Psychological Tarot?

something that really makes you think....
yes, tarot has been around since, they believe, the 16th century. but, it didnt get any divination meaning until almost the 19th century when antoine court de geblin (sp?) misconnected the symbols on traditional tarot cards to the heiroglyphs from ancient egypt (rememeber, this was BEFORE the rosetta stone was found so... nobody knew what heiroglyphs even meant).
so, if these cards were made to have no divination meaning in the first place, and the only reason they really have a meaning is because a mistaken theory... why do they seem to work? is it psychological? is our brain and energy making certain cards with familiar symbolism clearify questions and problems we ask? or do we connect our feelings to those cards when they are drawn?
...am i making sense? lol

I think you sort of have hit the nail on the head - I don't think it is really possible to explain exactly how it works or why.

Imagine an aunt or relative asking that very question of you when you have told them you are a tarot reader...... does the answer sometimes not really come out in the way you intended it to? Do you find you can't answer this question to yourself because there is no answer?

I don't mean this to be contradictory or confrontational. I think I am trying to say, it is perhaps one of those unanswerable questions which the universe loves to send us occasionally

If there was a defnitive answer of how it works and why, scientists or sceptics would then have to back down from the stance they sometimes take against things they cannot explain.

heck I have tied myself in knots here thinking this through...lol

A good question though and one which will get a lot of musings I am sure

take care

Davina

I have a wonderful link for you. I got back into tarot because of my interest in history, but the cards quickly hooked my esoterically when I touched a deck.

http://www.villarevak.org/misc/tarotl_1.html#Time condensed time-line information.

Big grin--how does visual art make sense as a narrative?

I think the first post had the elements of associating art images with memory and thoughts in both the question and answer...which may lead me to digress...hopefully it's related and expanding on the good links already provided.

Some things that are interesting behind the history of tarot to me include the fascinating times that things such as card games, gilded prints, the idea of bound "books' as opposed to scrolls and simple sheets of illustrations...to me the amazing thing is how separate images became linked together to form stories--and how people learned to 'read' pictures even if they could not read written language.

For me, the history of visual art, art as history, etc., developed in parallel to the use of tarotlike characters in poetry, song, story, triumph processions...and as times and societies became more complex, the use of simple illustrations became complex as well. Simple allegory or moral tales can be recalled by a picture that has characteristics or elements of the story--even as far back as the 1450's or thereabouts when the Visconti "Tarot pattern" might have been settled.

For example Visconti Sforza (Pierpont Morgan) deck has an allegorical Father Time as an old man with an hourglass. In another picture, a woman resembling the wife of a ducal ruler known as Bianca Maria sits in a triumphal cart--a common practise of Italian noble families is to have the fine courtly people arrive in triumph before a marriage or winning a battle. In Bianca Maria's case, myth includes she loved card games, her noble blood lines helps her husband retain the ducal crown and there's a legendary tale of her riding out to defend the Castle or support her husband in war-time...image only below as the Chariot card--click on the image to expand it:

http://www.tarot.com/about-tarot/decks/browsedecks.php?newdeck=35

Granted the Visconti Tarot background and allegorically might only make sense to the Milanese courtly nobles at the time--but use of a fine lady in the Chariot as an allegory in the 1450's became a humorous middle-class depiction in a Chariot card in 1664 for a fine Florentine Bolognese Tarocco game called the Mitelli--where she is a beautiful Venus or a delightfully healthy and pastoral nymph.

http://www.tarotpassages.com/mitelbx.jpg

So centuries before the accidental association of 'meaning' with the 'card image', something already was built in to how the tarot images were formed...does this sound sensible? Something intertwined about the nature of tarot and allegory and the Western heritage cultures that fed into tarot images...and as our minds and use of visual language/arts have expanded, I believe the visual nature of tarot has become much more appealing in the times we live in.

Hope this was on topic and thanks for reading the silly expansion of thoughts...but am getting fascinated again by tarot topics and art history again...

A small fascinating sideline and it is related to Western History and even the development of art history itself...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_art

Best regards,

Cerulean