I know I should be happy but....

It's not that none of mi readings are right, they actually are great and I used them a lot to gain some sort of inner perspective on things.

My problem is that I haven't gotten around creating a proper justification as to why I trust a bunch of cards to deliver a useful message. Last month I was happy saying that Tarot cards are a psychological tool to explore the subconscious, just like dreams, because I'm struggling with the whole concept of God and destiny and all those other divine things. However, last week made me revaluate my train of thought. Ok, here's what happened:

Last week a friend of mine told me that her period was late, but we didn't worry. after all, a pregnancy was not possible. She took all sorts of precautions and it was just not likely to think that. We laughed and decided to do a reading for fun knowing that she was NOT pregnated. the cards pulled, however, said otherwise. I told her that they expressed her inner fears and not a real situation, but 2 days ago a blood test (taken because she got frightened after the reading) confirmed what I had tried to ignored: She was definitely pregnated. Now all my friends see me as some sort of witch with magic powers, and I hate it because there is no rational explanation for that.

I don't believe in magic, I believe in the power of the mind and science. So how come I was able to predict a baby when the available evidence contradicted my reading? How do you justify the 'power' behind Tarot? Is there a rational explanation for this? My readings lately have become very accurate even for strangers, and I'm scared..... I know, is stupid, but I thought you guys could help me out.

thanks a lot.

Humans know a lot more than we give our selves credit for.

The most absurd assumption is that we only communicate though language. We dont have to talk or move our body a certain way to understand eachother.

When testing for ESP or telepathy, skeptics go "Oh well, they must be communicating some how". No.Duh. XD

We're amazing creatures. We know a lot and we're very perceptive. The things that are branded as "Magic" today, I belive, arent anything other than forgotten applications of a very real world.

How it works, I dont know. There isnt a lot invested in studying it, and unfourtently most of the people that go into it are there to wave a banner and "prove" somthing.

Amazing things happen. It's our unvierse. : 3 It's prefectly logical and if science belived in what it was supposed to stand for, it would be so quick to poo-poo at it.

A lot of people believe that the cards are nothing more than pieces of paper that kick start a reader's intuition/powers of perception/whatever you want to call it. So the cards themselves didn't predict a pregnancy. Instead they spoke in a language that your intuition understood to mean a pregnancy. It's really not a whole lot different than the phone ringing unexpectedly and knowing who it is before you answer or thinking about somebody and then bumping into them all of a sudden.

For me, just as I don't need to know why or how a car works in order for me to drive it, I don't need to know why or how tarot works in order for me to use it for insight. (I don't use tarot for divination purposes, but that's just me. Divination is a perfectly acceptable use of tarot.)

There are just some things that science can't explain and may never be able to explain. Being of an analytical bent myself, I can understand the need for things to have an explanation or reason. But I can also understand that some things can't be explained. And I'm fine with that.

So you say you believe in the power of the mind and science. There's a lot that science doesn't know about the mind. So it's quite possible that tarot (and other oracle) images speak to a part of the mind that science doesn't yet understand. And FWIW, I definitely don't believe that tarot is magic by any stretch of the imagination.

HTH,
Rodney

Isn't it funny how the word "magic" is used to describe things we cannot explain?

The "power" in tarot comes from you. This doesn't make you a witch or make you weird. Like SleepingCat said, we communicate in all ways.

Did you know that verbal communication only amounts to about 2%? That means 98% of our communication is non-verbal. There's some science for you, or statistics at least.

You don't have to believe in God or magic or anything else to read tarot. Every image on those cards can be found in life. That is how you connect, from being alive. You work hard to understand the cards and then you learn to put them together so that they make some sort of sense.

We all, at some point, struggle with where the power comes from. I think if you look inside yourself you will find the answer for you. Or ask your cards. I'm sure they would love to tell you.

Sometimes I do readings that are so *on* that I get freaked out too. Just relax and know that if your intentions are good then no harm can come to you. They are just paper and ink, the power is in us.

Don't worry!

It's funny because using the bird language from the french alchemists,

the magic = "la magie" can also be written as "l'âme agit" what means "the soul works".

Anyway, I have read something in a book that I have found very interesting about this subject :

The reading is a special moment when consciousness and unconsciousness can come in contact. Indeed, the fact of choosing a face down card is an act guided be unconsciousness. We have often tried to explain this phenomenon. Our reasonnable logic leads us to doubt that a non conscious act can have a meaning. It speaks then about random and seems to find that the act itself doesn't worth anything. But the experience speaks against this affirmation. It is interesting to see that a reading bring a coherent answer to the specific issue of the querent, touching him to a sensitive place of his psychee.

Click to expand...

From "Tarot et psychologie des profondeurs" by Simon Berno,

I have just translated it, if you see any mistake, just tell me.

Well said Sinduction

Lain_82, Magic is power of the mind, magic is science combining all 4 elements, how do you read tarot if you only believe in power of the mind and science, but yet dont believe in magic? how come you were able to predict the pregnancy......? its magic.....the power behind tarot is the power you hold within you to read it.

Heh, most of reader are worried that their readings are NOT accurate enough, and you are worring because yours are?

You know, i too usually need explanation for things, but tarot...it works. Period. So i stopped trying to figure the whys and the hows and decided to accept that some things will always be beyond my human capacity to understand or even to accept. Everyone has their own theory to explain why tarot works, as the skeptics have their theories to explain why it doesn't. Who knows for sure which is right?

The things is, to be a reader, you need to trust tarot. When you saw the pregnancy coming, you didn't believe tarot, you tried to deny what it was saying because it seemed impossible...in the end, it wasn't...even if you just want it as a self-knowledge tool, that still doesn't make tarot more explainable.
Okay, you may only use it as a psychological device, but then, why should a bunch of cards tell anything about one's mind or personality or anything? Why the 'psycological' aspect is acceptable, when the divinatory is imposible?

I think you should open yourself to the experience of letting the cards tell what they want, because apparetly, they have a lot to tell you. And most importantly, you have the ability to understand it. So go for it.

One day you'll come up with your own explanations...don't push. Learning is so much interesting than explaining and rationalizing before even trying....

.....

It's funny, but you all did have evidence - you just rejected it! She was late - that's evidence, and it was meaningful enough that you had a reading about it, even while minimizing what it pointed to. And then the reading confirmed that you should look at the evidence! It didn't come out of the blue, it just added to what you were all already sensing and not ready to accept. And then IT was confirmed with a test.

They and you shouldn't be troubled... the reading was a link in a chain that began with personal evidence and ended with scientific confirmation.

Now how's that work? Got me - but my answer for myself is that Tarot is but one method that affirms an essential belief of mine that everyone and everything are connected. It helps us see those connections - doesn't create them, just shines a light on them - by showing us in a different way what we already see a million other ways and discount as irrelevent because of our assumptions about how things are 'supposed' to be. It's just a wonderfully little BS-free zone that helps us see past the web of obscurity we create with our own assumptions.

Even before I started using Tarot cards I could tell if someone was pregnant before they knew and before a test could prove it. How did I know? I don't know. I didn't use the cards because I hadn't even owned a deck and still thought Tarot and other divination was evil. I know a lot of things that I don't know why or how I know them that don't involve my cards.

My advice is not to question how this works for you. It just does. Maybe the cards are a tool that brings you into closer contact with your own ability to "know" things. Just accept that there are unseen forces in ourselves that are supposed to be there and that many of us are given the ability to "know" them.