Tarot: Predictive or something far deeper

[Teheuti]

Originally Posted by Nevada

He describes having dreamed that he would have an accident, changing his route that morning to try to avoid it, and then having an accident anyway.

Are these kinds of things predestined sometimes, I wonder, or does our unconscious know all this in advance and choose -- to dream about an accident so we change our route and have one, or to enter a bank right when a robbery is about to happen. Are they, as you say, opportunities?

A good friend dreamed of dying in a car accident. So that day she drove extra carefully saying the whole time an affirmation about choosing to live. She glanced aside for a second and was in a freeway accident that everyone declared should have killed her but didn't (minor scratches only - a totaled car). She sees it as an awareness opportunity and a lesson about the power of choice.

Some things we can't change, others we can. I liken it to being in a river current. Most of the time we can't fight the current to swim counter it, but we can use the variations in it to ease ourselves to a desired or more hospitable location.

Mary

[Teheuti]

Originally Posted by Gazel

an incident, or something taking place, or happening, is not just about one person, but about all those taking part in it. And that those people were all part of making or creating what happened

Haven't read it in decades, but the book The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder is all about this. It won the Pulitzer.

[Gazel]

Originally Posted by Elven

This is what I see the Major Arcana as being - the structure - like an empty multi-story building yet to have its interior in place. The minors are the interior placements - each floor or room has potential and is probable. I not only have one multi-story building of structure and probabilities - but a street full, and a city full. I wind my way through those streets and structures, my GPS is my emotions, choices, freewill, abilities ...

Hope this makes sense.

Dear Elven

This TOTALLY makes sense and it is so beautiful too. You just provided me a metaphor for better understanding the influence (in lack of better term) of the Major Arcana on the Minor. Or the connection between them.

That the level 3 (swords) and the Knight room are not the same in the Judgement building as they would be in for example the Empress building.

I feel that I've been seaching for the right framework for understanding the play and flux between the Majors and the Minors.

I do know there is more to your post than this, but this really triggered me. Or put on some light in my building, so to speak. This is really intriguing.

Thank you.

Gazel.

[Grizabella]

Originally Posted by Elven

This makes me think then, that there is also the possibility that the robber had not made his decision at the time of the reading to do the robbery either - it may have been present in his unconscious, but not surfaced or acted upon (such as planning) - it may have been spontaneous on his behalf, and hour before. There are those probabilities again.

I couldn't quite follow the whole post you made. It was mind-boggling to me, so I guess I'll have to come back to it some other time and see if it sinks in.

But this quote I've used I found interesting. So you're saying that, at the time of the reading, the robber hadn't made up his mind to do the robbery, so that's why the reading didn't catch it?

[firemaiden]

I loved Elven's ruminations too and they got me to thinking...

We are turning around the issues of "what is the future?" and "what is predestination?" and 'what is divination?" and "is there such a thing?" and "if so, how do you ever know?" and "do tarot cards really do anything?", "does tarot 'work'?" and "what does 'working' mean?"

On the lowest, most unexamined level, tarot cards do what they are supposed to do... we throw them, we pull them out of the stack, we take note of the probable meanings, and wait and see if something happens in the next few days or weeks that we can relate back to the cards. I got the Three of Swords, and three days later I had a sleepless night. Voilà! Presto! Instant prediction of the future with one hundred percent accuracy!!!

Elven points out that everyone involved in future events has a piece in the puzzle. But, you see, that's just it... .. philosophically it's impossible: if you can predict the future at all, it would be a future that actually will happen, not a future that could have happened... but didn't. Such is not the future.

But the future does not exist. It never did. I like Elven's analogy of everyone's future being a house under construction. I like to call it a vector of force that we set in motion. "This is the house you've constructed and the direction you're going in..." is a reading of the present, and the past.

To divination I say "uncle'. The future, the real future, exists in hindsight. Except for genetic pre-pramming -- which dictates we will fight for food, shelter, mates and territory, grow old and require reading glasses -- "Predestination" is a construct of revisiting the past.

Therefore, the very thought-provoking question brought up by Umbrae and by Mary, "is tarot predictive or something far deeper?" - can never be satisfactorily answered. The mind cannot understand itself... Unless there are other parallel universes we can pop into on occasion... like the underside of the mobius strip...

If prediction were all there was to tarot, many of us would not bother turning the cards over and over, asking how the the flapping of the tarot butterfly wings connected to the monsoon in India.

But let's ask the Thoth what it would like to contribute to this discussion, shall we??? I've gotten the Princess of Disks. Oh I love how her winding horns and woven hair, the tangled branches and splayed roots of denuded trees behind her, and the gnarled twisting of her infinite cape -- like a thousand tangled wires, connecting everything to everything... I love how she points with her gleaming staff into the depths of the underworld, mining for precious gems with her thoughts -- as if thoughts could skewer to the center of the earth.

Methinks best of all, the tarot is a reflective mirror for exploration of psychic depths.

[Teheuti]

Originally Posted by firemaiden

But let's ask the Thoth what it would like to contribute to this discussion, shall we???

How revolutionary - to ask the tarot's opinion! [That was meant to be awe & delight at the obviousness of the suggestion.]
Yes, the Princess of Disks likes to delve deep and study the situation.

[Umbrae]

Originally Posted by firemaiden

Methinks best of all, the tarot is a reflective mirror for exploration of psychic depths.

Originally Posted by Teheuti

Yes, the Princess of Disks likes to delve deep and study the situation.

...looking down, her face aglow by the shining of Malkuth...

[Gazel]

Originally Posted by firemaiden

I loved Elven's ruminations too and they got me to thinking...

Methinks best of all, the tarot is a reflective mirror for exploration of psychic depths.

And after reading your post too my head is spinning ... . I feel like I've touched an electrically charged wire or something.

Actually I'm beginning to think that the Magician in my little experiment is exactly telling me this - what tarot is about; both potential and manifestation. He is himself the tarot personalized or manifested - with the relics on his table.

And like any other trickster figure, I simply can't retain him long enough to get the whole story. He sorts of evades any attempt to be fully comprehended and understood at one time. But he himself knows and he skillfully directs (t)his knowing.

All I can do is to retreat for a while from my urge to grasp it all here and now, contemplate and then follow an advice I just got ;o)

Love to you all, Gazel.

[Rosanne]

Originally Posted by firemaiden

Elven points out that everyone involved in future events has a piece in the puzzle. But, you see, that's just it... .. philosophically it's impossible: if you can predict the future at all, it would be a future that actually will happen, not a future that could have happened... but didn't. Such is not the future.

..and my question is, and has always been "of what point is the predicting the future, other than sensational interest?"
One can change possibilities- which is why I use Tarot; Which builds the House that Elven wonderfully speaks of and makes a future. If I predict the future- it is a done deal is it not?

Originally Posted by Firemaiden

Therefore, the very thought-provoking question brought up by Umbrae and by Mary, "is tarot predictive or something far deeper?" - can never be satisfactorily answered. The mind cannot understand itself... Unless there are other parallel universes we can pop into on occasion... like the underside of the mobius strip...

I think rather than 'something deeper' it should read as 'something other'
and I would have to say for me it is 'as well as predictive' and more important.

Originally Posted by Firemaiden

Methinks best of all, the tarot is a reflective mirror for exploration of psychic depths.

That, but also more plainly the opening up and displaying of other considerations when we act. Other options than the ones that got us to predicaments in the now- other ways of looking- instead of the same'o same'o that has not worked in building the house.
I still like to occasionally see a glimpse of how it all turned out- but what a bummer that it cannot be changed.

Elven -Loved your post!!! Also Gazel's ideas.
~Rosanne

[Teheuti]

There's a certain pragmatism in my approach. Predictive tarot works—sometimes—but is not always reliable because of our own failure to understand or because change is possible or quite a few other things including it not always being in our best interest to know the direction things will go. Among other things it can be disempowering and/or demoralizing.

I try not to ignore it when it knocks loudly and insists I pay attention, but, as a reader I've looked for where I can be the most consistently helpful (both to myself and others).

That's when I came up with the statement, "Tarot helps me meet whatever comes in the best possible way." The "whatever comes" is really important. I try not to be tied to a single possibility or limited by a single outcome (that may or may not come to pass).

I imagine this as taking a stance, as Feldenkrais describes it, in which I can use my full potential to move equally well in any direction as needed. To do that I have to come to a dynamic center and be aware of and have access to a whole range of options. Insight (versus prediction) helps me exist within a dynamic and react to each event without the constraints of expectations that may not be accurate.

On the other hand, prediction (most often as probability), can help me be aware of opportunities and of consequences to otherwise unrecognized or even unknown actions. I don't want to throw it out, but it is not, for me, the baseline from which I operate, only one of the elements with which I work.

Am not sure if this makes sense, as I'm only now adding some of these implications to my chosen definition of tarot. I appreciate this discussion and everyone's ideas tremendously.