Only charlatans see the future?

[MareSaturni]

I received from an acquaintance a link to a video in which it is "proved" (for the gazillionth time, probably... seriously, how many people did that already?) that tarot is all bullshit and only seeks to rip people off by giving them vague answers etc etc.

They probably sent me the video just to provoke me, but I watched and let it be. You can watch is HERE.

But then I was reading the comments made about the video, and there was the huge discussion about how tarot should and should not be used. And then someone posted the following:

Jodorowsky puts it best: "You must not talk about the future. The future is a con. The tarot is a language that talks about the present. If you use it to see the future than you become a conman. You are just a charlatan."

it's really just psychological searching. it acts like a rorschach test, but uses archetypes that reference the human condition.

That kinda pissed me off more than the video itself. I don't know whether Jodo said or didn't say that, I didn't check, but it isn't about the person who said it... it's about what was said.

I understand the connection between tarot an psychology, specially after Jung, and I believe them to be pertinent, valuable and interesting. But when did tarot became "just psychology"? Prediction, which was the original purpose of most of oracles, became psychology's evil older sister.

It seems that if you say that tarot is more psychological, you make it more credible, more scientific. It pisses me off! From a completely skeptical point of view, why should a bunch of card know about my inner self any more than it should know about my future?

I want to know other people's opinion on this. Do you agree that "predicting the future" is more a charlatan thing that "reading about the inner self".? Why? Why saying "yes I predict the future" is more shameful than "I help the querent to find more about himself"?

Both things are so wonderful together, why are they being separated?

 

[WingspreadPhoenix]

It is kind of funny how the quote is basically saying that tarot can magically know "who you are" but can't "read the future." To me, skeptics will always be skeptics. "Predicting the future" is more shameful than "helping the querent find their inner self?" There's an obvious difference, but on the surface of tarot, it's like the difference between quarantine and blockade to me. One of them upsets the skeptic, the other, not so much. Tarot predicts the future, gives insight, and so much more. The skeptical mind does not think that way, is all.

 

[MareSaturni]

It is kind of funny how the quote is basically saying that tarot can magically know "who you are" but can't "read the future." To me, skeptics will always be skeptics. [...] Tarot predicts the future, gives insight, and so much more. The skeptical mind does not think that way, is all.

Yes, but the funny thing is that this comment comes from someone who claims to read card from themselves. It's not from a skeptic. And I see this view becoming more and more popular - tarot only as a inner discovery tool, and it's predictive side being considered "scam".

Why is this aspect of tarot being more valued than the others?

Tarot is an oracle too, and oracles they had this prediction thing about them. When a greek farmer went to Delphi oracle and talked to the sybils, I don't think he asked for insights on his inner self. He wanted to know whether his crops were going to grow this year or not, or if his daughter would find a decent marriage. Or if the gods were angry at him.

But now it seems that unless you claim to have a psychological approach, you a "less" of a reader, more like a conman.

Why is that?

 

[cricket]

People don't believe in prophets anymore. They don't want to believe in them. They don't want to believe that the future is predictable, or that a (fairly) common person can accurately see the possibilities of future happenings using a tool that can be found in numerous places. The childlike quality that fuels faith, hope, and dreams has been burned out of them.

Instead, they put more importance in their own inner self, to purge their personal demons and find their peace with the world.

However, if only charlatans see the future, then all of the biblical prophets were scam artists. So were the prophets of the Greeks and Romans, and those of the far east, and Mohammed. So was Jules Verne (who, after all, wrote great novels of things that would happen far after his time - many of which have happened). Every mother and father who envisions their little boy growing up to be the star football player, only to have it happen later, are con artists. Every successful businessman who has dreamed of their company grow from a Mom and Pop shop into a multi billion dollar profit farm and built their corporation from the ground up is guilty of the same thing.

As far as the psychological approach goes, I personally can not buy into it. Not because it's WRONG, but because I have had some bit of success in reading the cards and have no knowledge of the psychobabble associated with anybody that came up with these ideas of how the mind works. I know as much as two names (Jung and Freud) and the terms ego, superego, and id. No idea what they mean, what they stand for, what the guys did (except that those terms are associated with Freud), or anything else. If that's all I know and I can still give somewhat accurate readings, there's more than just a psychological connection there.

 

[zan_chan]

Well, I think I agree with Jodorowsky on this one. I don't believe in any magic(k)al tarot stuff at all. Nor do I really believe in predicting the future.

It is kind of funny how the quote is basically saying that tarot can magically know "who you are" but can't "read the future."

I don't think the quote is saying that tarot can magically know who you are. It's saying, to me, that the idea of tarot is that it shows you a side of yourself that you might not want to see. It plays devil's advocate and forces you to look at the things that you, whether purposefully or otherwise, wouldn't look at on your own.

I don't believe that the cards you pull at any time are the "right" cards for the moment, or that any magical force or energy has chosen those cards. It's just 3 (or however many) random cards. I think that any card you choose at any moment has something to show you that you may not have seen on your own. This doesn't, it would seem to me, require any special knowledge of Jungian psychology, just a mind open enough to let in the side of the story that you'd rather not see.

I'm not sure I would go so far as to call those who read the future "charlatans", but I do tend to take readings that tell me much (anything really) about my future with a heavy grain of salt. When I read in the future position, I think it means something because we are who we are and we don't generally deviate from the course that we're on. If a reading about the future comes true, it isn't because anything magical happened, it's because our personalities, our motivations, our actions tend to be fairly rigid and by understanding how we behave in the present, we can make a fairly good guess of the fact that we'll probably behave the same way in the future.

 

[kittiann]

When I read the future with tarot, it tends to be more of a cause-and-effect consideration. I feel like I have to understand myself, what I'm thinking and feeling, to understand where it is that I'm going. And as far as that goes, I do believe that tarot can predict the future.

On the other hand, I would never tell someone I was reading for that I could predict their future. This is partly doubt in my abilities, partly doubt that tarot is more accurate than simple self-reflection, and partly a desire not to appear 'silly'. Then again, I strongly caution everyone I read for that everything I say is to be taken with a grain of salt - your own gut and logic should always come ahead of what I say in a reading. Maybe that is still doubt in my abilities? Anyway, I think the general perception is that fortune-telling is gimmicky and has little place in a scientific world; and psychology at least partially scientific and therefore has some credence.

 

[MareSaturni]

I don't see any problem in not believing in future readings or not enjoying doing them, as Zan and kittiann said, because that's a matter of preference and practice.

I just don't understand why is it put in opposition to the psychological view of the tarot, as if one was right and the other wrong. If you try to foresee the future = bad con-man reader. If you *only* use a psychological approach to in order to explore your own self = great serious tarot reader.

It is a view that seems to be spreading. I have read about Jung and Freud and all this, but truthfully I never speak of archetypes and anima/animus when doing a reading. And many of my readings include "future position". As kittiann and Zan said, I too believe that "future" is most a development of what is being made in the present, but I've done readings in which the future card seemed off the wall, and when the time came... it was right. It made sense.

It seems however that if this is all I have to offer - I do readings, period. - I'm less of a reader. I'm nearly a con-man, because I assume I can tell people something about their futures. But I started talking in psychological jargon and made speeches on how tarot is but a tool of self-exploration, then I'd be a trustworthy reader.

It annoys me. That something is only accepted if it has (sometimes pseudo-) scientific support.

 

[cricket]

Perhaps this inclination is perpetuated by the readers who insist that the future seen in the cards is the ONLY future available to a situation. The sitter is supposedly convinced that this is the only possible outcome, and therefore must the future is written in stone. Those people are the charlatans.

Letting the sitter know that it is a POSSIBLE outcome and that the future is an inconstant thing (at best) that changes with every decision we make and that what is seen in the cards in reference to the future could change at any moment is an important part of the reading process, IMHO.

 

[Nytebugg]

I dislike the assumption that those that believe in future prediction are charlatans or completely gullible sitters. I understand why some people shy away from it; just as I tend to shy away from readings that seem more psychological. I'm not a therapist or psychologist so i wouldn't feel comfortable helping a sitter in that way not to mention that that could be seen as practicing without a license.

 

[zan_chan]

I'm not really sure I see the difference, in terms of worrying about being unqualified to practice psychology, between reading/predicting the future for someone and what we're calling psychological reading. If your sitter has faith in you as the reader and you predict then a future that they're either unhappy with or fails to come true, aren't you potentially adversly affecting him or her just as much, if not more, than you might be doing with a non-predictive reading? I think that whether we like it or not, as tarot readers we are psychologically affecting people, aren't we?