The Tarot Reading As “Mind-Map”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been juggling so many interesting essay topics lately that I had to look at the planets transiting my natal horoscope to see what’s going on. As I might have guessed, it turns out that just as the Sun makes its ingress into dramatic Leo, transiting Mercury is also in Leo in the 9th House of the “higher mind” while trining my natal 1st-House Jupiter in Sagittarius, and at the same time conjuncting my natal Saturn, all of which suggests creative, expansive (exaggerated?) and constructive thought processes. I’m trying to constrain myself to one post a day. Here I’m riffing on Vincent Pitisci’s observations about tarot and “mind-mapping.”
The simplest definition I can find to relate the idea of mind-mapping to a tarot reading is “A mind map is a tool for the brain that captures the thinking that goes on inside your head.” In more technical terms, “A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information into a hierarchy, showing relationships among pieces of the whole. It is often created around a single concept, to which associated thoughts are added. Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those major ideas.”
In looking at examples of mind-maps, I was struck by how much they look like an artist’s conception of a neural network; they progress from a general core concept at the “hub” to highly particular ideas at the periphery (to me it looks like a way to harness brainstorming). I can’t see a direct correlation between the typical card reading and the formal description of a mind-map since, while it conforms to the first part of the definition, a reading is traditionally more linear in design and doesn’t normally radiate outward in all directions (except in the Lenormand Grand Tableau, which might make an ideal mind-map in the unlikely event I ever use it for psychological subjects). But if I think of a tarot reading as expressing facets of the human psyche, I can definitely draw parallels.
As I’ve said before, I don’t favor the tarot as a technique for “psychological profiling” since it is too casually impressionistic to be precise in its renderings (unlike natal astrology, which is perfect for that purpose). But I did once participate in a challenge to equate the Minor Arcana to a range of common human emotions, and this seemed like a good place to look for any “mapping” potential. This exercise used the Thoth deck because — unlike the RWS deck — it presents no “canned narrative vignettes” to complicate and confuse the issue.
I will work with this table by selecting the card from each column that is most expressive of the key emotion and assemble the group into a template that can serve as a framework for examining an individual’s mental/emotional inclinations and, and by extension, probable intentions in a specific matter of interest. Here is my cut at a concise list, which balances the four elements at three each. Note that the top eight emotions comprise what we were given to work with, while the other four represent my attempt to expand the palette.
Joy: 6 of Wands/Fire (Victory)
Anger: 5 of Wands/Fire (Strife)
Love: 2 of Cups/Water (Love)
Grief: 3 of Swords/Air (Sorrow)
Surprise: Ace of Wands/Fire (Elemental Root)
Fear: 10 of Swords/Air (Ruin)
Trust: Ace of Disks/Earth (Elemental Root)
Anxiety: 5 of Disks/Earth (Worry)
To the original population I have added the following for a total of twelve, while trying to keep to a high level of psychological pertinence:
Optimism: 6 of Cups/Water (Pleasure)
Indifference: 4 of Swords/Air (Truce)
Resolve: 4 of Disks/Earth (Power)
Empathy: Ace of Cups/Water (Elemental Root)
I will lay these cards on the table in any convenient pattern, then shuffle a second deck and deal one card into each position. The top card will either be intensified or moderated in its potency by being paired with the “base” card. This can be determined in a number of ways using various forms of “dignity:” by element, by number, by rank, and by inherent nature. Cards sharing cooperative elements will be empowered, while those exhibiting antagonistic elements will be enervated. Cards of the same number or range of numbers will work in concert, while low-numbered cards will have more impulsive qualities than high-numbered cards, which are calmer and less insistent. Major Arcana cards will be more emphatic than court cards, which will in turn be more pronounced than “pip” cards. Cards of similar nature (in accordance with their traditional meanings) will benefit from the accord, while those of dramatically different temperament will suffer in combination.
The final step will be to decide which card (or set of cards) is the most stimulated by its association, whether favorably or unfavorably, and present that card or complex as the “keynote” influence in the subject’s present mental attitude and likely response to situational developments.
This is what the template looks like:
Here is an example reading using the Retro Thoth deck; I won’t include Major Arcana in this method until I get a feel for how well it works, and the same with reversals. There are a lot of cooperative pairs here but only two that stand out as strongly advantaged.
I asked what is going on with a contractor who has been “ghosting” me, failing to answer emails and return phone calls about a quote he owes me. I don’t have any money tied up in the project yet, so this is more an annoyance than anything else.
The two cards that are most favored in the pairings are the 10 of Disks in the “Trust” position and the Queen of Disks in the “Resolve” position. In the first case it’s clear that he is overburdened with work but trusts that he can accommodate it; here we have the “alpha and omega” of the suit, so I think he can get a handle on it. The Queen of Disks suggests that he is committed to meeting his obligations but will need patience to pull it off; the solidly seated Queen is no stranger to the “resolve”of the 4 of Disks since, numerologically, the 13th court card reduces to “4.”
While it could be said that the Knight of Wands and the Queen of Cups are both suffering from a debilitating discord due to their elemental mismatch that might lead to an unfortunate revelation, my intuition doesn’t take me there since this individual has performed satisfactory work for me in the past. What I gleaned from this reading is that the contractor is not trying to be deceptive, he just hasn’t gotten around to my project yet.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on July 25, 2023.
