“When in Doubt, Lay It Out”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Tarot beginners who are doubtful about both their predictive skills and the reliability of divination in general often ask “But is a tarot reading always accurate? Can it actually foretell my future?” I made my own peace with that conundrum long ago and thought I would share my experience.
One of the main challenges in performing a situational forecast with the tarot is what I call “not putting too fine a point on it.” In other words, don’t expect absolute precision from the results. Most experienced readers of my acquaintance believe that tarot doesn’t reveal one’s destiny with “crystal-ball” clarity, it merely points out likely tendencies, trends and possibilities (or at its most discerning, probabilities) in developing circumstances that we can exploit to our advantage. The operative aphorism is “Forewarned is forearmed.”
I agree with this perspective in its broadest sense, but I prefer to think that we can use the cards and an appropriate spread to identify what William Shakespeare called “the rub” (an impediment or drawback) in Hamlet. These perceived afflictions resemble “pressure points” or critical junctures in the flow of events, significant opportunities that might succumb to a proactive “nudge” by the querent, assuming of course that the question asked displayed suitable gravity and wasn’t just idle curiosity. If we’re not looking for some kind of leverage out of a reading, we might as well treat it as being “for entertainment only” (e.g. an exercise in wishful thinking and a waste of time).
When it comes to prognostication, I treat the outcome of a tarot reading as only one element in a range of more conventional decision-making inputs, although ideally it will be consonant with other key factors in the mix and thus offer reinforcement. For this reason I will take any counsel it delivers “under advisement” as I mull over what to do; it may not even provide guidance of a pragmatic nature, just a psychological frame-of-mind to consider adopting in the form of attitudes and behaviors that will be conducive to progress. Trying to exclusively “live our life” according to what we see in the cards will in the long run yield only frustration as some predictions closely follow the script while many others will diverge wildly if what we’re seeking is unquestionable accuracy in their details.
Still, as long as we possess the talent, conducting a reading is usually more sensible than just “flying blind” or “winging it” when confronted with a potentially life-altering dilemma. Neophytes should recognize that this ability doesn’t evolve to optimum proficiency without extensive study and practice despite the modern emphasis on unstructured psychic approaches to divination. Poking one’s head into the Unseen with spiritual antennae set at maximum sensitivity exudes mystical elan but may only return incomprehensible static that acolytes choose to accept as cosmic inspiration. I do believe that tarot reading is an impressionistic art, but it shouldn’t be an entirely “seat-of-the-pants” endeavor that foregoes objective scrutiny in favor of more subjective speculation. The best readings include a measure of both, but I lean toward the discoverable truth of the matter over the impromptu “educated guess.”
The fact that we’re given evocative images to work with doesn’t come with a license to play fast-and-loose with whatever metaphysical wisdom they’ve accrued through long-standing historical precedent. Boundless free-association can too easily dissolve into disassociation from the underlying genius of the tarot; it’s undeniably fun to indulge our imagination (call it “intuition” if you must), but it may not be especially enlightening for a querent who has to puzzle out what we’re trying to impart with our visionary rambling.
“When in doubt, lay it out” is sound advice from an “any-practice-is-good-practice” point of view as long as we pay due respect to the fundamentals of interpretation. Gifted psychics can ply their craft without resorting to the cards as props, so I’m not inclined to see mingling the two as a match made in heaven. But as always, I’ll allow that “your mileage may vary” when attempting it, and an effective fusion is not out-of-reach provided you can leaven knowledge and experience with more spontaneous insights and try to steer clear of the online prediction-mill and its overzealous shills. Make your own stab at it and form your own conclusions, but don’t expect instant gratification of the type offered by YouTube’s “talking heads.”
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on November 2, 2024.
