“Impaled on Words”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: While reading Tarot and the Archetypal Journey, Sallie Nichol’s remarkable Jungian treatise on the tarot, I came across the vivid phrase “impaled on words” to denote the inability of prose to capture the elusive nature of the Fool, a failing that might be ascribed less urgently to the rest of the allegorical images. I’ve written in the past about the fact that, no matter how transparent our visionary leaps of free-association seem to us, we must still reduce them to ordinary language in order to communicate what we’re seeing in the cards. If we can’t do that effectively we might as well be speaking in tongues. Depending on how attuned our sitter is to the protocols of metaphysical supposition, such freewheeling cleverness could also be damaging to our credibility. Here is a bit more on the subject.
I recognize two different ways to approach a tarot reading. One is to let our intuition float freely over the cards, coming up with observations that are not connected in any way to the traditional symbolism. The other is to begin from a foundation of accrued wisdom and channel our consciousness through that lens, which provides a set of narrative assumptions that can be tailored to the context of the question. (I’m talking about more than keyword memorization; what we’re ideally after is a conceptual gestalt that seamlessly integrates the multiplicity of established ideas.) The latter offers a “safety net” when unchecked inspiration falters, and I consider it to be the apex of divinatory competence. Having a foot in both worlds assures that at least one of them will find traction.
But all too often, because staring vacantly at our querent with nothing to say is the “kiss of death” for a reading, we rush to fill the void with whatever comes immediately to mind, regardless of how aligned it is with any common understanding of a card’s meaning. Lacking an underpinning in core knowledge, we will just “wing it” with no clue where we’re going. Some diviners consider it to be a “badge of honor” to be capable of such unstructured spontaneity, while clueless querents usually have no idea what they’re swallowing. They will walk away smiling, unaware that they have just been “shammed” by an unschooled reader relying on verbal legerdemain. This is the borderless realm of intuitive mystics and psychics who are mainly using the cards as convenient props or cues, they aren’t really “reading” them in any conventional sense. That’s not a problem if what one wants is a purely psychic reading, but let’s call it what it is.
I’m as delighted as anyone with an unexpected epiphany arising directly from the images, and have been known to tap into an intuitive insight or two couched in metaphor and analogy, but I would never base an entire practice on the expectation that I can turn that spigot on and off at will. The risk of saying something haphazard that does nothing more than confuse my client is entirely too great, in which case I will have to backtrack and cover the same ground in a different way. I would rather work my way up cautiously from a firm grasp of “first principles,” initially linking ideas in an intelligible chain and then using that as a springboard for a more expansive interpretation. It may take a little longer, but its guarantee of comprehension is much greater and it frequently leads me down the same paths as extemporizing solely from the pictures while affording more precise control of the journey.
Although I’m always mindful of W.C. Fields advice (“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit”), my intention is to illuminate, not dazzle. I often talk about the “theater of tarot” and card-reading as a performance art, but it is ultimately a counseling discipline that can guide in the ways of self-help more persuasively than it charms with its storytelling prowess. If my only goal were entertainment and not enlightenment I wouldn’t care as much, but my personal code of ethics won’t let me do that. I would wind up thinking “Where’s the beef?”
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on October 9, 2023.
