Understanding & Responding to Thoth/Thoth-based Tarot Criticism - Advice?

gregory said:

See it all you like - you have to see what you see how you see it - but don't bother sharing it with the sitter......

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Example of what I said:

probie said:

The third card contains the some difficulty for you. While the card itself speaks of self-awareness and resourcefulness (the *Three of Scepters – Virtue*: http://taroteca.multiply.com/photos/album/337/Liber_T_Stars_Eternal##photo=67), it doesn’t relate well to the other ones and goes in the opposite direction. What the Tarot is saying is that you (1) lack some understanding of what you want in a career and (2) the ability to get there through business contacts, referrals, the soft job market (that’s where a friend of a friend knows of an opening), and possibly even the skills to do it. This last part about skills isn’t bad as the fourth card has something to say about it, but not having a direction or a way in through contacts can stop a career path like a dead-end street.

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Here, a normally great card that has the Sun in Aries, is high up the Tree of Life, and it's in the highest world (using DuQuette for most of this here with his Tarot math of that's "[n of s] + [p in zc] = sc," where N = Number, S = suit/world, P = planet, ZC = zodiac sign, and SC = small card). So it's a very happy card! However with two flanking water cards and using the Book T system, it gets quashed hard and weakened. So now self-awareness, good character, ability to get things done, etc. takes on a Rx meaning (a la Greer's reversal book which is quite flexible with what that could mean).

Well, that's what I'm doing - right now - how's that working? Oh BTW, doing almost a Intuitive card reading nearly every day now online! I still do thank you Greggers for the introduction!

And why does the card speak of these things ? Do you need to show the sitter that - without fancy language ? Please tell me you only said the quote bit and not the bit underneath ?????? (at which I glaze over and think NOOOOOOOOOO !)

(MAN I like the glorpish method when I can just say what I see !)

gregory said:

And why does the card speak of these things ? Do you need to show the sitter that - without fancy language ? Please tell me you only said the quote bit and not the bit underneath ?????? (at which I glaze over and think NOOOOOOOOOO !)

(MAN I like the glorpish method when I can just say what I see !)

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Yes, I can say that with complete honesty. They never got any of the Tarot math a la DuQuette (2003).

I finally got a model. Saw this documentary on John & Julie Gottman (the "Drs." - both PhDs, that is) who work @ Seattle University (or something like that?). Well, they'll tape a couple's interaction in their home for 3 days straight (got infrared cams too). After an hour or two, couple's back to old tricks cameras or no.

They will also film a 3 min moderate arguement. Each person of the couple sits in a chair. Cameras, heart monitors, breath monitors, etc., even a "wiggle monitor" under the chair. Go second by second over the footage, frame by frame, and classify the interactions from a level 1-4 negative + count the number of "repair attempts" and "attempts received" by the partner. They then can predict to a 93% accuracy the couple's chance of still being together in 7 years just from the tape.

However, they're beyond research only now so they intervene. John's a mathematician by trade while Julie's the psychologist. So they've got more data than you know what to do with, what do they do? A small, little session, straight-forward talk (not dumbed down or patronizing, but accessible), and then follow-up sessions if need be. Very effective.

So yeah, just the quote. Nothing gained by stating the Tarot math. Actually if you play with just that, you can avoid LWBs all together which is my goal. If I know how a meaning is created, I can come up with my own which is the point. Then combined with an intuitive hit...

nah, the whole thing went clunk with me, too. *grin* the deck choice is just cliqueism, and as for the fire and water thing... well, you do seem to have issues with over-explaining which i've also admitted to elsewhere and which we're both aware of and working on. that's not the clunk.

it's more that fire and water, while they may have a whole slew of esoteric connotations and connections that ARE obscure, are not obscure. your sitter has encountered and is familiar with the concepts of fire and water, or you have bigger problems here. they know that fire burns. they know water puts out fire. they MAY have even seen the fifth element. i mean... really.

it depends on the context. but as presented here, i would give her a "huh?" too. IF you were using it to deconstruct how you reached your conclusions then, yes, it could be confusing or distracting. but if you like it as explanation of what you mean or use it to clarify a point of the reading itself ("you two will always clash, as you're fire and water and there's no changing that"), use the metaphor. it's a fairly basic one.

stefficus said:

nah, the whole thing went clunk with me, too. *grin* the deck choice is just cliqueism, and as for the fire and water thing... well, you do seem to have issues with over-explaining which i've also admitted to elsewhere and which we're both aware of and working on. that's not the clunk.

it's more that fire and water, while they may have a whole slew of esoteric connotations and connections that ARE obscure, are not obscure. your sitter has encountered and is familiar with the concepts of fire and water, or you have bigger problems here. they know that fire burns. they know water puts out fire. they MAY have even seen the fifth element. i mean... really.

it depends on the context. but as presented here, i would give her a "huh?" too. IF you were using it to deconstruct how you reached your conclusions then, yes, it could be confusing or distracting. but if you like it as explanation of what you mean or use it to clarify a point of the reading itself ("you two will always clash, as you're fire and water and there's no changing that"), use the metaphor. it's a fairly basic one.

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Actually with her I had begun a transition to simplification to be honest. There were these poor folks not in the Tarot course that I unloaded on with both barrells.

I mean I meant well, but it would have been better to make the final point of "follow your inner voice & trust your own sense of gifting" or "you need to shift to completely re-tool yourself to break into a better job market" than talking about how the Mars-Aries wild card powered up the Ace of Wands that in turn made 20/The Aeon card about new starts, new levels, and continuing/new education for job training the focus card.

But the fact of the matter, I had already shifted away from being the Astro-Tarot mechanic and was doing broad-brush work here. So since it was reader, fire & water should be safe right? Nope. This kind of knee-jerk behavior has become more pronounced later as some of the higher ups were talking a good game about intuitiion and then went on to retain using the terms "right-wrong" & "good-bad." If you're using the Intuitive School, then you pull on the larger humanist school of Carl Rogers who eschewed all forms of judgmentalism including praise. These terms have no place in that school, but somehow this insights plus the intensive navel gazing Rogers was into was lost on this group. It's a shame really.