Tarot altering the course of events

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 20 Apr 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Niomi	20 Apr 2005
I have seen many posts about readings concerning the future. The predictions seem absurd and unbelievable at first, but the author will reflect back onto the situation and know that their cards knew what they were talking about all along. I have also seen many posts saying that the future as presented in the cards is only a *possible* future, and the quarent can take actions to alter the direction things happen to be going in. What I want to ask you is... Have you ever seen a likely outcome spelled out in the cards, and because you had been 'warned', were you able to avoid the situation? How do you know for sure that you wouldn't have made the same choices you did, if you had not seen what could have happened in a reading?

Antharias	20 Apr 2005
Hi! I cant help you, but I join you in the same question. I think there are many "futures", however sometimes I get the same question: If the cards give you some info about the future, did they altered the future giving you another diferent of which had been on your "destiny"? Maybe the cards read a posible one, but if you had the one of the cards in your mind, is there any chance you change your own future yourself? Good question Niomi!

TheoMo	21 Apr 2005
Yes this is an excellent question, and reflects some unknowability about the future that may be inherent in human existence. It reminds me a lot of Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle -- the more precise you are about the location of any subatomic particle, the less likely you can know where it's going (or something like that). Maybe the very act of using tarot as a way of divining an event or in looking at a possible outcome, you already change the trajectory in some sense...who knows. theo

muteswan	21 Apr 2005
I recently had an experience, not tarot, but that may touch on this. I was in a car with a friend, and as he started the engine I realized we were going to get into an accident. I didn't say anything, just let the knowledge we were in a boat car and he was a good driver reassure me. It turned out just to be a fender-bender, but I discussed it with another friend afterwards, about whether I should have said something or not. He said to me that knowledge of the future can change events from how we foresee them, even by unconcious actions. Did I pause getting back into the car before the fender-bender, which lessened the event? Was it my will? They speak, they do not act. We act.

tarotbear	21 Apr 2005
Early in my book I discuss a spread I did for someone using the Horseshoe spread to ask a two-pronged question. He was looking for a new job and people were telling him how much the place he was looking into was the greatest place in the world, etc, and he wanted to know if it was true or just lip service. We did the Horseshoe spread for 'What if i stay?' and 'What if I go?' The 'stay' side was pretty boring and the 'go' side foretold that it would be the job he was anticipating. He left his job and took the offered one. About a week into the new job he discovered he had to work with some of the most miserable people spawned on the earth. During the second week of his job he received another job offer - and took it - and found out the 'second' new job was perfect! He stayed with that company for several years. If he had stayed with the 'stay' half of the reading, he might never have received the second job offer. The static job was boring; the lousy job led to a better job. Did this tarot reading alter the course of his events?

MeeWah	21 Apr 2005
muteswan wrote: ...They speak, they do not act. We act. Muteswan sums it up perfectly! It is what we *do* with the knowledge or information offered of our free will that makes the difference, that alters or changes conditions & may affect "outcome". Sans cards, then hubby & I with another couple were heading back home after a day trip upstate New York. I was in the passenger seat whence I zoned out; heard a strange rattling noise & saw an accident. The front passenger wheel spun out from the car & blew up; then saw nothing. It took a few seconds to register, but I insisted we pull over & stop. I think hubby was so surprised, he complied. Our friends in the backseat looked at each other, but said nothing. Afterwards, with everyone looking quizzically at me, I explained what I saw (& the noise which no one else heard) & that we needed to find a service station. This was late at night. The road we were on was through a thick woods with no lights other than the car's headlights. It seemed we were in the middle of nowhere; nothing recognizable. Someone wanted to know how we were to find a service station not knowing where we were. I thought about it, then said to keep driving, but slowly to avoid the accident I saw. Within a few minutes, we saw a light ahead. It was an all-night service station with a mechanic on duty. I said the car needed to go up on a lift--as if I really knew what I was talking about. It turns out we would have had a blow-out at any time. There have also been things foreseen with the cards that pertained to me or others. Some outcomes were changed; others not. I am sure that some conditions are subject to change if they are within our will or capabilities & we make use of the opportunity to do so by *being aware or informed*. Other things, however, may not be within our control or power, but we are still given precognitive warnings to prepare us to better meet whatever comes.

FaeryGodmother	21 Apr 2005
Niomi wrote: ... Have you ever seen a likely outcome spelled out in the cards, and because you had been 'warned', were you able to avoid the situation? How do you know for sure that you wouldn't have made the same choices you did, if you had not seen what could have happened in a reading? From my experience with longer term readings like a six month spread I have found that even with the 'warning' the events foretold have come to pass. I have debated with myself for a long time over the whys of this- for one even though I write down the long term readings I don't read them over everyday, so I usually forget exactly what it is they predict until I go back over them some six months to a year after they 'expire'. Secondly, with the long term readings I think I know what it is exactly they are predicting only to find that I was right about event but wrong about context. So me personally, I haven't been able to avoid certain outcomes despite warnings when they have come in long term readings. However, short term readings is a different thing. Usually because for short term/ immediate things I tend to use spreads that include positions like 'advice' or 'what I can do to achieve my goal'. Also I tend to keep short term readings more in mind. Mostly because my short term readings focus on specific problems I am experiencing right here, right now, things I can't really forget about. It is easier to recognise the situations/ events predicted when the layout that brought it to mind was done last night or last week, rather than six months ago. So short term readings do change the choices I make and even the reactions I have to other people/ situations/ events because of the foreknowledge of it. At least it does for me. As for your last question- I don't think its possible to know for sure whether I would react in the same way to a given event without foreknowledge of it. This is dipping dangerously close to quantum physics which, much as I love, gives me as much of a headache as time travel. :D Suffice to say, (and one particular reading comes to mind right now) that I have been given foreknowledge of certain things (like my partner deciding to make a sudden trip away) that without foreknowledge I might have taken very personally and gotten very upset about; as it was I was just blown out about how right I was with my reading and didn't think twice about his sudden decision. :D I hope that helps answer your question. love FGM

Cascade	21 Apr 2005
MeeWah I really liked that story. Do you think the cards are one way to help you tap into what's already there, but show you options? Maybe you had a warning in a previous spread that your subconscious held? I don't think, tho, that everyday 'warnings' have to be so intense for me. If I do a daily 2 card draw, the 5wands and the 8pents would be my warning I will get pulled into a conflict at work if I don;t isolate myself and just do my job. The tarot guided my future and made my life easier, which is why we use it,right? (hindsight,mostly LOL)

MeeWah	21 Apr 2005
Cascade wrote: MeeWah I really liked that story. Do you think the cards are one way to help you tap into what's already there, but show you options? Cascade: Thanks! Yes, I do believe the cards a means to access information, whether information personally held or from another source. Sometimes, however, there seems to be no options; or none that I can see. Such as: I foresaw a future with hubby before I actually knew him. He was a referral client. Soon after I began the reading, I was stunned to literally see me superimposed over one of the cards. That is, the card itself receded into a blur, but the "portrait" of me was clearly defined & "I" was moving & smiling. (Knew it to be a precognitive vision because the background was white, as occurs with such seeing in real time or in dreams.) I stumbled to a halt & had to make a strong effort to detach before continuing. There are other instances where it seems I am given information but unable to do anything--such as about passings & other events. These occur with & without the cards, may relate to those known to me or other; almost always involuntary. If they occur within a reading, they are oft not related to the actual reading query. Cascade wrote: Maybe you had a warning in a previous spread that your subconscious held? I had not done a personal reading for some time before the car incident occurred. At that time, I moreorless decided to not do personal readings, partly because I was getting information without the cards & there was also doubt I could read the cards well on a personal level. Even now, rarely do the personal readings because the cards not the only source of information. Cascade wrote: I don't think, tho, that everyday 'warnings' have to be so intense for me. If I do a daily 2 card draw, the 5wands and the 8pents would be my warning I will get pulled into a conflict at work if I don;t isolate myself and just do my job. The tarot guided my future and made my life easier, which is why we use it,right? (hindsight,mostly LOL) Agree Tarot can provide a edge towards dispelling uncertainty & the unknown; to know what to expect. Thus provide guidance towards the wiser actions or decisions. As I have stated elsewhere, foreknowledge can be both a boon & a curse.

WalesWoman	22 Apr 2005
When I first began reading I would do a Sunday Special for the week ahead and then spend the rest of the week pondering on the spirititual implications and what I needed to do or see or work on. I guess Tarot wanted me to know that cards could be taken literally, rather than philosophically... I can't remember the cards that came up, but it looked like an emotional upheaval, lot of swords and regrets later. I was thinking more of my psychological state, working on being more confidant and working through old baggage. Not much later a bit of a conflict of opinion occured and it just hit me that this is what the cards were talking about and the advice was Temperance... so I just stopped everything and thought about what I needed to say in such a way to avoid making it turn into something worse. It worked, I guess that is when I really began to realize that Tarot does work. It wasn't like when I read the cards I saw this happening, but recognized it when it was happening and was able to change the course of events... I think. LOL Honestly, how can you know unless you do a choice type spread, i.e., this is the likely outcome if I follow advice, this is the likely outcome if I do something different, this is what happens when fate throws all my logic out the window? Very interesting.

closrapexa	22 Apr 2005
I myself have asked myself that question. Now, I know in myself that the cards only show possibilities. For example, recently a friend of mine and hey boyfriend were having disagreements about something, and when I read for her, I saw a situation where no compromise could be made, and that she would eventually give in to his demands. I told her so, and warned her about this. Now, since then they have split up, and my friend came and told me that my reading was off, since she did not give in. I told her that the reading was one of possiblities, a warning of sorts. But I honestly don't know if it really changed anything. I suppose it is up to the querent and what he gets out of the reading. But another question is whether, in the "grand scheme of things" the reading is "planned" and what the quesrent hears greatly influences his/her actions. In essence, when does the reading become a self fulfilling prophecy?

Julien	22 Apr 2005
I've often wondered about this myself -- I do believe that the future is not written in the stone. This is especially true of the distant future. That said, I also think that the particular circumstances of the past and present, the people who are with us then and now, give that future shape. I think the Tarot can help us a lot with understanding the "then" and "now", and help us see what is possible in the future. Sometimes those future things will happen no matter what we do because we have no control over the circumstances that are making them happen (other people's motivations, actions, or simply the wonderful influence of mother nature or maybe God's humor). But a lot of times, I feel certain we can adjust our attitudes, take into account something in the past or the present, and change the outcomes. I think a lot of it depends upon what kind of spread and what kind of question you ask. I tend to never ask "fate" questions -- and on the rare occaisions when I read for others, I try to coax them away from the same thing. Partly, this is because I enjoy the adventure of living, and I think if I know what the future holds it's a bit like reading the end of a mystery before reading the rest of the book. So I have a bit of an aversion to that which is mine, and I don't necessarily recommend it to others. On the other hand, questions about understanding or needing to know to help achieve a goal, (i.e., "what do I need to know to make the summer productive?" a question Mike Gorth did a reading for me on recently; or recently I did a reading for a friend who asked, "what do I need to know to make my vacation really relaxing and fun?")... Well, those I can handle without too many problems -- and they often show an outcome that isn't necesssarily happy. That, I think, is because the frame of the question suggests avoiding problems or sometimes point to issues that need to be resolved that aren't easy to face. So, you see, what questions I ask, and the spreads I use, tend to feature the idea that the potential futures can be understood, and that they can be changed. Do I really change them? Well, until our brilliant scientists are able to manipulate time and space so that we can find out what would have happened if we had acted differently, we'll never know. And, quite frankly, it doesn't matter so far as I can tell. The Tarot helps me understand something about myself, or helps me help someone else, and that's the most important thing. The rest is just the great adventure of life -- up, down, and all around. But sometimes I do see things in cards that tell me something unavoidable is about to happen. Generally, the conditions shaping events are beyond my control (acts of nature, acts of God -- whatever you want to call them -- "failing physics", as a friend once said), or the behavior, choices and attitudes of others -- there's nothing I can do there, so when the readings show those sorts of variables shaping the future, it's simply nice to have a good warning in advance. And it's happened a few times. Ah well, I think, at least I know there's a tough time ahead, so I'll just see what happens... Just my two cents... Julien

SunChariot	22 Apr 2005
Niomi wrote: I have seen many posts about readings concerning the future. The predictions seem absurd and unbelievable at first, but the author will reflect back onto the situation and know that their cards knew what they were talking about all along. I have also seen many posts saying that the future as presented in the cards is only a *possible* future, and the quarent can take actions to alter the direction things happen to be going in. What I want to ask you is... Have you ever seen a likely outcome spelled out in the cards, and because you had been 'warned', were you able to avoid the situation? How do you know for sure that you wouldn't have made the same choices you did, if you had not seen what could have happened in a reading? Well, I don't suppose you can ever prove it because once the future happens it takes a form and I don't think there is any way to prove exactly what would have happened had you acted differently.... That being said, I would have to say that yes, I believe I have been able to change things in my life with my Tarot. I really do believe we can, When I started doing readings, they were predicting a future I did not want (in the area of my love life). The next few readings all said the same,4-5 (using not identical questions, but quite similar and all on the same topic) all predicting the same end result. Finally, I asked what I could do to change the future to the one I wanted. I got some concrete answers. And I set about changing myself in the way the cards asked me too, and in the following readings, the more I followed the card's advice, the more my future reading predicted I was now going in the right direction, and showing me a future much more to my liking in that area. Anyway, a little while later I got busy with other things, and didn't think about it again for a few months, maybe I got a bit smug and sure it would happen.......I guess whatever changes I had made I forgot about. A few months later, I asked again about the future of that situation and I got the same negative future as I had originally gotten. I asked again what I could do to change it...and got pretty well the same answers again. And as I went back to implementing them again, the future in that area keeps coming up rosey in my readings. And to me, that is too much to be a coincidence, It gives me the idea that if you know the future and you don't care for it, you CAN ask what to change to get to a future you would like more and you can do it,and really change things. Often you can just ask the cards if it is possible to change a situation to the desired result and how, then follow the advice, and that can give you the power to do it. That is what I believe.:-) BTW, this future is only slated to happen in 1-2 years from now...Which is interesting in itself as that period falls right smack in the middle of my Lover's year, the last Lover's year in my life, so it ought to teach me some pretty important lessons.:-) Bar

carly	23 Apr 2005
Have any of you ever seen the movie "Silding Doors"? It starts with Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) getting fired and going to catch the subway train, and one life starts if she catches the train, another if she doesn't. The simple thing (cathcing the train) causes both of the lives to split apart and as the film goes on they become more and more distant. However, some things happen in both of the "lives" and it makes you wonder "do some things happen anyway, no matter the road you are given/choose?" and I winder if it is like this i real life, you have different paths but in the end you're destined to experience some things no matter what you do. Do the two doors slide apart only to meet again in the middle, before they're off again? And if you KNOW that you're going to miss you're train, does that effect wether you catch it or not? I think i may have went off on a tangent, but it's a great film and it makes you're head buzz for days afterwards. Carly

SunChariot	23 Apr 2005
carly wrote: Have any of you ever seen the movie "Silding Doors"? It starts with Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) getting fired and going to catch the subway train, and one life starts if she catches the train, another if she doesn't. The simple thing (cathcing the train) causes both of the lives to split apart and as the film goes on they become more and more distant. However, some things happen in both of the "lives" and it makes you wonder "do some things happen anyway, no matter the road you are given/choose?" and I winder if it is like this i real life, you have different paths but in the end you're destined to experience some things no matter what you do. Do the two doors slide apart only to meet again in the middle, before they're off again? And if you KNOW that you're going to miss you're train, does that effect wether you catch it or not? I think i may have went off on a tangent, but it's a great film and it makes you're head buzz for days afterwards. Carly Never saw, or heard of, that movie but I would have loved to. It sounds fascinating! I always love that kind of stuff. :-) I think some things you CAN change but some you can't. I think we have a lot of free will in life, but we cannot read the future. If we are about to make an error in judgement that will seriously harm us and we don't see it coming, then I think something (the universe,G-d) steps in and protects us from ourselves and won't let us go there no matter how we try. There is some kind of master plan I think, and it has likely to do with our continual growth and heading in directions that lead to that. If we head off in the wrong direction I think life sets us back on the right path, but other than that I think we have a lot of free will. Those are my opinions, anyway,:-) Bar PS, I would say that yes, if you know that you are going to miss the train, it affects whether you will catch it. Also, if you knew for sure you were going to miss the 9:00 train, you might leave the house later and catch the next one, which would set up a whole new set of circumstances, and you would run across a whole new set of people and circumstances. In my experience, also, I would say that the very act of doing a Tarot reading has the capacity to change the future. Because just knowing something you did not before can change your attitude to a situation. And our actions and life are created from our attitudes to a great extent whether consciously or unconsciously.

carly	23 Apr 2005
It's a great film, it's set in London and Gwyneth adopts an English accent, so I don't know if it's only shown in the uk, but it's one of my favs and although it's usually shown late (it has some..."spicy" moments in it ;-)) I have to stay up and watch it because it's so different and it makes you go off in a "what if..." dream. Master plan, yeah, that sums up what i think really. Free will vs destiny? why not both? Carly

SunChariot	23 Apr 2005
carly wrote: Master plan, yeah, that sums up what i think really. Free will vs destiny? why not both? Carly I will see if I can find the film on video.:-) That's what I think too. I think it is a combination of both. Bar

Cascade	23 Apr 2005
If I put all these thoughts together...I can create my own future by my actions in the now and I can use the tarot to tap into some forms of Divine Guidance for my choices. I like that. Thanks

The Tarot altering the course of events thread was originally posted on 20 Apr 2005 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.