Can Tarot really foretell the Future ?

Teheuti said:

...idiosyncracies... ...daily habits...

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So people with lifelong quirks and habits haven't changed, and thus they are not wise. But reading Tarot is a quirky habit we all share, thus none of us can be wise. Ouch, I hope that's not true

LeFou said:

So people with lifelong quirks and habits haven't changed, and thus they are not wise. But reading Tarot is a quirky habit we all share, thus none of us can be wise. Ouch, I hope that's not true

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To repeat: All people have quirks and habits, some of which get exaggerated with age. Not all old people are wise. How you got the above pronouncements out of this, I have no idea. Please don't twist my words. It doesn't serve our communications.

Teheuti said:

To repeat: All people have quirks and habits...

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Aha, I offer my sincerest apologies, I did not understand you were saying that. (English is my downfall.)

Apology accepted. Thank you for responding so well.

dancing_moon said:

But if the future is really predetermined, we can't possibly avoid futile battles anyway, right? Since they must have been predetermined too.

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I think that, although the really big events in our life are are predetermined and we can't avoid them, we can change our way of dealing with them, and like I said, shorten the time we waste after things that are not worth pursuing, because they are blind alleys which will lead us nowhere. In time, with experience, we can learn to recognize the signs of impossible love or relationships, or any other situations that life presents us with which don't have a future even without the cards, but still, tarot can be a great help in that....
Many years ago, when I was very young, I had fallen in love with a guy who liked me very much, but clearly didn't want a relationship with me. I began to go to tarot readers who kept telling me that it would happen, that we would have a relationship, that he was the one....when everything was telling me the opposite....I wasted a very long time-nowhere near fifteen years, like the woman I wrote about before, but still, much more that I should have....I never made that mistake again, and in fact, I think that subconsciously, that is why I decided to learn to read tarot myself...and if I have a " mission " as a tarot reader, I see my mission as that of not encouraging people in their unfounded hopes and illusions, which is what I expect others to do with me....Now, the only advice I really listen to in such situations, is not tarot's-which, as we have seen, is unreliable-but in my head, I repeat what my grandma, who I grew up with and was a wonderful, truly enlightened human being, used to say : " You can tell by early morning if it's going to be a good day "....( it loses a lot in translation, but still...) The point is, when a relationship, or a carreer, or anything else, doesn't take off, we should recognize the signs, and act accordingly....perhaps decide to turn over a new leaf, count our losses and move on...
If tarot cannot be relied upon to help us do that, in my opinion, it is almost useless.

gregory said:

This, very much. I refuse to believe in predetermination.

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Well technically, that's what Major Arcana are about....things we really cannot change....what is that, if not predetermination to a large degree ?

Teheuti said:

"Character is fate." --Heraclitus.

Our past - genetic, cultural, familial and personal - tends to set us along certain paths that feel fated or even predetermined. It can be difficult, and in some cases almost impossible, to break out of these currents of energy or probability. We get annoyed with a novel in which a character does things out-of-character because it doesn't seem true to life. I feel we can change and do things that are not probable to us (and thereby change a prediction based on such probabilities), but it is unusual and rarely changes our whole life direction. While 'chance' occurrences set us on an entirely different path they don't usually drastically change the way in which we characteristically respond (the choices we make).

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Exactly. And wouldn't you call that predetermination ?

Teheuti said:

"Character is fate." --Heraclitus.
I feel we can change and do things that are not probable to us (and thereby change a prediction based on such probabilities), but it is unusual and rarely changes our whole life direction. While 'chance' occurrences set us on an entirely different path they don't usually drastically change the way in which we characteristically respond (the choices we make).

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And this is absolutely THE BEST I've heard so far, not just in this discussion, but ever. I think to me, it summs up the argument and settles it....

gregory said:

But we do have those choices, just the same.

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Are they real choices, or illusory choices ? Are we only led to believe we can choose, perhaps ?

Teheuti said:

Not all old people become wise elders. A friend and I were just noticing how some people we know in their late 80s were exhibiting idiosyncracies that were exaggerations of tendencies that had always been a part of their personality. We were also noting how our own daily habits had been with us from when we were young but that we now were giving them full reign.

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True, many people excacerbate their worste character traits as they grow old....I know quite a few of them like that.