“So Many Words . . .”
Those four syllables were spoken (well, written) by tarot author and entrepreneur Marcus Katz during a recent online conversation about the symbolism that has been attached to the tarot cards since the advent of esoteric contemplation with Etteilla in the 18th Century. It came across as a slightly rueful acknowledgement of the monumental effort involved in absorbing the mountain of text (and especially of interpretive keywords) that has accumulated around the subject. A profound weariness was implied that I can certainly relate to, and I have an almost bottomless appetite for knowledge-based tarot wisdom as a “springboard” from which to mount more intuitively-inspired forays into its use.
The idea of memorization is a daunting one when confronted with such a maze of verbiage, and some tarot authorities have advised simply ignoring it and going with whatever “feels” right during a reading. I have no real problem with this as long as it is backed up with a wealth of divination experience, but unfortunately the advice is often given to newly-minted tarot enthusiasts, and it promotes some really wild speculation masquerading as unimpeachable insight. This is borne out by the sheer number of “Why didn’t my cards tell me the truth?” posts on the tarot social-media networks.
I think this is a mistake. I’ve written a number of essays in the past in which I’ve advocated taking the “Lenormand approach” and selecting a (very) few key concepts to hang on each card and using those consistently as a kind of “can-opener” to broach the subject of that card’s significance in a reading. These can be “tried on” the querent to see how well they conform to the individual’s own subconscious (and hopefully emerging) understanding of their private reality. Eventually, as fluency is gained, the rest of the published canon (or at least its gist) will slowly be assimilated when the original keywords prove insufficient, and I would submit that the more imaginative impressions derived from free-association will begin to dove-tail seamlessly with it to create a convincing narrative As I see it, this path to proficiency offers a “safety net” when intuition falters (as it all too often does, and our clients usually aren’t afraid to let us know). Sooner or later the core knowledge will jump unbidden to the tip of the tongue when a card appears in the spread (kind of like a comfortable old slipper), and then the reader is free to extrapolate in a more fluid way from the visual imagery and the sitter’s reaction.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on August 29, 2022.
