Any tarot aficionados on the board?

I'm a tarot newbie myself. I picked up a Rider-Waite-Smith deck on a whim back in June and have been exploring it the past few months. Very interesting stuff! I've never been into spiritualism or the occult, so my plan was just to study the symbolism as a writing tool and general creative boost, but damn, I've been amazed by how accurate and consistent my readings have been. Like, spookily, eerily spot on. Anyone else have a similar experience? Or just want to chat about the cards?

 

I've always liked tarot for the artwork and have several decks, though the old-fashioned Rider is my favorite. I don't think there is any magic in the decks but I do think playing with them concentrates one's thoughts and allows one to draw on information one already has in order to come to logical conclusions. Warning: I am among the least romantic pagans you will ever come across, believing everything has a logical explanation even if we don't yet know what it is, and that magic is unexplained science.

 

^^ What she said, only a littler more specific.

The imagery of the cards is very archetypal, and it allows you to project unconscious content onto it, same way you do in dreams or onto other people or situations. Anything powerful going on down deep is going to attach itself to whatever handy symbols are around, and Tarot cards are extremely good symbols for it, created at a time when people were very good at dealing with the unconscious through the various mythologies, religions, folk tales etc, which all do the same thing. They're essentially little waking dreams, or at least provide the same kind of outlet as dreams do for unconscious content, only you can work with them while awake.

 

I gave up Tarot readings years ago after I correctly predicted someone's death.

Now I just stick to blackjack.

 

Yeah, I'm a skeptic who's never believed in spiritual stuff myself, so this is the first time I've taken anything "mystical" seriously enough to learn about it in depth. I did a "tarot for creatives" zoom meetup a few days ago, and I kept cringing whenever someone talked about chakras and energies. Nonetheless, I've been impressed with how fruitful my readings have been so far.

I'm really amazed by the power of this type of imagistic thinking. I had known about archetypes and symbols before, of course, but I'd never really used them, and tarot gives a systematic, well-organized way to explore these well-known images and apply them to your life. That's completely new to me, and it's fascinating. And it really appeals to me as a writer, because the whole operation consists of telling a story. Every time you lay the cards, you're generating a writing prompt, and then interpreting them to fit your life (or whoever you're reading for, but so far I've been doing it on my own). That's awesome, and I'm curious if other writers have found that they really connect with this tool like I do.

"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died."
–Steven Wright

 

Why do you equate the tarot with Spiritualism (which, by the way, is a recognized religion and should be capitalized)? Spiritualism does not recognize the tarot, although undoubtedly a number of Spiritualists (myself included) accept the tarot as valid when used correctly.

 

I was curious about the use of spiritualism v. Spiritualism so looked it up. Spiritualism with a small "s" is an accepted generalized term, just as catholic with a small "c" is a general term separate from the religious Catholic. Huh. Interesting. I learn something new on this forum every day.

 

I wouldn't say aficionado, but I own a Thoth Tarot deck, created by one Aleister Crowley, with illustrations by Lady Frieda Harris. I like the imagery on a lot of the cards. Suitably occult.

Certain of the Major Arcana and the court cards have different names and titles than their Rider-Waite counterparts: Judgement becomes The Æon, Temperence becomes Art, The Magician is called The Magus, and so on. Pages are Princesses, Knights Princes, and the Kings Knights. Pentacles are called Disks.

I don't much buy into these cards having mystical powers, but I've done readings for shits and giggles, or to aid in my ponderings over a given matter. I'll admit I've seen some downright unsettling coincidences. I know confirmation bias is a very real thing, but some of those spreads seemed to hit on the issue a little too well.

 

Those bloody things are unholy. Don't trust them one bit.

 

I believe in it which is why I would never ever involve myself with it. Stay the hell away from the occult, that's what I would say. No good can come of it.

 

Not just confirmation bias, but selective memory as well.

I can correctly predict the next card to come out of a blackjack shuffling machine approximately, 2 out of 13 times or so (because they work in a particular way, combined with the way dealers collect discarded cards). I've done it on live blackjack tables and amazed everyone - but they only remembered the times I got it right, not the many more times I got it wrong.

 

Might be silly, but I got into tarot through a dating-simulator app. It provided weekly digital tarot readings that was also surprisingly accurate to how the week ended up rolling out, so I ordered the physical deck, and to this day I've never had a reason to doubt the deck's accuracy. They definitely help to provide clarity in situations. I'll usually prop my weekly three cards I pulled on my nightstand to see until I do another reading next week.

One thing I always do before a reading, though, is take deep breaths in a quiet room. Although each reading has thus far been spot-on, the way they've presented themselves to me depends on my emotional state. Once I did a reading while upset, and another right after when I had calmed down. The first card was Three of Hearts (heartbreak) and the second meant change (I forgot which one it was). Sure enough, a close coworker I relied on quit that very same week. Both cards were right, but Three of Hearts can definitely be more startling than the one that had suggested change for the better. XD

I have the Arcana deck though, which I can see through other replies is different from the Rider version. Do you think both decks essentially mean the same thing?

 

I did a tarrot reading yesterday. It was funny because it gave me the wrong answer ten times. I only stopped asking the question when I got the right one.

 

Wow, this thread was busy. Time to get to replying.

Actually, now that you've pointed it out, the word I really meant was "spirituality," as a general term for the belief that there's something "greater than us," whatever that means to the individual in question. I wasn't even thinking of Spiritualism proper (of which I know very little), so sorry for the confusion. But as @Catriona Grace discovered, it seems that I'm not the first person to make that mistake; I imagine that general public ignorance led to the term being generalized into small-s spiritualism. So thanks to the two of you for helping educate me!

Yes, that's exactly how I feel! There's a lot of overlap in card meanings, so it's clear that you can pull a similar reading out of very different cards, but sometimes they really hit the nail on the head. It's definitely a strange feeling to have a particular card in mind as central to a question, then pull that exact card as the first one in the reading.

That too, most definitely.

That's another thing, the surprising amount of consistency! I've been kind of obsessing over a few big personal issues lately, and while I was stuck at home quarantining, I did dozens of tarot readings on the same questions over and over. I guess I was frustrated that I couldn't really take any concrete actions, so I did something that at least made me feel productive. Anyway, I kept getting the same cards over and over again, and often in the same positions. And they made sense!

That's an interesting question. I'm totally new to this, so I'm most definitely not an expert, but it seems like the artist's intent does matter. A perfect example came up in the tarot meetup I attended this week. We each did a quick reading, and one person drew The Tower. In the Rider-Waite deck, the art shows a pure catastrophe, the tower being struck by lightning, people falling to their doom, etc. It's hard to see anything positive in it. But the deck this person was using was very nature-based and featured animals in all the artwork; the Tower was two beavers chewing away at a tall tree to knock it down. That gave a much more positive vibe than the RW art, since it's destruction in the service of a new creation. I suppose you can get that meaning from the RW card, too, but it feels like kind of a stretch. The animal deck put that meaning right up front.

Well, duh. It has "magic" right in its name!

 

I think tarot reading is a tool for you to explore your own pysche more than clairvoyant powers. You already have the answers to the future, the past and the present within yourself. But tarot may help you focus onto the answers that are true to you.

 

both

 

Same for established religious organizations, fraternal organizations, and country clubs: weird rites, odd costumes, mysterious chanting in unison: risky as hell, every one of 'em.

 

Tarot meetings! Why has this idea never crossed my mind? Could you give me examples of where you find tarot meetings? I only do tarot with my mother (she has four decks, I have one XD) since none of my friends or brothers like tarot and I wouldn't want to pressure them into it.

 

I found this one on meetup.com. Technically, they're local to Philly, but since they're meeting via zoom for the foreseeable future, they're open to anyone. Feel free to try them, or look for one in your area.

Tarot for Creatives

Actually, I was looking for writing groups, not tarot, but when I saw a group called Tarot for Creatives, I was intrigued. First meeting was small, but I liked the people, so I'll probably be attending more.

 

That's what I really like about it. The weird coincidences and perfect readings are cool, but it's the more difficult readings that I've found to be most valuable. If you have to stretch your questions to fit the imagery that shows up, that forces you to reconsider it from other perspectives that you might have missed, which can lead to some interesting insights. Whether that's because there's something "guiding" you to that interpretation or just because of the random shuffle, the effect is the same. You're still using your storytelling skills to make sense of the imagery and apply it to the question.

 

Oh, nothing, was just having a lark. A tarot card told me I should be more playful

 

I have several different decks and just got another one because I don't feel like I'm connecting well with the current one I'm using. I use them for daily meditation more than anything else and while it does seem like some days the cards are accurate, I feel like it reflects more what I've already been thinking about, so it's not too spooky for me. A bit annoying though, when I feel called out by the card. Which again is usually something I've been thinking about already.