How do you think the Tarot works?

[The Hanged Man]

Personally I think its a combination of bridging the gap between conscious and the unconscious, reaching out to a omniscient conduit of knowledge and energy and good ol' fashioned Fate.

I find that being able to reach deep inside of oneself and have a talk with the 'inner you' is exhilerating. Even better than making a phone call to God. Amazing. All that stuff that the 'dormant' 90% of your brain soaks in (while the 'awake' 10% is quick to forget it) means that to understand yourself is to understand everytrhing.
This is one of the reasons I have been reading for so long - even those who are skeptical about higher powers can't deny that the shuffeling pictures (archetypes) of human nature is a good form of meditation and thus the cards are a tool that can be used to gather information.

What do you believe?

[Kute Kitty]

Personally, I believe that a lot of it is tapping into the subconscious. But there's something else as well...I just haven't worked out yet what it is. My cards told me when I was going to get a new job, that didn't come out of any part of my knowledge. They have a personality of their own as well...though that may have been influenced slightly by mine, it is clearly independant.

I don't know how it works but it does.

[Astrael]

In a way I feel that tarot is fake, but then, I also feel that in ways it could be true. I like to take playing cards and play tarot with them. If you want to know how, ask. Its fun, and it'll scare the pants off of you too...:D

[zumzy]

I'm not very educated when it comes to tarot. However, my feeling about it is that it's fake.

I mean, for me, it all seems like a game. The person reading to you flips over the death card for example and says "oh my, I see some issues with your work in the long run......" That could mean and be anything. I guess I see it more as a role playing game and the reader is in charge.

[Damon_Ashe]

...for sure about Tarot is that it most definatly is not fake.

- Damon -

[Jucudeno]

Ah...I...being the philosophically logical Daoist I am...once doubted my tarot...but my old High Priestess was an exceptionally good empath and she freaked me out on a nearly constant basis...and thus taught me to respect tarot. My own seems to work quite well, D.J. Conway's Celtic Dragon Deck...but...er...anyway,

I think it's all up to the witch's mind. Magic itself believes that the power is channeled by will...I, personally, try to use the cards with a definitive sense of emotional probing. Being the freaky fool of an empath that I am...so I suppose 'subconscious tapping' is probably my best answer.

I have to research Daoist divination one day...the I Ching...but as I'm master'less at the moment...t'isn't happening too soon.

[Draganna]

I've found that some decks work well for me and some don't though perhaps it is merely my own psyche feeling a stronger pull towards some decks as opposed to others. I do know that I've been able to accurately read them for nearly anyone... though I always have trouble reading for myself as I am always wondering whether I am truly seeing what is meant for me or if I'm reading more into the cards of what I want to read. But hey that's me the little self defeater that I am...lol

Incidentally Juc.... I have that deck myself though I have found myself having trouble developing an affinity for it.....which is weird since the deck is a dragon deck and I usually tap into that energy really well.

[attica]

My opinion would be: " It taps into the unconscious mind and draws it out " :rolleyes: - I know it's not fake.

[itsdarkoutside]

gee i really dont know, but i dont think its fake. when i do a tarot reading for myself i get alot of things that tell me what is to come, like i got one that warned me of an up coming battle/fight and told me to keep a clear head..well next day i almost got into a fight. i was like :eek: wow.

[Munkswood]

The tarot works in very mysterious ways and is very unpredictable. It taps into your mind through touch and gets trapped in your mind and yes draws it toward the surface.

[Proximus]

...by magic? :)
by bring up unconcious and cosmic energies combined with thy wilth... you know like it was said by A. Crowley...

[Vanpiress1987]

Hi I was going to try tarot card reading like my mum does but i'm into crystal healing - say what u want about it i dont have to listen! I wanted to try tarot cards but i cant focus my thoughts on the cards to well as they have lovely dragons on them its annoying. Maybe theyre just not meant for me!

[cryptikdemon]

I have done Tarot for many years and still yet to answer that question.

[Aracne]

First, sorry for my panefull english... ( im spanish, i Know... xd)I have practiced tarot during some years, have studied the meaning of
the arcane ones and are many and complex the forms to interpret
cards... but the complicated thing are that there are hundreds of
types of tarot cards and many different distances,
despite although is an art that it attracts to me, I do not have
to forget that is a piece of single paper serves to us like a map
we do not forget either that it is almost essential to have a
i interaction with cards and with his meaning... it is a
delicate subject and it agrees to document itself.

Unfortunately there is many people who take advantage of the wake
character of other people to remove from the beautiful one and
amcient art of the (tarot), a weapon to tie and to windle the people. We do not confuse the occultism or its relation with
the subconscious mind ,with the lies on the tarot to which today we are
subject.

[The Hanged Man]

I like that point arcane, well put :)

If you'd like to go into further detail I would be glad.

[HVAC-TEK]

As a witch, I am at a strange point in my learning. I can see the strings of cause and effect connecting everything. So I dont cast, because I realize that these problems are here as important lessons to be learned. (when you cast to remove the problem, the lesson isnt learned, and it comes back around later with a vengence.)

I think the cards are linked somehow to these threads that make up the fabric of our world.

Remember the tarot doesnt tell the future, It maps the present.

[Draganna]

Hi I was going to try tarot card reading like my mum does but i'm into crystal healing - say what u want about it i dont have to listen! I wanted to try tarot cards but i cant focus my thoughts on the cards to well as they have lovely dragons on them its annoying. Maybe theyre just not meant for me!
There are some decks that use crystals rather than art work for their imagery. I have one such deck, but I've not worked with it very much because I'm very partial to the decks I already use. Maybe a deck with crystals is something that might work for you.

[Lilacsky]

I would say that since we all have the answers within us, all we have to do to gain this knowledge is use a tool, weather it be our dreams or tarot cards...
I think we can tap into our subconscious for answers and perhaps that is how tarot is worked..

[Dismal Dollie]

I think it works through you to tap into the other person's unconcious mind. Like a plug works to take electricity from the wall into your appliances. It doesn't tell the future, it presents possibilites for your future considering what state you're in right now. Atleast, that's how I feel.

It says I already voted, but I have no idea what I voted for . . .

[Kute Kitty]

You should see one or more options in italics, that's what you voted for.

[Dismal Dollie]

Pff. I voted for:

Higher power/Fate
It taps into the unconscious mind and draws it out

Huh? Self, what were you thinking? You don't even believe that! . . . I wish I could go back in time and retrace my train of thought with that one. I guess I was thinking that a higher power helps draw it from the unconcious mind? That could be what I was going for.

[Kute Kitty]

Whaddya know I voted for the same things. Hmm.

[FrostBite]

I think it's a mix of fate and tapping into the unconscious mind. It senses what worries you or what you need to know and then tells you what will happen in reguard to what you were thinking.

P.S

Does anyone know where a girl can track down tarot cards in Canada?

[Kute Kitty]

Book stores, amazon.com, any slightly alternative shop. They're becoming more and more widely available and easier to find now. My first deck I bought from a very main-stream bookstore.

[FrostBite]

Thanx KK I'll look into it!

[sapphire]

i clicked my mouse & i voted "Higher power/Fate".. now this is why i selected this one. one night i was feeling sad, and i looked out one of my windows, and there was the view of the full moon. i called on the goddess for her spritual guidence to help me. i prayed to the goddess that same night, i turned to my tarot cards to do a reading. the first card that was flipped over, was "the moon" other cards followed such as "high priestess".. i believe that deities can comunitcate threw means of tarot cards. :fantasy02

[durgarox]

I have read that the tarot, as well as any form of divination, operates on the idea of synchronicity, that is, your divined answer is more likely to be true than it is to be false, because it is less wasteful, cosmically speaking...at least thats what I think it means...correct me if I'm wrong on that definition, please.

[pixie]

i belive it uses what you subconciously think and that there is something guiding the deck so to speak.

[RavenJelly]

From what I have always understood about the Tarot is that whoever the reading is being done on has to be just as involved, if not moreso than the one doing the actual representation of the cards. This makes sense, because if the person requesting the reading isn't focused, then the end result probably won't make much sense.
I have had many tarot readings done, and all of them have been quite precise. Only a couple of these readings have been done by people close enough to me who know what's been going on in my life. I don't necessarily disregard those readings, but I have found that the readings done by people whom I have never met seem to be more convincing and more accurate.

Reading the tarot is much more than just understanding the meaning of the cards. It's more than just reading the little handbook that comes along with it. The reader must feel completely comfortable with themselves. Someone who is just learning might not be able to aide in the interpretation as well as someone who is knowledgeable. The interpretation is just as important for the one doing to reading as it is for the one receiving it.

The tarot doesn't give the answers directly by itself. Nor does it predict the future. It give more or less possibilities and ideas about how to deal with the situations at hand. Maybe giving ideas to the receiver as to how they might deal with a certain situation.

Nothing is 100%. You make of it what you will.

[suffer4love]

I didn't see any vote option for my own belief in how they work, which is that basically they use psuedo-scientific principles we arbitrairly label "magick." What I mean is, you have four suits, each representing the four archetypal elements of the universe: Air (Swords/Spades), Water (Cups/Hearts), Earth (Pentacles/Diamonds), and Fire (Wands/Clubs). This alone would give them magickal properties, and indeed "playing" cards are also capable of divining the future.

But tarot cards go several step further... not only do they have each of the elemental forces represented, but they have an additional suit (Major Arcana) that equates to the the "fifth" element, "Spirit" (the others can create the body but spirit is required to animate it).

But they're still not done! Then they incorporate the power of numbers and numerology (a powerful magick source by itself), as well as incorporate the Major Arcana archetypes.

Is it any wonder it's a powerful magickal force? Those of us who are also pagan/neo-pagan/wiccan might also recognize that we like to have the four elements surround us when we do spellcraft. "Spirit" is present by us (once upon a time, of course, "Spirit" was released into the universe to mingle with the other elements by way of animal/human sacrifice).

Because magick is apparently acausual, science labels it "magick" and says it's not real. But those of us who have used it can attest that it is quite real... and maybe not as capricious as we've been led to believe... it could be that we just don't have the science down enough to gain the perfect cause & effect ratio that would qualify it as science (and perhaps we should hope we never do, lol).

Tarot already has all that stuff in it, in just the perfect amounts. It is virtually a "scientific" approach to magick, and therefore will "work." Obviously the skill of the operator makes a difference, but that difference is in the reader, not the cards.

Or maybe it's something else entirely!

[suffer4love]

I have read that the tarot, as well as any form of divination, operates on the idea of synchronicity, that is, your divined answer is more likely to be true than it is to be false, because it is less wasteful, cosmically speaking...at least thats what I think it means...correct me if I'm wrong on that definition, please.

Durgarox, I'm not correcting you, because the actual concept of synchroncity is too complex to really be boiled down to a simple sentence. Carl Gustav Jung, the psychologist (Swiss? German?) who first coined the term (and is, essentially, it's "creator" in the sense it was unknown by that term before him) tried to boil it's essence down to "an acausual connecting principle" which basically only means that it is a force that connects things together with no apparent cause. Not a very satisfactory answer, huh?

Now, it is quite likely that modern day thinkers have put their own twist on the concept and added "universal balance" and stuff like that into the mix. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, as all science builds upon what has come before. The car of today could not have been invented without someone inventing the car from the old days (like with the hand crank, for example). However, unless the new writer has a firm grasp of whatever it was that came before, any such additions or modifications are speculative at best.

May I suggest, if this really interests you, going to your local college library and checking out a copy of the book, "Synchronicity, An Acausual Connecting Principle" by Carl Jung. It is very heavy going, but all of the original concepts are given.

Then, once you know where you came from, you'll have a better knowledge of where u at. :)

[sapphire]

I selected "Higher power/Fate" :fantasy02