Taking the Cards Literally...

Twice in a week I heard and then read that we should not read the Tarot literally. Why shouldn't we read the cards literally? Why should we or when should we read the cards literally.

Do you read the Trumps literally or not?
Do you treat the minors literally and the Trumps a different way?

Just wondering how or if people think about the literal use of the cards.

could you give an example of a literal and a non-literal reading of one or another card?

zb

Sometimes I read the cards literally, I think that this 'not reading them literally' is to protect from scams. It depends on the context and issue as to when I read them literally.

This is one of those gray areas in reading, there are times when the message is a literal interpretation of a card and at other times, the card is a metaphor for a greater issue.

I don't think I've ever told anyone to be careful about not stepping on the guy laying face down with ten swords in his back that they'll invariably run into later that day if that's what you mean by a literal reading.

Or that they're going to come across some bloke strung up by one foot with coins falling out of his pocket.

Just doesn't happen in the everyday world, at least not where I live.

I've used the cards literally - or perhaps semi-literally would be a better description - when looking for lost objects. It works quite well.

And of course, we can always bring up examples like the WTC in New York, as one famous example of literal Tower happening, complete with jumping people, or open-heart surgery as a semi-literal interpretation for the 3 of Swords.

But on the whole, I agree with Gavriela

Once I was looking for the tv remote (almost and everyday occurrence), for 2 days actually and finally consulted the cards as to it's whereabouts. I kept getting the RW 5 of cups. I'd already looked all over the kitchen and drew it once more!! Finally, my eye was drawn to the long black cloak the figure is wearing and it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I have a coat the same colour and about as long hanging in the closet. I walked straight over there and lo and behold, there it was! Don't ask me why it was in the closet. Maybe that should have been my next question. To me, that is reading the card in a literal way as opposed to its esoteric meaning.

Literal

Just my experience: I posted elsewhere on this site that one night last week the Knight of Swords fell out of the deck, which reminded me about dinner in the oven (I took the Knight's advice and hurried to the oven). I retrieved dinner just in time!
That is one literal example, and quite harmless.
I also find when I feel doubtful about the cards in general, like, "None of this is possible or true", I will look back in my tarot journal and, literally, sit there, stunned by truth! So sometimes you have to backtrack - and the SPECIFICS of what the cards show you will make you a believer.

Nice example Nancyk! Thank you for playing along.

So, I agree that I have never seen 10 Swords in real life.
I have seen someone who is a backstabber. Perhaps the discussion as to whether this is metaphorical will ensue, but like Nancyk the literal gave way to the real world usefulness. Ten horrible words used in a sentence that cuts like a knife...yes. Emotional fallout that feels like bleeding to death...yes.

If you have ever seen the 8 of Cups and told your client, 'time to leave the situation' is that a literal interpretation?

Cards like the Death card are not being read literally by most readers today. I dare anyone on this forum to honestly admit they have had that card in a spread and have predicted a death. It isn't done on this forum as far as I can see, and it isn't admitted to if it is.

At last years NYC Reader's Studio Rachel Pollack discussed how meanings for some cards cycle. There were years where Death meant literal death and other years where it meant other things. We happen to be in a cycle where the Death card is the more palatable Transformation or Transmutation.

I think that I have seen over on the REX that there are certainly intuitive readers who have no problem using the cards literally. They look at the picture and they say what they see. I don't make this wrong. But I think I see a trend where people are taking the cards more literally and I wonder if it matters or not.

Just like over in the cold reading thread that Umbrae has up over in Talking Tarot, his May rant. Does it matter if it works? If people are getting good readings, and the cards are being taken literally, then does it matter? Does the literal reading make a good reading??? And truthfully, how do we know? Are people getting enough repeat business that they get the consistent feedback from the sitter.

I have read on the forum that wanting to know if you were right is the height of ego. Personally, it doesn't matter so much if I am right as it does that the person feels assisted, healed, loved and empowered by the experience. But accuracy has its place in the scheme of things. Being accurate and being right are maybe two different things, but I wonder if literal readings can be accurate.

This may require a reading experiment...

The cards are an analogical tool. Their language is closer to “as if” than it is to “yes” or “no”. What you see in the cards is always an analogy of something the person is experiencing, or may be experiencing, in real life.

I see the cards as metaphors, this is, as something that stands for something else; but when I start a reading I don’t know what is that they are representing, or what is the metaphor for.

In order to know, I have to SEE the cards literally. So, the Magician becomes a young man of certain visual characteristics, whose relationship with the literal figures in other cards creates a metaphor. That metaphor hopes to represent, by analogy, the sitters experiences.

Now, here is the thing. If I were to describe a dream I had to you, I would have to describe the dream just as I remember it: “A man was chasing me...” I would describe it literally. Chances are that some if the dream’s actions of details would resonate at a literal level. So, a very natural thing we would do is to define if that man does exists in reality, if I know his name, and if in fact I have felt the man chasing me in one or another way. We would only explore its metaphorical value (this is, the idea of that man being other thing than that specific man) IF we find no literal connection between the dream and my life.

Tarot is no different to dream imagery. So, the first thing I will do when the cards are on the table is to describe what I see, literally; for it is possible that the cards may have literal resonance on the sitter. After this first step, we will see how that literal description becomes metaphor for something else, but only if at a literal level has no resonance for the person I am reading the cards for.

I hope this makes sense.