Does fate want to be understood? A personal look at Tarot

By On March 12, 2011 · 4 Comments

I’ve always been fascinated by the occult and alternative knowledge based around reading the future. In this respect I’m my own paradox; I am firmly an atheist believing that there this is no such thing as a supernatural deity controlling our lives making us act in ways that are godly or sinful, yet I also believe that there is power and truth in something like the tarot. I’d be hard put to explain it, perhaps even falling back somewhat cowardly on the stance that it can’t be explained, which to me is horrifyingly close to how the religious fraternity operate now in perpetuating their myths. Rationally I understand that the universe operates to principles that are orderly and can be understood using scientific methodologies. Even so, a part of me does undeniably believe that there is more to existence than that which can be scientifically observed.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

From the time I was an early teenager I would visit psychics with my mother as she was a person that believed heavily in such people. If I was asked why, I would have to say it was because of her circumstances. Mum had a hard life during the decades of her 30’s and 40’s; unceremoniously dumped then divorced and left with two kids to raise, I think she was looking for hope more than real answers when she would go to these people. Most of the time though they would tell positive stories out of a hard past, and convey happy future events that were generically vague and something anybody could tell you if they came from that same cultural background. It was simply a clever twist of words from a person attuned to body language being told to someone looking for some hope. Let’s face it, if you’re the sort of person that regularly goes to psychics then you’re the sort of person that is willing to believe anything as long as it is what you want to hear. For me personally though there were two or three occasions when someone would tell me something genuinely and specifically accurate from my past, and detailed events that would actually take place years later. These rare chance meetings forced me then to admit the possibility of forces at work that are outside the scope of a non deterministic universe.

In my late 20’s I moved to Europe and suddenly the world expanded to full size. I did a lot of traveling around and saw many things that spanned the length and breadth of human culture. There is really nothing like extended backpacking travel to show you that life in your own back yard is a very small part of life everywhere. I started to question a lot of the ideas that I had taken for granted while growing up in Australia, particularly after a trip to India and Nepal. For me the experience of coming into contact with people of deep spiritual beliefs from the east was profound to say the least, it led me to periods of intense introspection concerning my own understanding of reality, life, and fate.

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  • http://www.unwesen.de/ unwesen

    So I was actually surprised to find out Dr Radin was in fact a real scientist and not some fraud with a degree that came off his own printer. His background was in psychology and he had held positions at respected universities in the US and UK. The book itself was thoroughly researched with 25 pages of references from peer reviewed journals. Yes, references! In short, this book wasn’t just a collection of bullshit stories and one man’s opinion, but was a serious research effort.

    I haven’t read the book, so can’t really comment on the quality of the work. But the appearance of references does not really validate a claim, nor does a title from a respected university. That is not to say that Radin must be a fraud, merely that none of the above convinces me he isn’t.

    I would really recommend reading Bad Science – Ben Goldacre does a much better job than I could even attempt at explaining all the pitfalls one must avoid when examining evidence. One of the things he mentions is that pseudo-scientific works frequently contain lots of references, some more so than real scientific work. The quality of those references, though, is another matter entirely…

    Keep in mind that, as I write this, I have a well-used set of Tarot cards. I haven’t used them in a long time, however, and never believed that predictive powers were involved when reading them.

    What I think happens with Tarot (or many other clairvoyance tools) is that the symbolic meanings create structure that guides your thought processes — you know how hard it is not to think of something when someone tells you not to think about it. Knowing that a card symbolizes a particular type of event or set of circumstances makes it very hard not to think of your current situation as completely different.

    At the same time, the ambiguousity in what each card symbolizes gives your mind a rich set of options to pick and choose from. All in all, to me, they’re tools to guide your thought processes. In all the Tarot spreads I’ve made, I’ve never encountered one I couldn’t easily interpret in terms of my current situation, and use to extrapolate from there.

    As such, they’re not bad to me. I have a friend who has made a habit out of consulting Tarot cards whenever he’s unsure about something, simply because it helps him examine his thoughts on the subject piece by piece, or card by card as it were. He tends to do more than one spread on the same subject, too. As weird as it is in some ways, it’s to me no better or worse than drawing diagrams, making bulleted lists, or full-blown presentations to an imaginary audience.

    What bothers me about such tools is really just that the vast majority of people who use them don’t see things the same way :)

    • http://www.mentalechoes.org Andy

      Hi Jens. It’s a fair point about the book. The only thing I could say is to obtain a copy for yourself and read it. I think you’d actually be pretty surprised at the detail in his research. It’s also a really good read in terms demystifying the whole area of ESP (as the mainstream media call it), and explaining it for what is and is not provable and factual. I’ve actually got Ben Goldacre’s book on my bookshelf behind me, and he’s pretty good at debunking bad science, although I think there is a big difference between the medical and pharmaceutical industries and the field of psychic research that Dean Radin works in. It would be very interesting for Ben Goldacre to read Dean Radin’s book and see what he says. :) I think if you did read the book though you’d probably see that he is a guy genuinely trying to apply science to a field that up until the last few years has been populated exclusively by quakes and mystics.

      I like what you say about the Tarot symbolic meanings being tools to guide your thought processes. It fits well with my idea that the Tarot is a focus lens through which you can view events, as I see this involves orienting your mental framework to make the experience work. I think if you make yourself receptive to what you’re doing and the messages being communicated, you can find a depth of meaning in the spreads the cards make.

      In the end people who use Tarot are going to use it in a way that they feel is right for them, but yes, is this actually the “right way”? I really couldn’t say. :)

      Andy.

  • Lena

    “And people looking for something to believe, will find something to believe. So I often ask myself, is my experience with the tarot any different? Or to ask the question another way, does fate want to be understood?”

    So, then Tarot is much like Voodoo…it works if you *believe* it will. Kind of like why my paternal grandmother’s voodoo against my mother and I didn’t work. She stuck needles into dolls and left them under my pillow when I was a baby. She sincerely believed her voodoo magic would bring me harm. Lovely woman! What she didn’t expect was my non-believer mother who slapped her across the face when she found out what she’d been up to! :) Needless to say, her voodoo failed big time.

    I guess what I’m saying if you have faith and enough hope to make things happen…they just might.:)

    • http://www.mentalechoes.org Andy

      Hi Leens.

      Yes you know it’s an interesting question about voodoo because there is a group of people who powerfully believe in this form of “magic”, while you have others (me and you) who don’t believe it’s worth anything. Believers experiences are deep and profound, whereas the other group don’t seem to be affected at all. In this case, it’s clearly the mind giving power to the focus of spells and rituals. I guess in some way Tarot would operate the same way. Unlike an aspirin for instance that works whether the believer believes in aspirin or not, Tarot requires a measure of belief that the ritual is meaningful. Once you have that mental focus though, you’re able to tap into power of the ritual and find meaning.

      Unbelievable the actions of your paternal grandmother. What a bitch! (If you don’t mind me saying). I hope she’s suffering some bad form of hell according to her own beliefs. Karma would have kicked her arse big time!

      Hope you’re well and happy, and happy to see you comment on my blog. :)

      Andy.

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