You ALL are so wrong on interpreting cards!
Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 21 Dec 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.
| Ophiel |
21 Dec 2002 |
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Now that I got your attention, I must also add that you are also so right! Even though I've been associated with cards for twenty years, I've never had the urge to 'read' them and am only considering that now. I have been more interested in the cards for their esoteric value. In any event, the more books I pick up and check for 'meanings,' and the more comments I read here about the *true* meaning of a particular card, the clearer it is how totally subjective card interpretation is. At least, the current trends of card themes from anything spanning cloister windows to alcoholic spirits.
It is odd to pick up the Bunning book and see the 7-swords 'meaning' so diversely defined.
Decks follow so many themes including the whim of the artist. Perhaps what we are so drawn to in those decks with which we identify, is that we see the worlds in a similar manner as the artist does, and can take on his/her 22 archetypal ideals and 56 slices of life.
I personally am interested mostly in the esoteric decks, even historical (Marseilles) and the imagery is usually pretty close (and this isn't even a true statement!) and it is fascinating to see how a person relates to a particular deck and lets the deck talk.
Yes, time to throw away all those bothersome books and just look at the cards, shut down the thinking, and react. Of course, I know many of you already know that.
Perhaps tarot decks are like Truth, showing that it comes in so many flavors...
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| allibee |
21 Dec 2002 |
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hehehe, that 7 Swords is a real doozie, isn't it. (I actually started a thread on it last week because I was having problems relating to the ambiguity of it!)
You are right of course, the truth comes in many flavours, and just as many shades LOL.
Good luck on your voyage, and I'm sure your new purpose with the cards will compliment your old one.... and vice versa
allibee
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| Diana |
21 Dec 2002 |
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Yes and no.
Shouldn't there be some kind of agreement amongst tarologues what the cards are supposed to mean? Otherwise, we may as well just take 78 bits of cardboard, draw anything on them (we could even ask an elephant to draw them - apparently they're pretty good at drawing pictures), and then say, well, this card looks like a man eating a banana, so it means that you should be satisfied with what the earth has provided you with.
If we just all go along with our instinct, then we may as well not only throw away the books, but also the whole concept of Tarot. And read with tooth-picks, as Umbrae once suggested. Which is an excellent idea to sharpen one's intuition (I have been practicing) but has nothing to do with Tarot.
Tarot is Tarot. It's not just pictures on cards. (Which is one of the reasons that I am attracted to unillustrated minors.)
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| Khatruman |
21 Dec 2002 |
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I responded before to something similar in a post on "When Tarot is no longer tarot." I don't want to repeat myself so I will try to get to the main point of what I said.
In a nutshell, I see it as I see reading any piece of thoughtful literature. There is not meant to be one hard, fast meaning, but shades of meaning. The danger of knowing that is what I am seeing in your observations: believing that a particular card's meaning stands for nothing, or everything. There are things that are "wrong". If I were to choose the Two of Cups and said that it means I am going to die tomorrow, well, I would put that as a wrong interpretation. How do you test the validity of a meaning then? Test it against the original source of the message, the card. If you think there is a particular message here, find something that backs up the interpretation: an image in the card, a message from your intuition, an interpretation from an author. Validate the interpretation with similarities in other things about the card. You should see a cluster of meaning around the card. It may differ in ways sometimes, but it falls around that cluster.
For anything that is at a higher level of thinking, right and wrong don't come into play as much anymore. It is more about understandings, relationships, etc. I fellow teacher who deals with math and has taught for many years told me a couple months ago that he had an epiphany, that math is all about relationships. He taught the nuts and bolts and pieces of it for many years, but now the wholeness of it suddenly made sense in the realization that it is all about relationships. There is a wholeness there in tarot, it is just not as simple as 2+2=4
Peace!
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| Ophiel |
21 Dec 2002 |
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Khatruman -- Rather than look for a pattern in what I am saying, focus on the message. My post here is a reaction I had to so many books with varying meanings to the cards, the same cards (RWS) and not how I personally feel about the cards, what I see in them. My use of the cards is more of an esoteric nature, influenced more by the number and element than pictures. Some of the books I have seen have shades of very different meanings for the same card. And that's my point...IF my observation is correct (the variances in interpretation), then it is not I who is opening up the interpretations, but the authors of the various books I read.
According to Hulse in "Western Mysteries," the 7-Sword symbolizes Moon in Aquarius, which would give the card the general meaning of unstability. The WRS deck was devised by a member of the Golden Dawn, remember, so Waite's interpretation of the cards would be based on this, and the basis is the four Kabalistic worlds and the astrology of the sign decans (10°.) If you are interested in such matters, Lon du Quette has a very clear description in his book, "The Chicken Qabalah."
Back to the 7-Swords, in the book, "The Heart of the Tarot" we get a very different picture...
"Although this card looks utterly sneaky and deceitful, we must remind ourselves that sevens represent victory. This is apparent in Mary K. Greer's notion that this card can also represent taking care of ourselves or taking a stand/position and maintaining it. She also suggests it may reflect a test of mastery, an act of bravery or daing." And there is more, if you want to read the text, see p. 124.
These are very different interpretations for the very same card, same deck. And that is my point...there is no standardization of meaning for the cards and like so many other facets of the human state, it all depends on one's preferences. Add to the mix here that any artist will represent the deck as s/he sees fit, and one is either left with one's own personal interpretation of the card, or at least sympathetic support for those books we choose to base our beliefs on.
I personally believe that Truth comes in many varieties, as I stated. And approaching the cards from an esoteric orientation, put more 'faith' in the occult meaning of the numbers, and the elements. And I realize my belief system may serve my needs but seem entirely out of alignment by others. That does not detract from the meaning I find in my own system.
BTW, you wrote: " I don't want to repeat myself so to get the whole gist of my argument there..." I just want you to know I am posting these observations as interesting curiosities and seeming incongruencies with the cards, and not with hopes of arguing with anyone. I had hoped these were stimulating thoughts, not a call to arms. ;)
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| Khatruman |
21 Dec 2002 |
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If I sound like I am making a call to arms, I do apologize for that. I am simply calling for a stimulation of discussion and debate. I guess I have the sense that a forum means a discussion of various viewpoints so that all involved come to broaden their horizons. I didn't think you wanted a "yeah, me too!" response from your observation. From your response, I got a thoughtful look at your viewpoint, and your observations. It became more of a clarifying of what you said.
I do not think your point is at odds with mine either, though. My main point was that meanings can vary within a text (I am using text in a broader sense than writing. "Text" can be used to mean any constructed work), but also that one can't simply say, "Oh, then it can mean anything" or say, "Well, I guess that means there is no meaning there at all since anyone can say whatever they want." I see that is not what you meant, but others could interpret it so. My main point is that whatever meaning you DO get out of it must have some backing within the text itself to be valid. This is what you did in your interpretation of 7 of Swords.
Peace!
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| Alex |
21 Dec 2002 |
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There's something about having an aid to help you put into words what you somehow, somewhere, already "know". The Tarot cards can work for that.
Inkblots, clowds in the sky, tea leafs can work as well.
The Tarot is not only an aid to making associations to unblock the unconscious. It is can work as such, but it is not ONLY that.
Alex.
Originally posted by Diana
Otherwise, we may as well just take 78 bits of cardboard, draw anything on them (we could even ask an elephant to draw them - apparently they're pretty good at drawing pictures), and then say, well, this card looks like a man eating a banana, so it means that you should be satisfied with what the earth has provided you with.
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| Ophiel |
21 Dec 2002 |
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Not a problem at all, Khatruman! I do think this is an interesting idea, though, since interpretation is really more open than we might think. I know in magick at least, there is an interplay of learning how to communicate in symbols with the subconscious mind, and perhaps that is what the main issue here, and why different books can offer varying points of view. I see it all the time in the group here, too, where someone will post a comment about a card or combo, and then someone else will offer up something else, completely different.
Since there is no universal definitions for all cards (and if there was, only one book for interpreting the cards would be necessary!) perhaps working with a deck is like surrendering to that deck as representing a basic symbology of the inquistor's world, that through pictures and symbols, answers will emerge. Three people can look at the same spread and see different meanings.
And perhaps the cards help us sort through our own subconscious mix, stirring and mixing thoughts, feelings, and actions, to help us 'see' responses from our deeper mind.
Or, perhaps something else...
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| Karenwhe |
22 Dec 2002 |
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I believe we can use anything we want, 78 bits of cardboard drawn by an elephant is just fine if it talks to you. The images are there to stimulate your subconscious to receive messages that your conscious doesn’t get (as it exists in a different frequency).
Like Diana said you can use tooth-picks. Personally I used to read in coffee ("mud" coffee - if anyone knows what that is), it is quite common in Europe and the Middle East. I also started reading 15 years ago with regular cards (not Tarot). I know people who read in clouds and other shapes and forms. If it "talks" or "clicks" to you and the messages come - it is just fine. This is the main reason that Tarot don't have a single definition, they only help you to develop and use your sixth sense (which in most humans is not developed from birth).
Remember, we create our own reality (which is really an illusion anyway), so there are as many meanings to a card as stars in the sky.
What I personally believe is; that the reader must be able to "connect" and/or "channel" use energies to read for another person. This skill is mostly important for reading to another person as you are trying to enter and read their reality not yours (which is a different set of illusions that you have to enter) and this skill is significantly important to give accurate readings -IMHO.
For yourself, it is just anything that triggers your subconscious and works well, is just fine.
As for starting to read the Tarot; from my opinion again – it doesn’t matter what type of interpretation you use, it also doesn’t matter if you are right or wrong at the beginning – it is important that it gets you going and develops you intuition and with time you will no longer need any help from any book.
From my experience I remember when “I knew I got the hang of it” – that was when I started seeing messages that were not related to positions or meaning of the card but still they were accurate. Then I knew I am using my intuition and the cards are just a stimulator. In my good days, really good days, I don’t need cards to read to anyone – just a picture of the person (or the person in front of me, of course). But the problem is that we need tools most of the time, to help us when we are not at that high point of intuitive receptiveness.
Originally posted by Diana
Yes and no.
Shouldn't there be some kind of agreement amongst tarologues what the cards are supposed to mean? Otherwise, we may as well just take 78 bits of cardboard, .draw anything on them (we could even ask an elephant to draw them
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| allibee |
22 Dec 2002 |
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Hi again,
I think I made a post when I came here a mere month ago = 500 posts ago nearly, LOL, that when I first began trying to learn the tarot I found it a bit hard to come to grips with trying to remember the different meanings of 78 cards, let alone remember the different meanings if you reverse them.
So I went out and brought another book and guess what, they had yet another set of meanings, so I brought another book and low and behold - you guessed it - another set of meanings without barely an accord between them.
This was something of a decisive factor at the time in helping me to 'drop' tarot for a while. Then I went back to it, and brought another book and the pattern started again.
I was also niavely stunned too when I found different decks with different depictions.... just what is going on here, I asked myself so many times, why can't people agree?
But of course the many flavours are just stepping stones. No one person's situation in a reading is ever the exact same as anothers. So we need all these flavours and shades, because what one author or illustrator may miss out on, may be picked up by another.
Each card is a multi faceted diamond, which is why in some readings I give, the four cups for instance means one thing and in another, it means something widely different, or I just translate it in the context of it being a four, or just a cup... the permutations are as many and varied as the facets.
Does it matter as long as the story remains the same?
Whilst I realise your interest is more esoteric, when you read the cards it is important for the story to emerge in a cohesive manner.
Imagine a really good fable or genre book which was written each chapter by a different person with no reflection on the plot or the previous writer. Would make for a very heavy read would it not? What would you be able to get out of it? Probably a very bland, mind contracting muddle that it is very difficult to 'get into', and would you remember it or just try to forget it and not be so dumb as to buy something like that in future?
What I am trying to say is that each card can be seen as a plot twist within the whole, but by neccessity each character in each book and each setting is different, thus every book - unless plagerised - is completely different although it might be of the genre: Love; Romance; Politics; Chiller; and so on. It's the same with real life people.
It is true that my cards have become more open to me in the last few years than they ever have, and I feel it is because I have so many and varied life experiences under my belt now ,I can relate to more and more facets of the same quintessential truths. NOW if I ever find just one truth for one card, I would call myself either a very accomplished reader - or a very niave one. There, two facets in action!
allibee
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| Khatruman |
22 Dec 2002 |
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Originally posted by allibee
Each card is a multi faceted diamond, which is why in some readings I give, the four cups for instance means one thing and in another, it means something widely different, or I just translate it in the context of it being a four, or just a cup... the permutations are as many and varied as the facets.
Does it matter as long as the story remains the same?
when you read the cards it is important for the story to emerge in a cohesive manner.
Imagine a really good fable or genre book which was written each chapter by a different person with no reflection on the plot or the previous writer. Would make for a very heavy read would it not? What would you be able to get out of it?
What I am trying to say is that each card can be seen as a plot twist within the whole, but by neccessity each character in each book and each setting is different, thus every book - unless plagiarised - is completely different although it might be of the genre: Love; Romance; Politics; Chiller; and so on. It's the same with real life people.
allibee
Wonderful observations regarding the "book" of the tarot. And this often happens in literature with a story. Everyone deals with the same text, yet gets something different out of it, in regards to their life experience. Even within a person: I look at Shakespeare vastly differently than I did when I saw it in high school. The main idea is that it connects with humanity; that is how literature survives and why the tarot survives: it connects. Also, though writers, or rather storytellers, do not plagiarize, certain stories are often repeated in literature. Take, for instance, Cinderella. The folk story has been recorded in well over 300 versions in countries as far away from each other as Viet Nam, Miqmaq Tribes of native America, Serbia, and on and on. Though there are distinct variations, there is a commonality of storyline and theme. And these are stories that were created by these cultures far before mass communication or even world wide travel.
Thank you for that observation. This is a wonderful tread!
Peace!
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| tarotbear |
22 Dec 2002 |
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One reason there are so many Tarot meanings for the same card is that no one card only means one thing. Today I pulled the 3 Cups, Meewah pulled the 3 Cups, Allibee pulled the three Cups, and pollux pulled the three cups. We used four different spreads and asked four different and diverse questions. How could the only meaning being 'a party or celebration' answer my question about the future, Meewah's about money, Allibee's about work, and Pollux's question about sex?
It couldn't.
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| Karenwhe |
23 Dec 2002 |
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Originally posted by Khatruman
Wonderful observations regarding the "book" of the tarot. And this often happens in literature with a story. Everyone deals with the same text, yet gets something different out of it, in regards to their life experience. ............
Peace!
This just reminded me of an old system which I used for diviation, and I should start using again.......
Reading in books...... no.... not reading books... but IN books.
There is a system where you can tell stuff from text of books, it is a wonderful system you can use any book. I know some that use the bible for it. I just use any book out of my library.
If anyone knows about this system or wants to know about this system I will open a new thread for it.
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| Khatruman |
23 Dec 2002 |
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Originally posted by Karenwhe
There is a system where you can tell stuff from text of books, it is a wonderful system you can use any book. I know some that use the bible for it. I just use any book out of my library.
If anyone knows about this system or wants to know about this system I will open a new thread for it.
Wow, I was just searching out a paper I did in grad school about 6 years on Robinson Crusoe where I refer to Bibliomancy, which is the practice of which you speak. I remember when I was in church as a youngster and was told that if something was troubling me, I should take the Bible open it at random and use the passage I find with a point of the finger as my message (this wasn't told by the church officially, but by someone in it). This was my first introduction into divination. I think I discussed this some time ago in the divination section of the forum if you wanted to do a search for bibliomancy. I also asked if anyone wanted to read my paper and got a couple requests. I am going to finally send that out to those souls who requested it, since I finally found the paper, and to anyone else interested. It has a lot of background history of bibliomancy. I think there was actually a site on the net where you can do bibliomancy.
Peace!
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| Ophiel |
23 Dec 2002 |
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Originally posted by Karenwhe:
"There is a system where you can tell stuff from text of books, it is a wonderful system you can use any book. I know some that use the bible for it."
That lit a light in my head and sent me running to my stack of long-overdue unread books...and near the bottom is an OOP book "The Bible and the Tarot" by Corinne Heline. I bought it a few years ago when I was grabbing anything esoteric related to the cards. The book is steeped in Kabalistic thought and the Bible...and the Major Arcana.
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| MeeWah |
23 Dec 2002 |
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Khatruman: I have used bibliomancy since wee, & it works wonderfully with the bible or any other book; also more recently, with an I Ching book.
There are also times where the first words of a song I hear also provide inspiration.
Am sending ye a PM.
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| Teal |
23 Dec 2002 |
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I think maybe bibliomancy and cartomancy would also relate to synchronicity------right?
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| tarotbear |
23 Dec 2002 |
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Originally posted by Teal
I think maybe bibliomancy and cartomancy would also relate to synchronicity------right?
Yes, because when you open that book, snychonicity is what is supposed to guide your figer to the verse that you need. I tried an online bibliomancy thingie once, and it gave me a quote from 'Huckleberry Finn'; I don't rememeber what it was, but I sat there trying to figure out what it had to do with my question. Synchroniocity with cartomancy I understand much better.
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| DarkElectric |
23 Dec 2002 |
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I use bibliomancy with a dictionary. I have had ever so much success with this, sometimes, more than I want to, because it's painfully accurate sometimes. It will give me the very word to sum up the situation, or describe what's happening. Word by word, the answers come out. I descovered this by accident, being a kid and playing with the dictionary. ( My Gramma taught me to read really early. I've been able to read since I was 4!) This method still works every time for me.
As far as reading cards, I tend to use different decks for different questions. I find that pairing a deck that's more in tune to whatever the subject is (if I know beforehand) gives a more accurate reading. But that's just me. I think certain decks give me better answers to some questions than others, based on the system of the cards, the artist's conception, what I or my querent wants to know about, and lately, I try to take the personality of my sitter into account.
I use the Voyager a lot for New Age folks who would be scared witless by something like the Thoth. Some people just don't like Crowley. (I have developed a good relationship as of late with my Thoth deck. Took a lot of time, though.) I find that as I grow in learning tarot, the meanings of the cards as applied to distinct situations becomes more apparent, as well as which deck seems to fit best in any given situation. But that's just what is working for me right now. I just happen to have a lot of great decks I love to read with, so I use them!
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| Karenwhe |
24 Dec 2002 |
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Originally posted by Ophiel
......."The Bible and the Tarot" by Corinne Heline. I bought it a few years ago when I was grabbing anything esoteric related to the cards. The book is steeped in Kabalistic thought and the Bible...and the Major Arcana.
Yep this is Bibliomancy. I haven't found a definition for reading in ANY book. I found that Bibles in all languages that I know (4 of them) are very complicated, they don't use simple language and it make life difficult. In the origin of the bibles (New and Old Testament are written in "Aramit" which is the old form of Hebrew. I read both and it still takes a few dictionaries to make sense of the words. I found that both in English and other languages is the same thing when it comes to bibles.
I don't believe in anything difficult in life, things are made complicated only when someone doesn’t understand them :) - IMHO. So, I use any book that reads simple language.
I also have a system whereby when I read for business, I pick up a business book, when I read for jobs I pick up an HR book (I happen to have a lot of books), but any simple language book will do. When I am in an esoteric mood I pick up the bible in English. So far that happened once in 15 years. :)
I learnt this system from my mother and she always used to pick up books from her detective story books and thrillers……. lololol.
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The You ALL are so wrong on interpreting cards! thread was originally posted on 21 Dec 2002 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.
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