How are they able to see things like these?

[Umbrae]

hunt down posts 535-541 in this thread: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=53571

This is what I've been hammering the shoe on the desk for about four years now.

It's about listening to that which speaks without a voice.

Reading can be, but is not limited to, analysis (which can lead to paralysis).

This is the big difference I always noticed between the Italian and French approach to tarot and card reading in general and the anglosaxon one. The anglosaxon one is very centred on psychology and advice/counseling while our approach is much more fortune telling oriented.

…

A reader who only focuses on your feelings, fears, blocks and so on without telling you anything about what is going to happen in the next months would never be considered a good reader here, but only a "wannabe" one who know something about the cards and their symbols and meanings but is not really capable of reading them.

I often wonder whether our way of reading over here isn't a cop-out. If by concentrating on the "feelings, fears, blocks and so on", that's not just a way of avoiding going out on a limb with any real statements about the person's past or future for fear of being wrong. To further make sure we're not held accountable for being wrong, we throw in the disclaimer about a person's own actions and other variables changing the outcome of a reading. There seems to be a great phobia of being seen as not being an "accurate" reader over here. I wonder if there's that much of a phobia of that over there or if your readers just accept that sometimes you're right and sometimes you're not more naturally than we do.

Just what I’ve been saying for a long time.

“In Zen, the highest order is to see the nothing. This is what meditation is about, to clear the mind of thoughts, which are ruminations of the past and also wishes for what are not there. To the Zen master, the highest order of spirituality is to be clear, to see what is before you, without the muddiness of thoughts that obscure it.” So sayeth Khatruman the teacher of madness.

Tis about reading...really reading (which requires listening - and not to the psuedo-intellectual voices).

To answer the thesis question. Put away the books. Spend time with one deck - and learn to still yourself - listen to the nothingness. Imerse yourself in it, allow it to flow over you; and work without a safety net.

That last point is important. Being a net-reader allows you to go and consult a book. Sitting face to face with a stranger is to work without a net. Work through your fears and find the stillness within – and then trust it.

 

[Sophie]

I have always thought that people who know these types of things must be a little bit "beyond" a Tarot card reader, for example a psychic as well. I feel that certainly a beginner like myself would never be able to tell someone such specifics just by looking at the cards. I am getting better at picking up more obscure meanings to the cards, and even meanings that only I have for a particular card. But again, I can't tell you what time your mother is going to call and what color shirt you will be wearing when she does In my own mind, that is not simply Tarot.

No, not "beyond" and not psychic - they are simply using good old-fashioned fortune-telling. You learn card combinations that mean specific things (e.g. one card combination can mean: a dark young man arriving from the South; another might mean: in two months; and yet another can give you letters) - so you can be much more precise in what you say. It doesn't depend so much on intuition as on your correctly learning and applying the many combinations. That's how much of divination works the world round, with systems such as playing cards or the Yoruba Ifo divination. Fortune-telling is not speculative, it's highly precise and based on long tradition. In Italy and in the rest of Southern Europe, it tends to be passed through generations in families, though nowadays there are books too. It's also the basis of the Lenormand card system, which is based on learning set combinations that have an old history - and also develop with time (so there is nothing against you making up some new combinations yourself, as long as you stick to them). Where there are ranges of meanings for combinations, you also get to use your intuition to know which one applies in any one situation. The point about fortune-telling systems is that they are repetitive and depend on combinations or patterns always having the same meaning or range of meanings. That's not to say fortune-tellers never have psychic flashes - but these are separate things and definitely nothing to do with fortune-telling systems.

Calling such systems "not tarot" is not really true. Intuitive tarot reading without set combinations is simply one way among many of reading tarot - and from a strict fortune-telling point of view, the least effective. It has many other virtues however (in terms of personal growth, etc.), which is why many of us value it.

 

[Melanchollic]

This is the big difference I always noticed between the Italian and French approach to tarot and card reading in general and the anglosaxon one. The anglosaxon one is very centred on psychology and advice/counseling while our approach is much more fortune telling oriented.

I'm one Anglo who uses the Tarot for good old fashioned fortune telling, and have no hesitations in making predictions about specific times and places, and frankly it saddens me to see the tarot reduced to a Jungian 'prop' that could just as well be done with a bit of smudged ink!

A background in traditional astrology convinced me that specific predictions can be made with great accuracy, and I've always had that assumption about any form of divination.

Over the years, by keeping in touch with querents, studying the 'mechanics' of many kinds of divination, and searching for and honing techniques that work, I've reached a level of accuracy with the cards that I'm happy with.
(I might add a lot of background reading is essential, from Timaeus on up...)

What I do not do is give the querents advice. I tell them what the cards predict and they are free to do with the information as they please. I'm also not going to be someone's 'shoulder to cry on', unless they are someone I personally know well.

I agree with Umbrae that 'face-to-face' readings are essential to "hone yer predictive bone"

I believe tarot works as a kind of Magia Naturalis. By this I mean it works through properties inherent to itself, and not through higher intelligences or psychic channels, so anyone can learn the skills.

Finally, I always try to keep this in mind,

"...true symbolism, far from having been artifically invented by man, is to be found in nature itself, or rather, that the whole of nature amounts to no more than a symbol of the transcendent realities."

- Rene Guenon, The Symbolism of the Cross

 

[AJ]

I'd be thrilled to be able to 'fortune-tell'. As noted above by a few other USA readers, the occult and tarot are so feared, so off the beaten track, so un-Christian if you will...that I think we go with the advice columnist technique simply to keep from getting burned at the stake.

Yet the people who come to us ask questions in a fortune teller manner. Will he, Will I, it is what they want, but they are afraid to hear. A middle ground is my goal, some answers that keep the querent from giving away their own power, while satisfying the urge to know.

 

[Grizabella]

I think a lot of damage has been done to the age-old tradition of fortune telling by people without the courage to come right out and own what they are. Or rather, what they're trying to be. Instead, they try to be something else they're not---counselors---at great risk to their clients. Because without a degree in counseling and the true skill to use the cards that way, people who have serious emotional problems are being done harm. A person trying to use tarot cards as a means of counseling when they don't have the education and training to use them that way is using the cards as an excuse to tell the sitter what they think the sitter should do and that's an ego trip not to mention dangerous and unfair to the sitter.

Why else do we think that people keep coming back, asking the same questions over and over again? It's not solely because "they've got some kind of problem". It's because they're not getting the answers they seek in the first place. And I don't mean because they don't get the answers they want, I mean because they're not getting any real answers at all. They're getting some pseudo psycho babble and someone else's opinion of what they should "take a look at" rather than hearing what the cards say to them through the reader.

If anyone reading this is a licensed counselor using the cards, my hat is off to you. I'm not one. I'm still trying to be a fortune teller and I wish somebody would write a darned good book on how to be that.

 

[AJ]

I was born giving advice, the cards are one more way to do it? :0 My family knows anytime I start a sentence with Well....... they need to turn off their ears, there I go again.

But the Cards Prove Me Right I shout at their retreating backs

 

[Grizabella]

I'm good at giving advice, too, and the cards often back up or echo what my advice would be, but what I think should come second to what the cards show when the cards are in front of me.

 

[kaytee83]

This thread has been a really fascinating read. I've so far been of the belief that the Tarot cards are used as an aid to see inside yourself and reveal truths you already knew, deep down etc, but the fortune telling aspect is really interesting too.

I just don't know if I believe it's possible to see glimpses of the future. I like the idea and it accords with my belief that events are mapped out for us already but I don't feel comfortable with the idea of people having access to it. And despite that, I'd love to try.

Fudugazi was saying something about card combinations that mean certain things... that sounds really interesting. Are these combinations something that a reader creates themselves or are there sort of universal combinations everybody uses? I don't even know where to find out about that sort of thing, it seems like an elusive, Italian word-of-mouth tradition. Darn.

 

[Grizabella]

I think part of it is experience of the reader but part of it is handed down. Here in the US there's so much pooh-poohing of the fortune telling aspect of tarot that that's why I say the age-old tradition is in danger of being lost. That's such a shame.

Of course there are the Miss Cleo's and the scam artists, but there are those in Christianity, as well. It's not just among fortune tellers. The scam artists are the ones you hear about in the news but you don't hear about the legitimate ones who go about their business really helping their clients.

Fudugazi was saying something about card combinations that mean certain things... that sounds really interesting. Are these combinations something that a reader creates themselves or are there sort of universal combinations everybody uses?

If you can't find someone willing to teach you their traditional combinations, I don't see why you can't develop your own. We do that anyway. We just don't admit to doing it for fortune telling purposes unless we want to be ostracized by other readers who ridicule fortune tellers and insist we have to be "counselors" and "consultants".

I think there's room for us all. I, for one, don't have a problem with being seen as a fortune teller. After all, if we tell someone "if you continue on your present path, this will happen", that's telling a fortune. If we choose to wiggle out of the possibility of being wrong by saying "many things can happen in the meantime and even your own actions could change this", then fine, but we've still made a prediction and told a fortune. There's no getting around that.

But back to answering your question---yes, we can make up our own combinations and they'll work quite well, I'm sure.

 

[Sophie]

If you can't find someone willing to teach you their traditional combinations, I don't see why you can't develop your own. We do that anyway. We just don't admit to doing it for fortune telling purposes unless we want to be ostracized by other readers who ridicule fortune tellers and insist we have to be "counselors" and "consultants".

I totally agree with that. I'll add that even those who come from "a long line of fortune-tellers", if they are worth their salt, will add to the tradition. Obviously, if you can avoid reinventing the wheel completely, it's great - that's where Italian grandmothers come in handy. I don't know if there are any books in English on fortune-telling with combinations of tarot, playing cards or Lenormand cards, but I imagine there must be - you might come across them in garage sales. I have found some in French and German, and there are websites in those languages too for non-tarot traditions (other cards); in Tarot, there is a whole Marseille tradition of combination cards, which is pooh-poohed by "serious" Marseille readers, but used by working fortune-tellers, and published in several books. As Solitaire says, you can make up your own. You can also add to existing systems. The point about a system is that it's systematic, that is, predictable. Ace of Coins + Knight of Wands + 2 of Cups always means a dashing young man with fair hair will make a proposal of marriage (I am inventing an example off the top of my head, by the way ) - or perhaps a range of meanings. A clever and intuitive reader will be able to stretch those meanings, but the basic combo meanings will remain (whether you invent them yourself, or learn from others).

The advantage of tapping into an existing tradition is not only that you don't have to spend months or years making up a system that works; but also that the combinations have been refined and tested over a long period of time, each generation adding to it.

But yes, in parts of the West, fortune-telling has been so rejected for either religious or rationalistic reasons that a lot of these traditions were lost. That's why they are more readily available in Romance languages like French, Italian or Spanish.