Tarot As “Mental Gymnastics”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: As I continue to create innovative tarot spreads, I decided to pause for a moment and reflect on what is driving me in this effort.
Those who have been following me for a while know that I have a strong inclination toward critical analysis of the cards that I temper with a little inspiration, imagination and ingenuity. I believe that tarot yields its most compelling insights when surveyed through the lens of its long tradition of divinatory usage going back to Etteilla, one that benefits from intuitive augmentation but is in no way supplanted by it. One doesn’t fair well without the other, although if pushed to it I would come down in favor of a more literal take on card meanings similar to the way Lenormand cards are read. In other words, I prefer internalized “core knowledge” leveraged with extensive personal experience and a pinch of subliminal discernment as opposed to completely unstructured surmise derived mainly from visual free-association stimulated by the images. (It’s why I work most effectively with the Thoth tarot and “pip” decks like the Tarot de Marseille and only occasionally turn to the Waite-Smith tarot.)
Since I retired from my technological career in 2010 I’ve had loads of spare time and way too much surplus intellectual horsepower to throw at it (hey, I may be “old” but I’m not yet “mentally incompetent”). I occupied myself for a few years with the tarot forums (notably, Aeclectic Tarot) but eventually had to venture into establishing my own creative outlet; hence, this blog. As I close in on 2,200 posts over the last seven years, it’s probably fair to say that 80% of them take a scholarly view of “how tarot works” and exhibit much less enthusiasm for the mystical superfluity that impresses so many modern diviners. If there is metaphysical “meat on the bone” to be found in the cards, I submit that it coalesces around a liberal application of “book learning” and dedicated contemplation; anything less precise skirts the borders of “for entertainment only” posturing of the kind found on YouTube.
When it comes to spread creation, I’ve written frequently in support of positional spreads as the best way to set up a coherent framework that can then be populated with randomly-drawn cards; the orderly pattern “entrains” the reader’s observations in a logical flow from inception to conclusion. But a casual browse through online “spread factories” reveals that many of their offerings barely scratch the surface of in-depth examination, particularly for subjects that are more profound than “Does Joe or Mary like me?”
I’ve been on a crusade to fill that void with highly-focused, topic-specific layouts that penetrate more than a single layer deep into the substance of the question. As I see it, if we’re going to offer advice based on the cards, we should do so with all seriousness and a formal commitment to getting at “the heart of the matter” as thoroughly and convincingly as possible. The kind of spontaneous “verbal tap-dancing” that is often required of purely intuitive interpretation strikes me as just so much visionary guesswork when the embedded wisdom in the cards provides a solid foundation that can be relied on as a launch-pad for more inspired narrative flights. In my own work I think of it as a “safety net” for those moments when more lyrical impressions escape me; I can always go “back to the basics” and start again. Sometimes I do so without even admitting to my sitter that I reached an impasse on the first go-round. Credibility is a precious commodity not to be squandered on the heartfelt but unnecessary mea culpa.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on August 22, 2024.
