Does reading tarot put us on the wrong end of the lightening bolt ?

On Christmas Eve, as kids, we used to peek into a few wrapped boxes to try to guess what was inside. Similarly, we all enjoy turning over a few cards, to see what surprises might be on the horizon. Bizarely, however, I realise I would never NEVER EVER want someone to read for me on questions about the future. The idea horrifies me.

I once asked my most magical wizard friend, whose reading prouesse astounds many people, if he would let me read for him, or if he had other people read for him. To my surprise, he said, very rarely - if EVER. Why ? Why ? -- "Because we are people who choose to create who we are", he said. Or something like that.

Oh, I know, it sounds horribly arrogant, perhaps it hides our own terror of the unknown ... or a huge mistrust of other readers.....etc. However, I knew what he meant. After an intolerable number of descents into hell, calamitous romantic and professional failures and crippling stage fright for auditions and performances where I prayed : "oh please please please just let me not suck!", I finally sought help. Help came in the form of voice teacher Shirlee Emmons, co-author with, super-duper amazing sports psychologists Alma Thomas, and performance expert, of POWER PERFORMANCE FOR SINGERS. From Shirlee I learned what the sports psychologists call "mental discipline".

Mental discipline in the context of "Power Performance" means your purify your mind of all doubt, you control your thoughts. You do not dare ask yourself how the audition or the ski jump or the high dive will go, you cannot afford a nano-second of doubt. You must visualise everything working in advance, and constantly guide yourself with positive self talk. For the high dive, or the ski jump it's a matter of life and death, while the singer only imagines she will be dashed to smithereens on the rocks if she quacks the high-C, however the mental process is the same, we must muster the mental discipline to MAKE it happen, under pressure, every time. So I learned for auditions not to ask myself how it would turn out, but to DECIDE how it would turn out. That changed everything.

With this mental discipline in mind, at some point I decided to pick out of the deck the cards I wanted to use to create the life I wanted, instead of asking a question, and then taking what turned up in the shuffle. On AT, you told me, that is called tarot MAGIC.

Now, looking through the list of new reading threads, I see all of the normal questions we all ask ourselves all the time, you know : does he love me, will I pass my exam, does he love me, will I get the job, does he love me ? And I have a huge craving to answer, "don't ask the tarot ... just decide!" Decide, and commit, and act, and CREATE. Does he love you ? Wait ... Do you love him ?? Are you willing to commit everything you are and everything you have to create a loving life together ?

And I want to ask you : does using the tarot to answer questions about the future not put us on the wrong end of the lightening bolt? Does it not take the power out of our own hands, so to speak ?

Or ... are there ways we can use the tarot to put us on the right end of the lightening bolt ?


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P.S. My voice teacher died this April. I think about her all the time.

firemaiden said:

Now, looking through the list of new reading threads, I see all of the normal questions we all ask ourselves all the time, you know : does he love me, will I pass my exam, does he love me, will I get the job, does he love me ? And I have a huge craving to answer, "don't ask the tarot ... just decide!" Decide, and commit, and act, and CREATE. Does he love you ? Wait ... Do you love him ?? Are you willing to commit everything you are and everything you have to create a loving life together ?

And I want to ask you : does using the tarot to answer questions about the future not put us on the wrong end of the lightening bolt? Does it not take the power out of our own hands, so to speak ?

Or ... are there ways we can use the tarot to put us on the right end of the lightening bolt ?

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I don't like to read for myself, and I don't like to ask specific questions. I think you may have hit on the reason I feel this way - not that it ever occurred to me before. I don't like to see all the does he love me ones either - I do think the answer is to go and ASK.... I tend to use the cards for advice - which I think is a good use of the lightning bolt - what can I do in this situation; how can I best approach that.... Like you go to a friend for advice when you feel stuck in a situation ?

I don't like to ask about the future either - because - well, even asking about it makes a tiny change which could then make the answer you just got invalid, as it will have changed the future by the fact that you now have "knowledge" - if that makes sense. There are people here who say they can predict the future with the cards - I know I can't, and I know I won't either try or ask someone else to try for me.

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P.S. My voice teacher died this April. I think about her all the time.

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((((Firemaiden))))

I'm not sure if these thoughts will answer your question, but here goes! Thanks for bringing it up.

From what I've seen, most of us are very observant of the world around us. If there is a 'message' or 'vibe' that refers to our future circumstances, I'm sure we'd pick up on it (to a greater or lesser degree, depending on our abilities) no matter what. Reading the cards, or observing the changing of the seasons, either way will tell you that it will not stay summer forever, that fall and winter are on their way.

I do agree that the 'butterfly effect' comes into play, that by observing it you affect the results. But that seems natural to me. If you have information, a typical response is to act upon it.

So, I guess I figure we will know what we need to know, when we need to know it, whether we ask or just observe.

But for ways to shape our future, and not just read about it, well there's countless ways I'm sure.

There's tarot 'magic', actively imagining the future the way we want it to be. Then, a more Jungian approach, overlooking the present situation, how you feel about it, what you want to change. Then, we can make it even more personal, as many spreads I've seen do, asking about how we can change and grow into better people.

Let me think on it more, and I'll get back to you.

Firemaiden, what a wonderful, thought-provoking post; it has given me much to ponder.

Let's say I have a proposition that goes something like "How can I let go of things that no longer serve me?" Let's hypothesize that at any given moment there are infinite possible futures. Based on the events of the recent past and the tendency for energy to flow in the direction it's been flowing, if I DON'T let go of what no longer serves me, life dishes up some type of lesson to teach me the futility of holding on, like a flood or a fire. This disaster comes and wipes out not only what no longer serves me but what serves me as well. On the other hand, if I am forewarned of disaster and I bend my will and intention towards the letting go and thus I avoid disaster, don't I at least have a chance to save some of what I perceive serves me?

firemaiden said:

And I want to ask you : does using the tarot to answer questions about the future not put us on the wrong end of the lightening bolt? Does it not take the power out of our own hands, so to speak ?

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Maybe one thing to ask is who wields the bolt of lightening? Is it we ourselves based on any tool we happen to come across that serves us - or is it some universal force, some higher power external to us? And if we are indeed All One, then are we not God? So whether we get a sneak preview and have time to take the tower apart brick by brick, or whether we just shrug our shoulders and let The Great Thunderbolt of the Divine dispense reality, is it not all the same thing?

I prefer the sneak preview. I would rather be forewarned, though perhaps knowing I must suffer some rather difficult times. That said, as I have gone deeply into reading tarot and the number of people for whom I have read has increased exponentially over the past few years, I see more and more how the cards are not so much about peeking around the corner to the future as they are about perceiving the moment we are in and realizing (what Eckhart Tolle calls) the Power of Now!

I am so glad to see you posting here again. I became quite active here on AT at about the time your wonderful posts were fewer and further between, so I was saddened at AT's loss. So yay, firemaiden, welcome back!

Thank you so much for responding, gregory, Kimberlee and Mellaenn with such care and thought.

When I write of the lightening bolt, I have in mind something like the ace of wands, the energy surge that comes from within us, our self-determination, our will, our creative power, our survival instinct, our genius.

I imagine us at the creative end of the lightening bolt, learning to direct its power, instead of at the receiving end, waiting to be struck by it. And I begin to think some of the normal questions that we all ask of the tarot, like "does he love me ?" or "How will I do on the exam", place us on that dangerous "waiting to be struck" end of the lightening bolt. And so I began to wonder if there might be a way to use the tarot cards to better move us up to directing, energy-emanating end, to bring us to the fullness of ourselves.

Perhaps the answer for tarot reading to really encourage us to take our own power, lies in our posing our questions in reverse gear: rather than "what does fate have in store for me ?" asking "what do I have in store for fate ?" (LOL). Rather than "what does Johnny want, need, desire, or expect of me, but "what do I really want ?"

And I think when we ask the tarot "where am I going?", any self-respecting tarot card worth his salt ought to draw a breath, look you in the eye, then give you one honest answer and one only -- "Where do you wish to go ?"

Identifying what we want, and not wish to want, or ought to want, or used to want ...but our truest deepest darkest longest-held desire -- not always easy, right ? Perhaps that is a good job for the tarot.

Disagreed Ildpie (firemaiden in Norwegian).

It is actually now we see if we have a learned abillity. Or not...

Thanks for this thought provoking post, FM.

Mental discipline. How well I identify with what you went through for the audition process. I would get so nervous, my hands would sweat (really, it was disgusting). However, my voice prof in college literally showed us how to conquer nerves by what I would almost call a controlled arrogance. You know you are good go out there and show people just how good you are. You have no time to think about being bad. It's hard for me to express exactly what he was conveying, but that is how I have always looked at performing. (ahhh well, it worked for me ).

I think we have to take the lightening bolt by the tail and direct it to where we want it to go. I know from my own experience, I receive the ultimate "atta girl" feeling, when I have engineered and manifested what I want.

So, asking "does he love me" or "will we be together" or whatever question and especially in reading for others, I immediately want to know what do you (or I) really want? I think this is one of the reasons why we try and reorganize the sitter's questions to reflect what they really want.

Now that I have rambled on some,...

Sar said:

Disagreed Ildpie (firemaiden in Norwegian).

It is actually now we see if we have a learned abillity. Or not...

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Thank you for my name in Norwegian.

Please feel free to elaborate on your thoughts

First, I loved this thread and learnt a lot from it.

Also, for me, I feel more worried Not asking about the future than asking. Knowing what is coming allows me to prepare for it. Also readings on the future are a way of creating the future for me. I use them often by first deciding exactly what I want in my future, then I ask the cards what steps I can take that will take md there. Then follow those steps and go there. The cards can just as easily be a tool to create the future as to predict it. It judt depends on how you choose yo use it.

But I really like what you said too in the first post. Snd I intend to put it to good use. Thanks.

Babs

firemaiden said:

Bizarely, however, I realise I would never NEVER EVER want someone to read for me on questions about the future. The idea horrifies me. ...

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I love Tarot. I enjoy Tarot. And unlike some people I believe it can be predictive - yet having had a prediction, we can take active steps to avoid it.

I like to use the Oscar and Lucinda example: Oscar's lifelong fear of water can be seen, in the context of his death as a prophesy. He was afraid of water, so except for the sole sea voyage, he avoided it. Later on when they were building the glass cathedral, he lost his fear of the water, and didn't avoid it, sleeping on the boat of his own free will whilst it was moored. When he lost his fear, the prophesy came true and he drowned. There is an argument to be made not for the inescapability of prophesy, but for quite the reverse: as long as he was following his instincts and was on guard against water, he didn't drown. Prophesy allows you to protect yourself from future dangers, but those dangers are still real if you don't protect yourself (as he didn't at the end).

firemaiden said:

"don't ask the tarot ... just decide!" Decide, and commit, and act, and CREATE. Does he love you ? Wait ... Do you love him ?? ...

Or ... are there ways we can use the tarot to put us on the right end of the lightening bolt ?

Click to expand...

Absolutely! And Tarot magic, as well as self-analysis through Tarot, are two very common ways to do so.

I have a third way: I love Tarot. It is a pleasure. Being around cards makes me happy, and even not being around them but talking about them online makes me happy. Deep-down happiness *is* being at the right end of the thunderbolt.