How Does Tarot Work?

In your opinion, how does Tarot work?

Draws Energy from me

Personally, I believe that we imbue the cards with our energy as we shuffle, as we use them, etc. I believe that because of this any deck we happen to use is personalized and will give us an accurate reading.

Perhaps the energy draws from our subconscious, a part of us that understands the world we live in better than our conscious mind, that remembers all that has happened to us, all we've heard about, all we've seen-and uses that wisdom to advise us, to guide us...or maybe there is a big invisible store of energy that is a collective consciousness, one that is connected to every living being created that is a wealth of wisdom and experience that the cards draw on through us...

This is what I think about as I am shuffling before asking a question when laying a spread...I visualize the energy flowing through my fingertips into the cards, and sometimes from the earth into the cards...it gives me more energy to think about that in order to do better readings I believe.

That is just my opinion.

Hi Curtis,
There are a lot of different opinions on how Tarot works. Some feel that the cards are a conduit between us and our higher self, superior being, cosmic conscience, Akashic records, etc, etc. Some people believe that we use the pictures as keys to unlock the answer that is already in us - much like the way a counselor doesn't solve our problems but simply asks the questions so we can solve the problem for ourselves. Personally, I believe that everyone is intitled to their own belief. I think Tarot is very personal and each and every person finds their own comfort zone with the cards. So, if you see Tarot in one way and I see it in a different light, we are both correct. There is no absolute answer to this question. As always, that is just my own opinion. Enjoy.

Thank you for your responses! I want to understand better how others view Tarot.

I'm a big fan of Carl Jung, so to me, the greatest value in the cards lies in the connection we can make with the images. I probably fall under the second worldview when it comes to Raeanne's discription. I think Tarot, with it's spiritual imagery, can be used in therapy and help us look at our own lives with a fresher perspective.

I think it's a bit like a radio that picks up cosmic news stations and the collective unconscious, operating on synchronicity as its power source. It's most useful if you know how to tune it and listen to it. It operates on frequencies that some have difficulty learning to hear, while others tune into it almost instantly.

Nevada said:

I think it's a bit like a radio that picks up cosmic news stations and the collective unconscious, operating on synchronicity as its power source. It's most useful if you know how to tune it and listen to it. It operates on frequencies that some have difficulty learning to hear, while others tune into it almost instantly.

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But what gives the cards this power? Is it simply the symbols themselves, the intentions of the reader or the intentions of the deck creator?

Also, do you believe this is how other divination techniques work? Is the collective unconscious something outside an individual, or are you saying Tarot (and maybe other divination techniques) gives the universe an opportunity to show what's going on inside the collective unconscious?

Nevada said:

I think it's a bit like a radio that picks up cosmic news stations and the collective unconscious, operating on synchronicity as its power source. It's most useful if you know how to tune it and listen to it. It operates on frequencies that some have difficulty learning to hear, while others tune into it almost instantly.

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I like this explanation! You do have a way with words, Nevada!

Curtis Penfold said:

But what gives the cards this power? Is it simply the symbols themselves, the intentions of the reader or the intentions of the deck creator?

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Well, a person has to create the deck. Then a person has to pick up the cards and use them. So there's definitely human power involved. As to where the images come from, I think that depends on the person who creates the deck and how tapped in they are to the collective unconscious, whether they recognize archetypes, and how apt they are at communicating an archetypal concept through imagery. A lot also depends on the person using the cards being able to recognize something in the images and understand and communicate it to oneself or others. There's a lot of communication and translation going on that depends on human beings for the process to complete itself.

Curtis Penfold said:

Also, do you believe this is how other divination techniques work?

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Yes, I think other divination techniques work in similar ways, but there are qualities that make Tarot Tarot, most obviously the particular archetypes presented in the major arcana, the number of them, the structure of the courts and minor arcana. But one can divine without any divinatory tool, or with any number of tools.

Curtis Penfold said:

Is the collective unconscious something outside an individual, or are you saying Tarot (and maybe other divination techniques) gives the universe an opportunity to show what's going on inside the collective unconscious?

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No one knows. Is the collective unconscious something "out there" that we tap into? Or is it related to instinct, a set of ancestral memories? Jung didn't know. Current brain researchers don't know, so how can I answer that? I don't know enough to have formed any belief about it except that it exists. I personally believe that it's the same thing as the Akashic Records and the Book of Thoth, as well as other cosmic archives named in other cultures.

Some people, in divination, manage to tap into it consciously, but that doesn't mean no one else does unconsciously. I think we do sometimes when we dream, and that artists and mystics tap into it, as well as some less fortunate people who become terrified of it. Jung's first conceptualization of it came from listening to schizophrenics describe their delusions. So it's a source that spans humanity and does not depend on the person who taps into it being conscious that they do so, or on them understanding what it is. The main problem, for a schizophrenic, is not being able to differentiate between that source and physical reality. But what is reality?

Nevada said:

I think it's a bit like a radio that picks up cosmic news stations and the collective unconscious, operating on synchronicity as its power source. It's most useful if you know how to tune it and listen to it. It operates on frequencies that some have difficulty learning to hear, while others tune into it almost instantly.

Click to expand...

Im thinking along the same lines as Nevada here,everyday surroundings can numb the conscious mind into seeing/believing what it thinks is there,relying only on the 5 senses to do this,but the collective unconscious,coupled with synchronicity holds far more than we realise,its just that not everyone enjoys this,the same as not everyone enjoys the same radio stations.Them that want to listen,(myself included),use cards,or maybe something else that works for them,and i think its when you put your question to the cards,its important to do it when your totally relaxed,and not got 101 thoughts running through your head about everyday general things,concentrate on what it is you really want to know,and for me thats when the subconscious does the rest,i then just look at the cards i pull,and read what i see. Almost likes saying when you "switch off" then thats when the subconscious "switches on" (thats how it works for me).I know what i mean, apologies if it doesn't make sense to you.
One of the best lines i heard was "sit back,keep your eyes open,and your mouth shut" (which i used to find extremely hard to do),but since learning to do this,i've "heard" so much more,as much as i need to know anyway,i only wish i'd learnt to do it years ago,but,you live and learn as they say.I now know exactly what i do/dont want from life,but for me,synchronicity for me,is the important thing to take notice of as well,its a wonderful thing.

There have been a wealth of posts on this subject (a search of the forum is an invariable way to dig up riches!), but because I have to be somewhere in a couple of hours - out reading Tarot actually - I don't really have the time to do the search for you and present you with the URLS of beneficial threads.

Tarot works. How, is a moot point.

I have an interest in the sciences, and last year in particular, a lot of work was done on random number generators, and how, if each "number" was given a meaning, random number generators run through conventional computers where the human element is minimal, still started giving meaningful answers in a statistically improbable/impossible number of times per trial.

This comes close to presenting us with the vexed question of God, or some larger supernatural presence which has nothing better to do than stand around manipulating things for our benefit. That would be like me, as the Goddess of my gut-bacteria, taking an interest in their interactions, punishing those that hurt other ones, and making their equivalent of Tarot cards come out with the right answers - highly unlikely, I think the Gods have better things to do with their time than worry about microbes wandering on the face of a tiny speck in the universe.

Then there is the Jungian theory, where we all tap into the greater communal subconscious, and subconsciously position the "right" cards in the deck by shuffling, then subconsciously cut at the right place in the deck, and subconsciously pick the right cards, all this without even glancing at the fronts of the cards first, let alone memorising the order they're in! This is almost as improbable, and mathematically *more* improbable than one hundred chimps chained to typewriters accidentally typing the Complete Works of William Shakespeare within twenty years.

Science, again, and in the 1980s and 1990s the cutting-edge of quantum theory suggested that it is entirely possible that the minute packets of matter/energy which combine to produce the smallest sub-atomic particles, the building-blocks of matter, are not actually multitudinous, but are one SINGLE sub-atomic particle, whizzing so inconceivably fast, at mega-trillions and mega-trillions times the speed of light, that it manages to be effectively in all places at all times, forming the sub-atomic particles that form the atoms of the most distant planets as well as our own bodies. And because we are all made of this same fragment, bits of memory or knowledge might stick to it in its travels, so the client, the reader and the cards are all in accord, whether they know it or not, about circumstances involving other times, places and people, because the cards, reader, client, places and people are all made of the same stuff at the same time.

This is slightly more probable.

However! And this is a Very Big Rider!

My personal experience over a lot of years is that the more I question how Tarot works, the less accurate it becomes. The more I try and explain it, or justify my "faith" in it (which has nothing to do with faith and everything to do with empirical observation) to other people, the less accurately it works.

I've probably just totally stuffed myself for the next two readings, here! <laughter>