The Great Card Memorization War!

[zander770]

as i did in under- and over-graduate school, i used "crib notes" or simply "wrote the answers upon my palm and on the bottoms of my big feet" or i just "lied" and "made-up" the entire answer...

no, i'll give my Serious Commentary, later--suffice to say that i began "interested" in tarot, early, thru eden gray's _mastering the tarot_ (e gad, i HOPE i still might have that book somewhere in some of my boxes in my parents' attic! i remember actually TYPING--i mean: using a TYPEWRITER--out "his" meanings compared to "mine")

truth be told? i've only become "intuitive" in the past few years, and--being a writer--i have always ALWAYS "journaled," hard and heavily, and think that that's Most Important.

more later--

~Z~700 of Dander

 

[Sea Sprite]

Hi Rhiannon,

I've read a few tarot books but have not even attempted to memorize the meanings. I am trying to rely on intuition only right now.

Sea Sprite

 

[Moongold]

What do people mean when they say they read intuitively?

Do they just *know* and if so where does this *knowing* come from?

A particular life time of experiences and accumulated wisdom?

The knowledge they have accumulated from studying, learning, memorizing the cards?

Education or training in one area that may give them wisdom that others might interpret as intuition?

Highly developed perceptive skills?

A special *sixth sense*?

Some kind of spirituality?

The way they think?

The way their brain chemistry and genetic heritage has determined their learning preferences?

A blend of all these things?

Shucks........maybe it's just what the dictionary said?

Moongold

Blessings

 

[truthsayer]

i just realize the best way to describe what i think of memorization of the cards,"faking it until you make it". that proverb works so well so often!

 

[Alex]

Intuition is the ability to know

while bypassing the necessary steps to knowing something.

Alex.

What do people mean when they say they read intuitively?

 

[Moongold]

Thanks Alex....

Hmmm................

You're a scientist! Is there not some way intuition can be understood or analysed philosophically or scientifically?

I guess if we are here, we must have some acceptance of faith and intuition. The fact of knowing without knowing why.

However, can you intuit without some knowledge of the cards? You could I guess but would it be a Tarot reading?

Blessings,

Moongold

 

[Alex]

I know that "science"

has very little tolerance to "knowing without knowing how" or "wny". However faith is different than intuition. Intution pertains to "knowing" some "truth", or "the truth" withouth knowing how, or why. There's absolutely nothing "unscientific" about intuition.

Faith is the ability to maintain one's beliefs in spite of contrary evidence. Creationists can maintain their beliefs in spite of evidence that life was not created "as is". Faith also pertains to believing something will happen in spite of the unlikelyhood of an event. Here, the meaning of "faith" can be akin to "intuition" in that one "knows" how an event will unfold, without knowing how or why. One just "knows" it.

What will determine that one will get cured from a terminal cancer is more on the side of faith; but someone can have the intuition that it will happen that way. When you cannot separate faith from intuition is in situations when the querent knows what you know will happen and is therefore influenced by your "knowledge".

In a reading I don't think we can separate "faith" from "intuition". For the best way to predict the future is to make it happen.

Alex.

I guess if we are here, we must have some acceptance of faith and intuition. The fact of knowing without knowing why.

However, can you intuit without some knowledge of the cards? You could I guess but would it be a Tarot reading?

Blessings,

Moongold

 

[Trogon]

Well... I must say this has been a very interesting discussion. It has definitely made me rethink some of my personal definitions of "memorization", "learning" and "intuition". Y'all have mad me realize that, perhaps, my early work with trying to learn the Tarot by "memorization" has lead to my actually learning in on an intuitive level. But the actual learning and the intuition did not come untill I began really putting what I was trying to learn into practice. When I started doing more readings, especially for other people, is when I began to really "get" the Tarot.

Yet another example of what is so great about A.T. Thanks y'all...

 

[Emily]

I've dug this thread out and have been sitting here reading it. Its been a really interesting thread. I've always tried to memorise basic card meanings from which ever deck I might be using but since switching to the Morgan Greer I had to read that deck differently and i didn't realise I was until I went back to the RWS.

I've found the easiest way to get round this was to start Journals (TreeDB NotesFree) for decks I'm using at the moment, sitting with the cards and going through them randomly and just writing what I see. Now the Morgan Greer is a RWS clone but some of the interpretations I get vary a great deal from looking at the same RWS card.

I still get stuck on Court cards and some of the Majors and I still read everything I can get my hands on regarding the Tarot but I think if I had to go back and do it again, I would still memorise those basic meanings to get me started.