they read fortunes with airs of analytical psychology

Here are my thoughts on analytical psychology and tarot, coming from the view point of a poor seer.

Tarot does not need to be validated with psychology, a good readers knows this, tarot stands on its own as it was designed for.

Tarot cards are designed do the opposite of what most people think they would be used for in psychology, they do not do free form.... They are designed to bring up a specific response not a free-form idea. If you are going to use them as a tool to analyze yourself, then you must look at how far you deviate from the specific response the card is meant for, and why you deviate. If I was to use them in some sort of practise I would use black and white marseilles tarot majors and ask the patient to colour the cards for added insight. There is no preconceived assumption about the unconscious material in Jungian psychology, in tarot there must be or the cards have no meaning. Tarot is limited in its scope as a tool for analytical psychology to a quasi sort of archetype interpretation/comparision/trigger.

The Tarot deck contains archetypal symbols that can be related to Jung's analytical psychology, sure but is it the best choice, if you are going to work as a counsellor is it not your job to use the best tools? Jung himself says "it seems as if the set of pictures in Tarot cards were distantly descended from the archetypes of transformation” This is from his collected works, translated by Hull, from the Bollingen series. Distantly related? So for him these are not the archetype images he would choose to use? Or would this be a jump off point a place to start? Tarot is a tiny aspect of analytical psychology, the real work starts after looking at the card. Jung felt that the key to decoding the conditions of neurosis lay burried in the mind and our past: culture and mythology. Working from these idea's he developed the concepts of archetypes, synchronicity, collective unconscious, the two dimensions of personality and man's four basic functions (sensation,thinking, feeling, and intuition).. The card will trigger an idea, and then it's job is done in psychology. I still prefer to read fortunes with them, they are better suited to that for me.

Good post! I agree!

Ditto. To be honest though (no dig at you TCO) I have always felt that Jung is over cited. Whenever I read a book which goes straight into Jung and synchronicity tone, it always makes me feel uncomfortable and I just know that the writer isn't confident enough to let tarot stand up on its own. Jung is always mentioned as a kind of validation.

"You see! here's an intelligent person who believed it!"

Some of us (me included) choose not to actually believe Jung. Tarot for me exists distinct from what this late 19th century/early-mid 20th Century man thought. I feel that the iconography of tarot stood up for itself long before Jung came along.

Tarot and modern psychology make me feel uncomfortable.

I think it's up to the person who is being read for. They can take the card messages for self-reflection or not as they choose. So for example I read for a friend who came up as the Hierophant in the Rider deck, which gave me pause because he's totally un-pope-like in every respect. But he reached across to the card and said, "I don't know about these religious authorities, but to me this looks like the Hindu god Ram"--he is from a Hindu family and his name is you-guessed-it. And he proceeded to tell me what he thought of when he thought of Ram (not a church leader, but a defender of right and truth and always ready to forgive). And then, how that is like him and how not. I sat there open-mouthed.

Say the word "archetype" and it seems everyone runs to Jung and Campbell. I don't get it. Most everyone has a sense of "mother," "lover," "child" and most everyone recognizes gaps and slippages in different aspects of their selves. It's self-awareness, it seems to me.

I am not quite understanding the issue.

I am interested in how tarot cards create a reaction in the person looking at them, and sometimes looking at ideas from psychology may suggest some "ins" for this topic. Jung's ideas are just one particular set of ideas that some people use and I haven't much interest in taking it further than I have done.

Psychology isn't just Jung though, any more than physics is just Einstein or (insert preferred subject-person here).

I suppose I'm not seeing the problem? If it helps you, use it; if it doesn't help then don't... is where I am at the moment.

Like me and astrology, or Hebrew letters, or spirit guides, or whatever...

Aerin said:

I am not quite understanding the issue.

I am interested in how tarot cards create a reaction in the person looking at them, and sometimes looking at ideas from psychology may suggest some "ins" for this topic. Jung's ideas are just one particular set of ideas that some people use and I haven't much interest in taking it further than I have done.

Psychology isn't just Jung though, any more than physics is just Einstein or (insert preferred subject-person here).

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I think is TCO is just ranting about the obsessive pshycologization of tarot, that is becoming way too common. It is as if tarot cannot be explained or used without psychology to back it. Which we know is NOT true. Psychology was a baby when tarot was already being used and studied.

And many of these people over-use Jung, as if the guy had actually been a tarot reader. Tarot is but a footnote in his whole work. He came, he saw, and he noticed Tarot was not what he was looking for in term of archetypes. And he moved on.

TCO wasn't saying that tarot needs psychology, or that psychology is ONLY Jung. He was talking against the people who use Jung to validate tarot without knowing what they are talking about.

Tarot does not need Jung, Freud or even God to work. So why insist on using them to explain tarot?

Marina said:

Tarot does not need Jung, Freud or even God to work. So why insist on using them to explain tarot?

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Hear hear!

Wow! What a disparaging thread title! Who exactly are "they". Most Tarot Readers balk at the term "fortune teller" and saying "airs" is both condescending to those who may use analytical psychology but also points towards pretension if they are.

I wasn't aware of some trend in using analytical psychology to 'validate' Tarot.

Can't we as in Tarot Readers ignore that which we don't agree with and take on board that with which we do?

Tarot cards are designed do the opposite of what most people think they would be used for in psychology, they do not do free form....

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I wasn't aware that there was any one way of reading Tarot. I assumed it was whatever worked best for reader and querent.

I don't read Tarot books so have no idea about this sudden trend. Can't it be ignored like most trends?

caridwen said:

Wow! What a disparaging thread title! Who exactly are "they". Most Tarot Readers balk at the term "fortune teller" and saying "airs" is both condescending to those who may use analytical psychology but also points towards pretension if they are.

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Yes those words were choosen with some thought and reason.

caridwen said:

I wasn't aware that there was any one way of reading Tarot. I assumed it was whatever worked best for reader and querent.

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Each to their own, yes. I could use chess pieces to play checkers if I like, or checker pieces to play chess if my memory is good enough.