Doubts about Tarot?

[Atzmuth]

Well, I started pracising Tarot and I did one today. My fate seemed really dark. However, when I did it later on the result was bright. Considering that, cards always chage so will the results. How can I rely on it? Is our fate(which I dont believe that humans have fate) so cheap that even a simple card can show us?

[Desecrated]

Tarot is not just for divination.

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

You're pretty much citing why I'm uncomfortable with divining. I have more trust, at least in my own life, with extracting meaning from the cards in their esoteric sense and using them as a learning tool than attempting to pick my life over with a spread.

That said I've had some people say some remarkable things about me and the last time I had someone in a group I'm in do a spread for me certain things, like the 5 of pentacles, just fell into the right places where they were able to tell me things about me that they didn't know. I think the difference between that person and myself - they're experienced in divination, I'm not.

Suffice to say I think there are certain 'gate-keepers' to these kinds of arts, and I'd consider one of them to be exactly what you brought up - ie. to believe it so makes it so it seems and once you consider the possibility that you'll get random lays of cards for doing a random thing you'll get exactly that. That's the thing about this that can be rather harsh - it's very difficult to test and the only real evidence you can get is the strong positives. Some people say this is all just psychology and that it helps us slice and dice who we are and make meaningful connections in ways we hadn't considered before just because we never submitted ourselves to such an arrangement of logic prior to having an arbitrary external means aid us - I'd would call that the materialistic minimum value of it used in the divinatory department, however I've just seen too many one-off opportunites taken by readers nail things dead on where in theory they should be wholly innacurate something like 9 times out of 10. They could be that good at bending the cards to their will but, damn, some of the spreads I've gotten couldn't have been bent any other way. I don't have anything really invested in divination being 'real', just that circumstantial evidence seems pretty strong - call it my luck perhaps, and I may reconsider if that changes but for now I'd consider it a valid mode of fishing for deeper truths for those who have the knack for it.

[Atzmuth]

Tarot really seams like a cheap trick to dumb people and get their money. I dont know if I am wrong. Kind of a gypsy job to do.

[magari]

The Tarot is just a mirror in my opinion.

A tool, thats all.

[EternalReturn]

Tarot is rich in symbolism, often very beautiful and intriguing. I have been interested in another use of Tarot as I have found some sense in it. Your subconscious makes sense of everything you come across, sometime it is pure imagination or nonsense, sometimes it really hits the spot. For you it may be different. But when you have mental archetypes, presented in form in which you can see it, which is interwoven with different symbols which your mind recognizes instantly and gives meaning to - this is fantastic tool for self exploration.

I like to be surprised, so I don't want to look into the future. Invocation and divination - I have no interest in it, for now. This what I wrote about I feel most comfortable, I didn't try it but I will as soon as I buy myself a deck. This may interest you. I see that you have scientific mind, so try to approach these thing from the psychology perspective - Jungian perspective, or Wilhelm Reich. These two explain some occult stuff in scientific language and terms. It may be a good start.

[Desecrated]

Tarot really seams like a cheap trick to dumb people and get their money. I dont know if I am wrong. Kind of a gypsy job to do.

It can be.
But it can be more.

[Sypheara]

I have used the Tarot for divination and it can be very, very effective at that. This has included readings for others which all came out specific, and very, very literal.

If you are getting different spreads, it can be mean quite a few things, one that particular node has not yet coalesced and has multiple outcomes, that you have no divinatory ability, or that their is no 'power' behind your work guiding it and affecting it.

All my card readings are done with either Hecate, Lucifer, Belial, Vassago or even Surgat invoked, and i try and mix their energies with what small but existent ability I have for divination and it seems to work for me.

[RoseRed]

Tarot really seams like a cheap trick to dumb people and get their money. I dont know if I am wrong. Kind of a gypsy job to do.

Wow! Well, I do like honesty

It can be and has been at times. There are rip off artists in every field. Occultic fields have more than their fair share.

Not everyone interacts well or at all with tarot cards. And there are different levels within that. Some can read intuitively, some speak with or hear what the cards have to say. Some people are walking encyclopedias of every card, their meaning and all the details. If their intuition fails - they can fall back on a cold read. There are people that are very good at reading people and others that are good at playing them.

Kind of a gypsy job to do.

Well, it's commonly found in Gypsy camps and among their people. And not just tarot but all sorts of different types of divination.

There are a lot of tarot readers that haven't go pro and don't get paid for what they do.

[Eremita]

Well, I started pracising Tarot and I did one today. My fate seemed really dark. However, when I did it later on the result was bright. Considering that, cards always chage so will the results. How can I rely on it?

Your example of having a bright reading immediately following a darker reading raises the question of whether or not the cards you pull are random. Are they random? They would certainly seem to be, seeing as you shuffle thoroughly each time you perform a reading. Perhaps there is a higher force determining which cards are pulled. I don't know.

However, it's also irrelevant. You said that "...cards always change, so will the results." Well, yes. And no. The precise cards that come out in a reading are only half of the picture. It's not just what is being said, it's what is being received. That is the important part. By way of example, the Death card can mean 'death'. It can also mean rejuvenation and relief. Entirely different meanings in the context of a human life, but sharing a common symbol. What is important when you pull the Death card is what that card speaks to you, and this can change significantly between readings.

Is our fate(which I dont believe that humans have fate) so cheap that even a simple card can show us?

I don't imagine so. I think it would take a mighty talented Tarot reader to reveal your whole destiny from a card reading.

[Clockwork Ghost]

I do free tarot readings for people over the internet. I'm currently averaging thirty a week, and actually capped it at thirty a week maximum as it was getting overwhelming. I frequently get feedback from people saying that my readings were 'life changing', that I was 'absolutely spot on', or simply that the reading 'made me consider options I hadn't previously entertained'.

A good tarot reading doesn't simply answer a question - you can't ask 'what should I do with my life?' and get an answer that says 'you should move to Greece, take up downhill mountain biking, and get a job making retsina'. Tarot just opens your eyes to other possibilities you simply may have missed. It can warn you that you need to focus on something, or that you need to take time to consider an option rather than just jumping in to it. Is this divination? I'd say it definitely is - it's not 'telling' you the future, it's suggesting that you need to focus on something unconsidered so the future happens more favourably for you.

I don't over-think tarot. I often treat it like a game rather than as correspondence with something supernatural. I do take reading requests from others very seriously, but I don't believe the answers are coming from some all knowing god, more from an intuitive understanding of the cards, and from the way the client then interprets what I say in regards to their question. I don't read for myself because I can't trust that I won't embellish the reading in such a way that it means what I want it to mean, and not what it says. I do play games with my cards though - I tell jokes to myself using them, or try to work out what a single card means in isolation. I tell stories using my cards - three card spreads not meant for divination, but for a simple story tale.

People long to know the future, and it can stop us from actually enjoying the present. That's what I try to focus upon when I read for people - think of the now, consider your options, take time to work out where you are going. In regards to the original question - yes, two readings will often give completely different outcomes, but that's because life is extremely complex and not just a singular linear path. Were you asking the same specific question each time you read the cards, or were you just saying 'tell me about the future'? Generic readings will give you a glimpse, or an insight that is designed to make you consider something key to the reading itself, it wont give you the complete picture. Just as our lives are huge and diverse, so are our futures - getting two completely different futures simply means that you have a future, and that it may well change based on the choices that you make today.

[littledeadybear]

One of my more significant brushes with the occult was when I was a young girl about age 16, and because the tarot reader at a Renaissance festival had been kind enough to drive me through the mud from camp to festival grounds, I tagged along her and later paid for my own tarot reading.

I had finished dealing with a terrible ordeal at that age, and perhaps if I hadn't turned to her with this question I would have eventually sought an answer in the occult, because it was a question that couldn't be answered through any other means. And, quite frankly, perhaps this woman could have given me practical common sense advice and it would have amounted to what the cards read out and how they related to my situation; however, despite my question being a fairly easy one to be answered through cold reading and adult experience, the cards that were laid and the explanation / stories she gave were spot on for me, at that moment.

She as much told me that the tarot were reminders, and that I could make my own tarot by writing down runes that meant a specific something to me on rocks and pulling them at random from a bag. I didn't believe she held any mystical power, but I do know I was meant to hear her reading. It was as cathartic as I could hope for, and while not the divine answer I sought, it was in itself a divine answer if there is anything that guides us, or my desires lead me to that point.

So, could tarot be abused for swindling? Just about anything can be a scam. But I chose to view the tarot as she had explained them to me, a reminder to the self of certain view points.

[Moth]

Almost all forms of divination follow the same pattern; select randomly from a set of things, each of which has a predetermined representation. Optionally, you arrange the results in a pattern, allowing you to draw further meaning from it.

The Tarot has a particularly rich set of representations and arrangements which, potentially, allows more meaning to be drawn from it than, say, three Ogham runes.

I would say that if you are getting wildly varying readings closely spaced, you may be making the mistake of desire: Instead of concentrating on the subject of the reading you wanted, what you end up getting is the subject "Gee, I hope these cards work!" :-)

[BrokenSeeker]

I'm a neophyte tarot reader but I have some idea of the combined meaning of your two readings. First, while you never shared what your specific question for the reading was, it seems to me your question was along the line if "is tarot really any good for divination?"

It sounds like the dark spread threw you off and you decided to do another one because you were afraid of what you had been shown. Pulling a bright spread gave you the opportunity for one of a couple conclusions. Either "This is all BS random chance, no good for divination." or the opportunity to be comforted by the bright spread.

I would put forth a third possible option. Combine the two readings into one, and use the question "is tarot really any good for divination?" and your answer from the deck seems to be.

"Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future."

Just a humble thought. If you don't like tarot, there are other options. It doesn't seem like Tarot is resonating with you. From what I've read, regarding means of divination, your relationship to the means is important.