How does it all work?

Grizabella

Wow, whenever I see this question I always think of my oldest son. Anytime he was given something that was mechanical, he'd take it apart to see why it worked and then, of course, it didn't work anymore. :p He's 52 now and he's still doing it, but at least he can put most things back together now. :)

Tarot works because---Tarot works. My motto is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Why try to find out how it works? Is it so then we could manipulate it to say what we want? We can do that without knowing how it works. Do we want to know how it works so we can satisfy our curiosity? Some things are better left to the magic of how life and the Universe work together to give us answers with the cards. I love the magic and I've given up trying to peek behind the curtain.
 

Barleywine

I think - short of having to take something apart to fix it - we want to know how things work because we're human and have a relentless and insatiable curiosity. There's an old saying about "nature abhoring a vacuum" that neatly summarizes how many of us handle a knowledge gap, even if we stop up that gap with "filler." Maybe its just the "curse of intellect." But I've found that when I stop thinking too hard about it or trying to pick it apart, that's when tarot surprises and inspires me most. But of course I still have my pet theories . . .
 

SunChariot

Sztar said:
Curious to get people's opinions on why they think tarot (or any type of intuition for that matter) "works."

Are there spirits or unseen forces that guide your hands?

Do you get messages from angels or spirits?

Does your subconscious or unconscious interpret the symbolism in the cards and give messages to your conscious mind about internal truths you already knew?

Some background: I consider myself a skeptic, but at the same time I know that we can see things in the cards because I do it all the time. I tend to view myself as someone in the latter category--someone who sees tarot as a means of tapping into the unconscious mind via use of symbolic imagery.

That said, I've experienced very clear moments of "direct knowing" in my life--beyond tarot--where I knew things that on the surface I couldn't have known other than by clairvoyance. One of those moments was profound in the sense that I'm alive because of it. The others are situations where I *knew* something but the situations were of lesser consequence.

So what do you believe is happening when you read tarot? Do you have other clairvoyant experiences? How do you approach the cards?
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My personal opinion is that Divination is just that, a communication with the Divine. That is what I feel it is for me. Sometimes I see it as God, sometimes as my angels (or those for the querent), but it all boils down to that for me. For me Divination is a communication with the Divine. I see this as the source that ensures the right cards come out in the right positions and helps me sense, through my intuition when I listen in, the messages I am meant to get.

Babs
 

Nemia

How does art work? The human mind recognizes patterns and gives meaning to the meaningless - we do that all the time, visual patterns but also non-visual. And the human mind likes to create new things, adding something of the individual to the pattern he/she recognizes.

In the same way that we take art materials (or any other material) and transform it into a work of art others can relate to - in the same way that we take the agreed patterns of language and express our own feelings or a story others can read or listen to - in the same way that we create from existing pieces new things - in just that way we take images on cardboard pieces and see a pattern (narrative, symbols etc) and connect it to the life in front of us.

All these are right brain processes, i.e., not analytical, wordless, intuitive processes. That's why we love doing them. Dancing, writing, singing, painting, reading cards - we enter a right-brain state of of being, a flow, and reach depths of intuition and creativity that can't be explained rationally by the left brain.

Of course, we can read a book that explains the psychological or esoteric aspects of the process that's called reading tarot. It won't make us a tarot reader. Just like reading a book that analyzes Monet's working process and explains how oil colours are made won't make us a painter.

These are two different things.

IMO, knowing or researching how things work doesn't impact our ability of doing so. I can analyze the process of reading cards and understand it, but that won't help me reading cards. Still, I can take ten minutes later my deck and read cards.

I teach a theoretical course in a place where students study art. Teaching them what Michelangelo did doesn't impact them negatively, it widens their horizon, deepens their appreciation and understanding of art, challenges their own art making. But it doesn't make them better artists.

I believe the same is true for analyzing how card reading works.

I can choose which side of my brain I use. We have both in order to be able to do both. Or in tarot terms, we have Cups AND Swords to work with.
 

Barleywine

If I had to pick a single word to describe how the mind works, it would be "associative." Seems to me it's what we learn from the very beginning, starting with the experience of Mother as "provider," then moving on to language and more abstract concepts. It's how I learned tarot, both initially and later through absorbing the complex chain of correspondences, although I've since elaborated greatly on my understanding through metaphorical associations as offshoots of the core knowledge. For me, further enlightenment comes from the insights gained through intuition, imagination and inspiration. (That last one literally means "influence received from spiritual sources," so it might conceivable have a higher origin, but I'm not convinced that its necessarily "divine.")
 

Sztar

Nemia said:
How does art work? The human mind recognizes patterns and gives meaning to the meaningless - we do that all the time, visual patterns but also non-visual. And the human mind likes to create new things, adding something of the individual to the pattern he/she recognizes.

In the same way that we take art materials (or any other material) and transform it into a work of art others can relate to - in the same way that we take the agreed patterns of language and express our own feelings or a story others can read or listen to - in the same way that we create from existing pieces new things - in just that way we take images on cardboard pieces and see a pattern (narrative, symbols etc) and connect it to the life in front of us.

All these are right brain processes, i.e., not analytical, wordless, intuitive processes. That's why we love doing them. Dancing, writing, singing, painting, reading cards - we enter a right-brain state of of being, a flow, and reach depths of intuition and creativity that can't be explained rationally by the left brain.

Of course, we can read a book that explains the psychological or esoteric aspects of the process that's called reading tarot. It won't make us a tarot reader. Just like reading a book that analyzes Monet's working process and explains how oil colours are made won't make us a painter.

These are two different things.

IMO, knowing or researching how things work doesn't impact our ability of doing so. I can analyze the process of reading cards and understand it, but that won't help me reading cards. Still, I can take ten minutes later my deck and read cards.

I teach a theoretical course in a place where students study art. Teaching them what Michelangelo did doesn't impact them negatively, it widens their horizon, deepens their appreciation and understanding of art, challenges their own art making. But it doesn't make them better artists.

I believe the same is true for analyzing how card reading works.

I can choose which side of my brain I use. We have both in order to be able to do both. Or in tarot terms, we have Cups AND Swords to work with.
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Brilliant. I love this. You can learn a lot by studying, but to achieve mastery, you have to practice. This goes for any art form--any skill for that matter. Merely knowing a lot of information is useful, but it'll only get you so far. This goes for intuitive development as much as anything else. I suppose that's one of the reasons we're all here. :)
 

Sztar

Ha! Maybe I will. And if the cards don't give me a smart #ssed reply, I'll be very surprised indeed! :D
 

Barleywine

Sztar said:
Ha! Maybe I will. And if the cards don't give me a smart #ssed reply, I'll be very surprised indeed! :D
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They'll just say "Use the Force, Luke." :laugh:
 

Marcus R

How does it all work?
I'm a sceptic but fascinated with this artful science. I can only do my best to interpret the cards before me. I am neutral. How the right cards appear, how I interpret them correctly is the mystery. We can do it face to face, verifying the spread as we go and yet we can pull rabbits out of our hats remotely, online or with written reports (which I find challenging yet satisfying).

Some argue that we could/can make any card provide a suitable answer but I'm sure most of us could give examples of cards that are entirely unsuitable at the time, I know I have.

Someone here has said "Tarot works, despite me". That's me to a tee.
 
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