How does tarot work?

[2steps]

I'm not sure how to explain what I want to ask so...

I was wondering how does tarot work? whats the science of tarot, if you see what I mean?

[Wiccanizer]

The way I see it, like any other divination tool, it helps you tap into the Universal subconscious and draw from its energy. Tarot is a powerful tool for that in the sense that it uses actual images that get the message across a lot faster.
That's as scientific as I'm going to get tonight. :T

Other than that I always think of it as a picture book. I open the book, start to read it and the really cool thing is the story changes every time. It always amazes me.

[Against The Tide]

There are lots of theories out there, but here are the ones I think are pretty strong arguments.


There is a big conduit of all knowledge out there (as Wiccanizer said, the Universal subconscious), and reading the tarot, meditation or practicing other forms of divination helps 'tune' in your brain with this conduit, thus your awareness is expanded - you can read into (not nessisary predict) the future or analyse a situation better than you could normally.

A very similar theory is like above, but rather than tune into the Universal subconscious, you tap into your second brain hemisphere or subconscious allowing whole-brain/flow-state thinking and helping you as you are using much greater brain power than you do for normal thinking. Infact, much of the imagery - especially on Jung inspired decks, use archetypes to help prompt your thinking.

Some say that the tarot is like a telephone to the divine (I disagree with this, but still, its worth a mention in this post).

[RakliDipity]

Some say that the tarot is like a telephone to the divine (I disagree with this, but still, its worth a mention in this post).
Can I ask what your reasons for this is? Just out of curiousity

[Bethra]

Can I ask what your reasons for this is? Just out of curiousity

Probably because like me and a lot of other people who have been reading the cards a long time belief in the devine and tarot don't go hand in hand for the most part. I personaly don't believe my ability to read has anything devine in connection at all. :D

[Keith Dragon]

I'm not sure how to explain what I want to ask so...

I was wondering how does tarot work? whats the science of tarot, if you see what I mean?

First of, Great Question.

Secondly, I feel the beauty of the Tarot is that we don't know how it works which drives each of us, individually, along our interdependent spiritual paths.

That is, the Tarot acts like a mirror of yourself. It reflects who you are back at you, subjectively, so you can get a perspective of who and where you are along your spiritual path. It is highly dynamic in the way that it conforms to many different people in many different ways.

A system like the Tarot would collapse upon paradox if it was not approached in this fashion. Infinity cannot be caged. It needs an open-ended construct in which to evolve. Scientifically, this can be explained by Godel's Incompleteness Theorem that a closed system is impossible because within it's own parameters exist a means to falsify the system's very own parameters.

So, how does the Tarot work?

The spiritual, subjective side to this question is infinitely faceted and depends on who you ask, and how you see the world, so I will not go there. Some say it connects to an all encompassing consciousness, or the divine and such. Some say it will reveal the future, however, I disagree because the future is infinite. I rather feel that the Tarot reveals futuristic tendencies within the present moment.

Objectively, however, there has to be a way physically for this to work. The subjective and the objective need to balance eachother.

What the Tarot gives us is a 'visual' language to express the subjective spiritual thoughts we have in an objective manner, giving us better clarity to our spiritual selves. It reflects, as I said, who we are, what our tendencies are, and how we can evolve beyond them.

The Tarot is an ever-evolving, conforming, mechanism humans have created to helps us understand our spiritual potential. When you become a practiced Tarotist, the cards come to feel like a sixth limb. (2 arms, 2 legs, and head the other 5) You feel through them with all of your senses.

We as a society, have developed a sense of archetypes, thanks to Jung, and others. The Tarot is a visual manifestation of those archetypes to focus our thoughts into coherent metaphors easier to understand. The divine can only be comprehended by metaphor and no other way. Scientifically, this is analogous to the Uncertainty Principle. We can only grasp probabilities within the infinite.

To grasp our full self-consciousness, we need to step outside of ourselves and see how the world see's us. The Tarot is one of the tools. The mirror of the soul.

On that note, I see all of creation as God's Tarot deck.

Just some thoughts.

Keith

[Baron von Hoopla]

I was going to answer too, but Keith pretty much summed my opinion up for me - nice! :fpraise: