“Liberating” The Tarot Reading
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In his fictionalized biography of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Irving Stone put words in the sculptor’s mouth to the effect that, in order to carve a statue of a horse from a block of marble, all he had to do was “remove everything that isn’t horse.” He was in effect freeing his vision from its imprisonment in the stone.
When new tarot readers first approach a spread, they are often nonplussed by the challenge of “cooking” a random scatter of images into a narrative repast that doesn’t resemble a plate of bland scrambled eggs. Tarot has been called its own language, but the symbolic pictures seldom speak in rudimentary terms that clearly articulate practical matters for the purpose of divining them. Two remedies are typically proposed to overcome this dilemma. One I’ll call the “analytical” approach and the other the “anecdotal” method.
In the former, the neophyte is advised to carefully study the cards and internalize as much of the traditional “core knowledge” as possible, which is then employed with a measure of interpretive flexibility as conceptual building-blocks in the art of storytelling. The latter is presented as harvesting intuitive impressions that bubble to the surface of the consciousness and accepting them as the “truth of the matter.” (My view of the second mode of reading is that it is largely rooted in “scenic” decks like the Waite-Smith tarot because they rely heavily on “canned narrative vignettes” that offer ready-made plot “thumbnails” to spark the diviner’s imagination.)
But in both cases when confronted with a wide-ranging population of cards, the novice faces an incongruous jumble of ideas that seem to make no sense at all when combined. This can be a stumbling-block that discourages them from ever attempting to read for other people, which is where the true test of proficiency lies. I recommend conducting a systematic “decoding” of the cards in a spread by first identifying those that seem to speak most directly to the question or topic, and then filling in the spaces around those key points by connecting them with supporting detail from the rest of the layout. (Hint: this climactic moment is not always provided by the final, or “outcome,” card of the pull.)
While by doing this we aren’t technically “removing everything that isn’t horse” (it’s more like modeling with clay), we are in effect relegating some of it to the background and letting the most important features take center stage. If the reader can pin down the main theme in this way, the rest of the story should fall into place automatically (at least in theory; see my previous essay about the “Whack-a-Mole” phenomenon). There is no reason why the cards have to be read in series, even though that will probably occur organically once the central motif is carved out; in practice I generally start that way, but as long as I can maintain continuity I may bounce around as the inspiration strikes me or as I gain more insight about a previous observation.
This approach to organizing can be quite straightforward with scenic decks, but I believe it is much more compelling and rewarding when performed with decks that contain evocative rather than explanatory Minor Arcana. (This includes the Thoth and Tarot de Marseille packs, although they aren’t beginner’s decks.) With semi-scenic minors the ambitious reader can apply creative inspiration to bridge the gap between “learned” knowledge and instinctual wisdom without being distracted by any idiosyncratic notions placed there by the deck’s creators (and at some point in one’s tarot journey, reading a deck’s “little white book” becomes a moot exercise).
My favorite deck for this purpose is the Thoth because Crowley and Harris did a decent job of presenting the “feeling” of each card through the use of abstract designs and well-chosen colors that effectively express the one-word titles appearing at the bottom of the cards, which in turn capture the essence of Crowley’s take on the Golden Dawn canon. Some readers feel constrained by on-board keywords (although they seem to have no problem with misleading pictures of the “RWS” ilk), but as I see it the imagery and simple text of the Thoth’s “glorified pips” provide a convincing summary without being overly prescriptive. If nothing else, they generate a captivating mood for emotional engagement and exploration. Who can look at the bleak 7 of Disks (“Failure”) without mentally scowling or the buoyant 6 of Cups (“Pleasure”) without cracking an internal smile?
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on May 18, 2024.
