Home
>
Spirituality
>
The Trouble With Tarot Reading

The Trouble With Tarot Reading

Anything can be used for divination; coins, tea leaves, cards, the flight of birds, the spilled entrails of captured enemies. The objects used are a focus for the psychic talent of the seer. Or rather a distractor, so that the everyday consciousness is pre-occupied, and something else can give its opinion.

So why the fuss over tarot cards? Are they the Devil's picture book, an ancient mystical symbol system, or an evolving historical artefact?

This writer inclines towards the latter view. You see, modern would-be occultists have a real barrier to understanding their subject. It's a monster that rears its enchanting head in times of prosperity, and consequent personal freedom. Its latest incarnation is bright, gaudy, simplistic and woolly-minded by turns.

It's called the New Age.

It should be called The Same Old Fraud In A Shiny Suit. Occultism has long been the pastime of the leisured classes. A genuine mystic has a connection to the divine; acquired in a previous incarnation, or learned in a mystery school, or monastery, in this one.

The rest of us have to pick through paperback books, or knock on the doors of the living saints of our familiar religion.

Popular mysticism is a business; a big one, and profitable. Reprinting and re-hashing a mish-mash of old grimoires, Eastern religions, neo-paganism and occult biographies is cheap and easy to do. You can avoid any practical experience of the subject matter as well. There is no 'down side'!

Except of course the karmic consequences of knowingly wasting peoples' time and energy with half-truths, bluffs and blinds.

The pitch for tarot cards is that they were created in ancient Eqypt by hierophants to codify their occult knowledge. How inconvenient then that one can trace their development from a plaything of titled ladies in Renaissance times, to the cards used to gip fools in Las Vegas today.

You see, tarot cards originally showed the major virtues and powers in a Renaissance person's life; not for occult reasons, but for the same reason children collect cards today: their amusement. You have the Sun, Moon, Star, Temperance, The Pope, The Emperor, Empress, Hanged Man, Death etc. All very lurid and exotic to modern eyes, but hard facts of life when the cards were made.

Only the wealthy were literate, printing was expensive, coloured pictures (of anything) were something to marvel at and treasure. We take these for granted today; our ancestors did not.

Also, our forebears had to amuse themselves most of the time. Even our great-grandparents played the piano or the fiddle, knew ten formal dances, could sing twenty songs from memory, were keen raconteurs and loved a good joke well told. They had to; there was little other amusement. A young lady who couldn't play the piano, or at least sing, was at a social disadvantage.

Popular occultism and tarot cards should be seen in this light; a pass-the-time, taken a bit too seriously by failed priests, alienated young men and lovelorn young women.

Lively discussion about this subject can be had at the Alt.Tarot Usenet newsgroup, most easily accessed here: http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt.tarot.

Its FAQ makes for a good read: http://www.tigertom.com/download/tarot-faq-01-01-1998.txt.

The upshot is that there are libraries-full of drivelling, disingenuous, sententious, re-hashed balderdash written about this subject. A case can be made that 90% of *all* occult books are a distraction away from that which they are supposed to point to: the Divine in us, and how we can co-operate with it.

To that end, they are indeed the Devil's work.

The best definition of tarot cards I can paraphrase, from memory, is one by Amado Crowley, a noted English occultist: "They are a computer that can know you". This I take to mean you can use them to help solve knotty personal problems, rather than divine the future.

The paradox of tarot reading is: Does predicting someone's future to them in a spooky setting influence their future actions, regardless of whether the seer is psychic or not?

If you do give readings to others, should you influence someone in this way? If you are a querent, do you want someone else's predictions lurking in the back of your mind, influencing your future actions?

T. O' Donnell ( http://www.tigertom.com ) is an ecommerce consultant and curmudgeon living in London, UK. His latest project is an ebook on conservatories, available at http://www.tigertom.com

Other T. O' Donnell freeware may be downloaded at http://www.tigertom.com

monthly home cleaning Winnetka ...

In The News:

Lyft rolled out safety upgrades with a new Safety Hub, driver blocking capability and a favorite driver option to give riders more control over their experience.

New research shows Americans increasingly trust AI for wellness guidance over social media, with 63% finding artificial intelligence reliable for health.

Luxury fashion brand Dior experienced a January 2025 data breach affecting customer personal information, and notifications were sent months after the discovery.

The commercial Unitree H1 humanoid robot weighs 104 pounds with 365 pound-feet torque per joint and demonstrates dangerous potential when software glitches occur.

Americans average 10-plus hours online daily, according to recent survey, splitting time between streaming shows on TV and browsing websites on multiple devices.

Boost your smartphone privacy instantly with these security tweaks for iPhone and Android that limit ad tracking, hide notifications and prevent unauthorized access.

Platforms like Hoax Tech and JS Click Cloaker help cybercriminals bypass detection systems using machine learning to selectively display scam content to victims.

A new battery recycling technique transforms old lithium-ion batteries into high-performance components that retain 88% capacity after 500 cycles with minimal waste.

Google's Android operating system can warn users about earthquakes before the shaking even begins – and there are ways to do it on your iPhone, too.

Meta's new gesture control wristband might just be the most seamless way to control a computer yet. And no, it doesn't require surgery, a camera, or even a touchscreen. All it needs is your wrist.

Long-haul trucks are now being upgraded with a surprising twist, thanks to California-based startup Revoy. Their electric boost doesn't replace diesel but works alongside it to cut emissions and fuel costs without major disruption.

PayPal and Venmo just rolled out something big: AI-powered scam alerts for Friends and Family payments.

As data centers multiply across the United States, energy demand is increasing at a rapid pace. This has not escaped the notice of large investment firms from Wall Street.

The Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit organization that maintains the Unicode Standard to ensure emojis work across devices, has announced Unicode 17.0, which includes nine new emojis slated for release this fall, in September 2025.

OpenAI is one of the world's leading AI research labs. Founded in 2015, it's behind some of today's most talked-about tools, including GPT, DALL·E, and ChatGPT.

Ever catch your dog staring at the screen during movie night and wonder if they're actually watching? Turns out, they might be. A new scientific study from Auburn University found that many dogs really do engage with television, and not all pups react the same way.

Stop the scammers from making contact in the first place. They're getting your parents' contact information and much more personal data besides, from somewhere.

The Walker S2 robot from UBTech autonomously exchanges its batteries in just three minutes, allowing continuous operation in car factories operated by BYD, Nio and Zeekr.

The FX Super One electric MPV from Faraday Future offers flexible seating, zero-gravity recliners and an AI system that creates a personal connection between driver and vehicle.

Practical solutions for reducing unwanted charity mail, political texts and email spam by opting out of shared lists, replying "STOP" and using data removal services.

Delta's new AI pricing system eliminates static airfares for personalized rates based on individual data, raising questions about fairness while promising optimized revenue.

AI data centers are straining the power grid across 13 states, contributing to a $9 billion increase in electricity costs, and PJM customers face monthly bill increases of $25 or more.

Artificial intelligence is transforming the music industry as AI-generated bands like The Velvet Sundown earn substantial streaming revenue, prompting lawsuits from major record labels.

Microsoft phishing scams use fake security alerts and links that redirect to credential-stealing pages with warning signs, including urgent language and unusual senders.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

The Trouble With Tarot Reading

Spirituality