“Four Roads to Paradise” — A Tarot Paradigm
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Although I’m not too familiar with the theological hermeneutics behind it, I just discovered the concept of the “four Pardes” (i.e. PaRDeS; the four-letter Hebrew acronym PRDS) that are described as “roads to paradise” in the form of spiritual enlightenment. These avenues are presented as “literal, allegorical, comparative and secretive” paths to universal truth, and I can see parallels in the practice of tarot divination.
I was struck by the notion that those modern tarot readers who sail the populist waters of social clairvoyance stay mainly on the two middle paths: they wax allegorical by way of free-association from the images on the cards, and invoke comparative principles by intuitively exploring the inherent polarities and contrasts of positive/negative; active/passive; masculine/feminine, etc. The literal approach is typically the province of the Lenormand reader and other practitioners of more utilitarian augury, while the secretive angle falls to the esoteric aspirants.
It has no direct bearing on my use of the four principles here, but the following quote from The Tao of Thoth deserves attention for its parallel emphasis:
“To perceive the allegorical behind the literal requires refined sensitivity” (in fact, tarot is decidedly more subtle than the straightforward Lenormand system because it embodies many layers of spiritual, psychological and practical nuance, the interpretation of which I liken to peeling an onion), “and further sensitivity is required for the perception of the comparative and secretive lessons.” (The former come under the umbrella of the Hermetic Principle of Gender [aka “Polarity”], while the latter are reflected in the arcane dimensions of the Qabalistic tarot).
The populists favor the mystical objectives of the fortune-teller or soothsayer, while the occult scholars are more intent on the elusive metaphysical roots of prognostication. Between the two extremes are those who position themselves as tarot-assisted “life-coaches” or self-help counselors who view the cards as windows into the client’s psyche; these are the self-promoting entrepreneurs who stand to profit the most from their “empowerment” focus.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been at this stuff a very long time (since 1972), primarily as one of those academic postulants who are deeply immersed in the recondite side of the tarot, but more recently (since 2011) as an “action-and-even-oriented” forecaster. Where I’ve departed significantly from the script is in backing away from the Jungian assumptions that have underscored the self-analytical use of the cards.
I spent almost 40 years probing my “shadow side” with the tarot to the point that the well has run dry, and I now feel that natal astrology, with its capacity for in-depth character analysis, is a much more robust and accurate tool for the psychological profiling of myself, my clients and any third-parties to a reading. (Of course, for the last group it requires much more upfront data than is needed to throw a tarot spread, which would give away the game of “guess-the-intent” that a furtive querent hopes to play anonymously.)
Tarot may work well for situational awareness but it comes up short when used to fathom the vagaries of the mind without applying a substantial amount of speculative guesswork in the process. If we can’t observe its operation except by its effects in the world, how can we be certain of the properties we’re trying to quantify with our unsubstantiated hunches?
For this reason, I won’t do mind-reading of the “What does Joe or Mary think or feel about me?” kind, preferring to explore what he or she might do under the circumstances; both amount to conjecture but the first is entirely ephemeral in an emotionally-charged way while the second has an empirical, evidentiary side to it (all we have to do is wait for it to present itself). The feeling I get is that those who hide behind the tarot in seeking this knowledge would die of mortification if the target individual ever learned about the inquiry or actually behaved in accordance with the presumptive outlook.
That said, I have an abiding interest in divination as an intriguing way to attempt “getting under the skin of objective reality to see what makes the Universe tick.” I can’t say with conviction that I’ve come up with anything irrefutable in the form of hard evidence although (in a philosophically systematic but largely unscientific way) I have zeroed in on a number of inspired inklings, some more “educated” than others, and a few have even come true. Maybe someday I’ll sit down and organize my thoughts on the subject in order to present them here — that is, beyond what I’ve already posted over the last seven years.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on November 21, 2024.
