Tarot - right brain communication by imagery?

As I've done all my life I tend to take things apart to try and understand how they work.
Rather than just accept it works, be grateful and live with it.

So when I started doing Tarot some years ago it presented me with an intriguing problem - once I had convinced myself it really did work and I strongly believe it does.

The theory I have come up with (so far) is that there is some part of us that already knows the future.
I suspect that it is our subconscious that guides the hand to pick the cards we choose.
My reason for thinking this is that I've always dreamt symbolically dreams which forewarned me of events to come.
I find the symbolism in my dreams strongly matches that of the Tarot, in particular the minor arcana's elements of water, fire, earth and air.
Side note - I've found learning Tarot is a great way to develop insight into dreams.

My brother gave me a book he had recently read.
"The Daemon", by Anthony Peake.

I've not finished the book yet but what I've read so far runs very close to this theory of mine.
Peake suggests that our right brain hosts a separate personality which is unable to talk but can communicate in images.
"The Daemon", has already lived the life and knows whats going to happen.

I'm keen to hear other theories on how Tarot works?

Any other books worth reading that can be suggested?

Slainte!
Seoras

Hi Callanish

I'm a bit the same (okay, I'll be honest, I'm a lot the same) - I also tend to take things apart to try and understand how they work.

Of course everyone has their own angle re from whence our knowledge of the future hails, but I agree with you - although I tend to see this part of us as connected to everything, whether living or inanimate... like our energy is part of a multidimensional web based on a structure similar to that of honeycomb. And I also agree that this connection is most easily made through the right brain because it is wholistic and imaginative (and lots of other wonderful things) and less bound by conditioning... more open than the left brain. And of course this connects with the tradition of many readers to direct the seeker to cut the deck/choose cards with their non-dominant hand.

I've held this view for quite a while and was most blessed when a friend of mine recently lent me a book that gives enormous insight into the functions of the left and right brain.

It's called My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D (published in 2009), who is a brain scientist; she's written about her experience of a stroke which mostly affected her left brain - for quite some time she was operating almost exclusively from her right brain. It took 8 years for her to recover. What insights she has imparted here!

She relates how things shut down while she was having the stroke, then what happened thereafter. Because of her scientific knowledge of the brain, she has been able to clearly articulate what she was losing and how this affected the various parts of the brain-body connection. A truly remarkable book!

In the last couple of chapters she talks about her conviction that it is extremely important to stay in touch with the right brain and consciously let go of some of the tendencies of the left brain. It took a long time for her to get back her sense of 'separateness' (this is a left brain function) from everything - she reiterates throughout the book about how much she loved the sense of being at one / at peace with everything, as though she was fluid, with no boundaries, while her right brain was in charge.

Thanks for your very thoughtful question

Blessings
{(~_~)}

Well I now want to definitely read that book! I know very little about the differences between the hemispheres and the brain in general.

I tend to look at tarot from a very spiritual standpoint; I believe that our spirit, which uses our body as a conduit to function in the material world, is what picks up, if you will, the information that we get for readings. Much like we use the cards as a pathway for the information to travel, our brain is much the same way in my opinion. I believe that the spirit...um...how to say this...I believe that one's spirit knows much more than our brains can fathom, and if our conscious brain were to realize what our spirit knows, it would change the experience of life as we know it so greatly that it would lose its impact and lessons that it has to impart.

In a sense I am saying that I think the brain tends to filter out a lot of knowledge that we possess. Perhaps the right brain is a better conduit than the left brain at relaying messages...however I don't believe that just because our brain recognizes it and it is brought into conscious thought do we then know it.

IMO, tarot functions off of the energy that we put into the cards and such energy simply exists due to belief in yourself...confidence as it were. Haven't you ever noticed that, say when you were starting off, perhaps you gave someone a reading and were kind of apprehensive on hearing whether or not you read accurately? Chances are, when you found out you did, you were able to read better! Not because your skills increased but your BELIEF in your skills did. It all comes down to your perspective.

Perspective- Use it or lose it. (If you can name the book that's from, 10 points to you).

Well Callanish, I think pretty much the same thing as you, except I call it the Higher Self. And that when we read for others, our Higher Self connects with that person's Higher Self and send us back the answers. People in Thelema call it the Holy Guardian I think which is our Anima/Animus.

Agreed Tarot very much does work, and we also get premonions in our dreams that can very much at times echo messages of the cards.

My theory on how it all works is not so much that a part of us inside knows the answers and the future, but that a part of us inside knows how to communicate with that which does. Call it the universe, G-d, the angels or whatever you choose to call it, our soul's are able to enter into profound communication with that. And it is that source that knows all.

In dreams that source just sends us messages that we need to know. In Tarot, when we are open and looking for answers then we are open to that source and it can then communicate with us and send us answers.

That is my belief on it.

Babs