“Teach It To Talk”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: These four words jumped out at me from Sallie Nichols’ text in Tarot and the Archetypal Journey as a perfect summary of how we must engage with the tarot if we’re going to get the most out of its metaphysical abstractions. Tarot is a language but it isn’t necessarily one with which we’re conversant right out of the gate; to adapt its specialized jargon for public use, we must translate it into everyday terminology (unless we’re talking to a fellow practitioner who understands its native complexity). Aleister Crowley advised that to achieve this goal of fluid comprehension “we must live with the cards, and they with us.”
This anomaly comes into sharp focus when we’re trying to explain a card to a sitter within the context of a reading. Communion with the deck for the purpose of subliminally and intuitively choosing the cards for the spread is entirely non-verbal and works by what I call “subconscious induction” on the part of the person concentrating and shuffling. But this inner dialogue between querent and cards is silent and therefore has no value in the reader’s verbal attempts to relate the symbolism of the cards drawn to the client’s experience of reality (except to the extent it can be teased out of the seeker during the ensuing dialogue). I’m reminded of astrological report-writing: it is useless to tell someone they have “Mars square Saturn,” we must rephrase it as “frustration of desires” before it will make sense in human terms.
“Teaching the tarot to talk” is a fanciful way of saying we must reformulate and streamline its sometimes puzzling convolutions into a narrative form that is digestible by the layman (aka “typical client”). While we normally have to accomplish this feat of linguistic legerdemain on-the-fly during a reading, the extensive published guidance makes a valiant stab at doing it for us as long as we can muster the resolve to internalize the available information. However, too much of the historical canon is couched in Victorian obscurantism that can be unintelligible for the casual student, while more modern updates too often get lost in psychoanalytical profundities or breezy socio-psychological generalities that have little immediate applicability to mundane events and circumstances. (Not everyone wants to use the tarot to demystify themselves or their friends, they’re just seeking a practical answer to a simple question.) What is needed is a utilitarian reductionism that still retains the flavor (if not all the charm) of the core literature. As a former technical writer, I do my best to make that happen in my own interpretive style, much of which is informed by my exposure to the economical and efficient virtues of Lenormand reading.
I also doubt that purely visionary reinvention is the answer. I won’t regale my readers with what I’ve previously written about the practice that A.E. Waite called “uninstructed intuition,” so suffice it to say that unfounded intuitive insights can produce a “false trail” that originates in nothing more exalted than the reader’s subconscious bias masquerading as illuminated inspiration. I don’t deny that in the best cases such observations are psychically credible and therefore worthwhile, but I would submit that the average tarot reader is not a skilled (nor even a natural) medium who can dip into the unconscious stream of spiritual wisdom (the customary purview of priests and philosophers) at will, so the tendency is to lapse into simple mind-reading as a poor substitute (although never admitting that’s what we’re doing, with the cards as props). We can tell ourselves we’re psychic when in truth we’re nothing more than hopeful aspirants who guess at more than we actually channel. I’m certainly no savant myself, so I work primarily within the knowledge base with my decades of experience and my well-honed instincts to back me up. (That said, I have no interest in “coaching” anyone through life’s difficulties, although my work in this blog over the last seven years is my sincere attempt to help them learn how to do it for themselves with divination as an aid.)
The tarot is a remarkable — and largely accessible — tool for understanding and navigating the mystical Universe as well as for resolving practical matters, and if there is an experience to be had there are cards to describe it, either singly or in combination. (More importantly, there is also a wealth of traditional, experience-based lore to substantiate its meaning in any context, some of it quite abstruse if Crowley’s forays into ontological syncretism among primitive theistic cultures is any proof). The learning curve can be steep and arduous if you don’t take any shortcuts, but if you’re looking for a solid foundation in the art of prognostication with the tarot cards and pick your source material judiciously, you could do worse than follow this path.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on January 5, 2024.
