inanimate objects'/situations, things become much easier. Concrete people are tricky, though.

Everything that matters in life has to do with other people, or involves someone else. Unless we are talking about things like switching on and off the light, or the washing machine. And even then, it depends if the technology works, or if there's no power cut at the time, or if the bill has been paid. We can do absolutely NOTHING by ourselves; we are completely powerless.

 

[Nikita_]

I find it a peculiarly Western attitude that man is "master of his domain," and can completely control his fate.

Exactly. It's a Western illusion of grandeur, I'd say.

 

[dancing_moon]

Everything that matters in life has to do with other people, or involves someone else. Unless we are talking about things life switching on and off the light, or the wasshing machine. And even then, it depends if the technology works, or if there's no power cut at the time, or if the bill has been paid. We can do absolutely NOTHING by ourselves; we are completely powerless.

Saying that we're completely powerless is one absolute, and saying that we have complete power over our life is another absolute. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, as usual.

Of course, we're all interdependent. Some people in your life will be helpful, some harmful, some hateful, some affectionate. But really, I can pay my bill myself or ask someone helpful to do that, it doesn't require much magic. But even when I don't do it myself, don't I initiate it? And don't I get what I wanted in the end? Where's powerlessness in that?

 

[Nikita_]

Saying that we're completely powerless is one absolute, and saying that we have complete power over our life is another absolute. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, as usual.

Of course, we're all interdependent. Some people in your life will be helpful, some harmful, some hateful, some affectionate. But really, I can pay my bill myself or ask someone helpful to do that, it doesn't require much magic. But even when I don't do it myself, don't I initiate it? And don't I get what I wanted in the end? Where's powerlessness in that?

What I am saying is, our lives are an endless-well, not really endless, if you see what I mean-chain of interrelated events and relations with other people, and nothing can happen if there is a hitch in the passage before the last...you pay the bill because your boss paid your salary, or your client paid you when he should have, and if he was unable to pay you because his wife dumped him and ran away with the milkman,and emptied the bank account, a whole lot of other small or big tragedies could have followed from that....do you see what I mean ? Even the smallest things are part of a balance, or universal equilibrium, that can be smashed to bits by the most unexpected and apparently unrelated-to us- event and ultimately, it results in the fact that everything is out of our control, really....even a stupid thing like paying the electricity bill....

 

[dancing_moon]

What I am saying is, our lives are an endless-well, not really endless, if you see what I mean-chain of interrelated events and relations with other people, and nothing can happen if there is a hitch in the passage before the last...you pay the bill because your boss paid your salary, or your client paid you when he should have, and if he was unable to pay you because his wife dumped him and ran away with the milkman,and emptied the bank account, a whole lot of other small or big tragedies could have followed from that....do you see what I mean ? Even the smallest things are part of a balance, or universal equilibrium, that can be smashed to bits by the most unexpected and apparently unrelated-to us- event and ultimately, it results in the fact that everything is out of our control, really....even a stupid thing like paying the electricity bill....

Yes, I see what you mean, but I still fail to see how you make that conclusion in the end.

Perhaps, we're talking about different kinds of control here. What you mean is absolute control ('I want A, and I want to get it through B, C, and D'), and what I mean is more flexible control ('I want A, and I don't mind how I'll get it'). So, in the case of the bill, the easiest way to pay it is my salary, but in case something goes wrong and I don't get it in time, the money comes from a different source, always. For me, at least.

 

[Nikita_]

Yes, I see what you mean, but I still fail to see how you make that conclusion in the end.

Perhaps, we're talking about different kinds of control here. What you mean is absolute control ('I want A, and I want to get it through B, C, and D'), and what I mean is more flexible control ('I want A, and I don't mind how I'll get it'). So, in the case of the bill, the easiest way to pay it is my salary, but in case something goes wrong and I don't get it in time, the money comes from a different source, always. For me, at least.

Are you saying we always get what we want, one way or another, if we really want it ? That the only variant is HOW we get it ? Because if that's what you are saying, I definitely disagree....I know lots of people, in this time of world recession, that had their electricity cut off because, through a series of circumstances, all their plans to raise money to pay their bills failed....and this is just a prosaic, silly example of how things work, if you see what I mean...but very eloquent, I think.