A “90/10” Proposition
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve always maintained that my tarot reading style is roughly 60% analytical and 40% — or at least 30% — intuitive. But I just came across the opinion that effective divination is 90% common sense (which I personally arrive at by using deductive reasoning from a “gestalt” view of the whole spread), and the other 10% is pure intuition.
The rationale behind this skewed division is that the 10% “kernel” of unexamined wisdom is crucial to the querent’s understanding of the fluid universal forces at work in the matter and should not be dismissed out-of-hand. (This is getting dangerously close to “Gimme a break!” territory for me.) From a storytelling perspective, the common-sense bits may not work together smoothly if we don’t “grease them” with some imagination. Nobody wants a textbook recital with little or no impressionistic flair, and some of my best observations have come while trying to deliver it. Enrique Enriquez has called tarot reading an “irrational act,” which makes me think of a “leap of faith,” and that’s as good a way as any to describe how we summon mystical perception to our cause.
As I see it, intuition is best used as an adjunct to analysis; it adds some color and life to the interaction between the cards. I don’t use it to pull insights directly out of the ether (nor from the nether regions of my anatomy), but rather to expand on the basic interpretation in a way that will ideally move the querent to epiphanies of realization (the so-called “Aha!” moment). But I don’t fly on guesses alone — educated or otherwise — without validation from the sitter that I’m not barking up the wrong tree. There’s no point in blithely talking straight into a blank stare no matter how compelling the narrative may be. After explaining the core meaning of a card, I may broach an inspired idea and let the querent run with it in any direction it might go, then I will reel it back in to the original premise and attempt to correlate how the two reinforce one another. It can generate the most instructive remarks of the entire reading, and it is certainly fun!
I may come across as the bane of the purely intuitive diviner, the scourge of the psychic reader who doesn’t bother with baseline knowledge and just wings it according to what “feels right,” but I understand the appeal of performing at such a high level of subliminal excitation. There are clients who thrive on that sort of thing, and whether or not it yields absolute truth is beside the point if it makes sitters feel as if they’re connected with a “Higher Power” through the cards. Whether they do anything constructive with it beyond gushing over how empowered it makes them feel is another matter entirely.
I don’t suppose it’s critical which way we slice it as long as we get results that enlighten the person we’re trying to help. I once fancifully called divination “running one’s mental fingers through the fabric of the metaphysical Universe, combing the warp-and-woof of innermost reality looking for revealing threads to pull.” Those threads may offer telltale handholds by which to haul them up, or they may have to be teased out in more ingenious ways, but the answer should ideally be the same. Where I draw the line — at least in more objective disciplines like cartomancy — is at entirely psychic visions that can’t be tied back to the underlying rationale of the method in any meaningful way.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on August 8, 2023.
