Religion and Tarot

[avalonian]

I don't really "belong" to any religion but I do have spiritual beliefs. I am more familiar with the Christian religion as that is the environment in which I was brought up. I do seem to recall something about being true to oneself so I would think that the main thing is to do what feels right to you. I have tarot cards and bibles and books from various religions/spiritual paths and really don't understand why they can not all be used together.

Gazing around the room at the moment I can see tarot cards, oracles, angels, fairies, Ganesh. Buddha, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Quan Yin, Sarasvati and Isis (just for starters). They all seem quite content in one anothers company.

I do wonder whether the Christians that do have problems with Tarot cards have been preached to that it is wrong to use them as it does "cut out the middle man" and may put the priests/ministers out of a job. I'm thinking back to the days when the "common man" was not allowed to own a Bible and could only access the teachings through preachings from the established church.

I bet you're glad you asked!

 

[Lexie]

Great thread.. I could talk about this for hours.. I've been raised as an Orthodox Christian (as almost everybody in Greece!) but I'm not consinder myself as a "normal" one... Since I was a kid I was wondering about many things and I loved anything metaphysical and spiritual..Things that Church doesn't approve.. but hey, If I was supposed to do everything the way priests want I should have to wait until I was 30 and get married to have sex!! :: What I mean is that is impossible to live your life the way Church wants.. And priests are (most of them) the worst hypocrites of all !I believe in God and Jesus Christ but with my own special way. I also respect paganism and wicca because they pay attention to nature and all forms of life and I like that and I'm very interested in them. I like to think of myself as an atheist sometimes.. but the truth is I believe in this power we call God.. and I love Tarot at the same time! What's wrong with that?

 

[Starling]

I don't belong to any specific religion. I see Tarot as one way that the subconscious, which uses symbols and pictures, can "talk" to the conscious mind.

As for evil spirits, if you open yourself to evil, it can use anything as a tool, including churches and the bible. Tarot is evil ONLY if you use it as a tool of evil. I don't; so it isn't.

 

[The crowned one]

I am indifferent to modern interpretations of organized religion, tarot is a science and a on going experiment/study for me.

 

[sharpchick]

I'm a pagan and tarot is just one of the tools of divination that I use.

 

[Sphinxmoth]

I am a pagan with increasingly strong Buddhist leanings, and I use tarot
as a tool of divination, not particularly as an aspect of any spiritual path.

I cannot talk for hours about religion or spirituality, I distrust and
dislike so much of it too much. I just get cranked and irritable and
disagreeable to others. Perhaps it is a phase. One can only hope.

"Open mouth already a mistake"

 

[boxxleman]

Shedding light on this for me so nice to hear. It's really hard to use Tarot cards when you're entire family (Christian) will kick you out of the house if they found out that you used them at night when you're all sleeping.

But like I said, I'm a strong believer as a Christian for 3 years now and I honestly feel nothing wrong with picking up a deck of Tarot cards and using them as a way for God and my Inner Self to speak with each other. I almost feel as if our relationship has grown stronger since the use of the cards. Before I do a reading, I always call out and make a prayer, and the readings I get are always astounding.

 

[Formicida]

Boxxleman,

We've had a number of threads on this in the past, and there are some very good and outspoken Christian readers on the forum who haven't shown up in this thread yet. Christian Tarot readers are a minority--especially since many Pagan groups actively encourage Tarot use--but you're not alone.

The organized church seems to range from being outspokenly anti-Tarot to neutral. The anti-Tarot attitudes stem in part from misunderstandings of what Tarot is and what it can do.

Here are some other threads on this:

Reconciling Tarot with my faith
Christian Tarot Readers
Does the Bible say no to Tarot?
Christian + Tarot = How'd you end up here?

There are lots more, too.

 

[Ravenlady]

I'm wiccan, but tarot came into my life before that Tarot for me is a tool to find understanding and answers, mostly for others nowdays, and the art

Anna

 

[greenbeans]

I'm agnostic. I see tarot as a natural extention of my interests in mythology, art etc. Sometimes I take it seriously, sometimes for fun. Its a mystery to me. I like mysteries.

I'm glad I'm not part of an organised religion. Many of them do tend to disapprove of anything individuals use to have a personal contact with the divine or to exercise individual power (intuition, intelligence..) instead of obedience.

this morning on radio 4 there was an exorcist being interviewed...he said most exorcisms were caused by people who 'dabbled in the occult' and used 'ouija boards or tarot cards' and got possessed. (Hmm could it be those people feeling guilty about disobeying the church and looking for some kind of cathartic ritual to make themselves feel better?) so thats how the church here sees tarot. something full of demons...somehow. I don't really get that. People in the bible had prophetic dreams, didn't they? So intuition can't be evil then?

edited to add: just to be clear, I'm not knocking christians many of whom are intelligent, intuitive people...just the dogma of the church.