Tarot and Active Imagination

[tigerlily]

So I decided that my focus for 2009 would be an intensive study of the Major Arcana, including the famous "entering a card" exercise. I have good visualization skills, so the exercise itself is not difficult for me. But then I read a book... always a dangerous thing...

The book is "Inner Guide Meditation" by Edwin Steinbrecher, who uses Jungian Active Imagination. It was this paragraph that made me post here:

It had a reality and a freshness I hadn't expereinced since childhood, and there was no doubt about the experienced "realness" of it. I was with the Sun, and my body became warm and relaxed. The Magician taught me things I had never heard in my outer reality. The presence of the Fool would cause a "pins and needles" sensation in my limbs.

When I read this, I was "oooohh, wanna, too!!" LOL His experience seemed to be much more intense than anything I had (except for some Lucid and some "big", visionary dreams that always come unbidden. I can't produce them voluntarily.)

So I turn to the AT community for help. Has any of you had similar experiences with Active Imagination and would share them, as well as tips and techniques how to intensify them ? I'd greatly appreciate your input!

 

[Alta]

Experiences with that level of reality take time and practise. I also enter cards, in fact my big readings are generally done that way. But it is really a learned technique, and except for a lucky few you won't get those kinds of results immediately.

There are several books that describe it but roughly: I always visualize a door with the card 'painted' on it. I knock and then quietly and respectfully enter. Then, do as the books say, just open your senses: visually, aurally, smell and taste if you can (I get a lot by smell but I gather this varies). If there is water, reach down and splash it a bit. Is it cool, cold, running fast or slow, etc Focus on small details at first.

Interacting with the figures I would leave for last as that is hardest to be effective. Easy to imagine an interaction but more difficult to really hear a message. When you do, set yourself into a very receptive mode, not pushing you own preconceptions but prepared to hear or see anything.

When you leave, be grateful, exit via the door again (it seals off the experience).

Alta

 

[Apollonia]

I journey into cards regularly by using a recording of shamanic drumming. (Shamanic trance techniques work well, because they actually synchronize your brainwaves into the proper mode for doing this type of work.) But even so, some journeys are just more vivid than others, and I'll bet that was the case for Edwin, too. I would definitely suggest multiple journeys to the same card any time that you do not have as rich an experience as you would like.

Using a suggestion I read in the book "Dreamgates" by Robert Moss, I visualize the card as a life size three dimensional painting with a frame. Then I just climb into it. Usually I spend a minute looking around and getting my bearings, but it generally doesn't take too long for interaction with the characters to begin.

Currently I'm journeying into the cards from the Victorian Romantic, and it's a trip.

 

[KarlThomas]

"But then I read a book... always a dangerous thing..."


Some in my crazy tribe say this regarding that side of your experience.

"Compare and despair."

It is very valuable to compare yourself now to yourself at less evolved stages. It is less valuable to compare yourself to wiser, wealthier souls who seemingly have what you don't have.

Not at all to belittle teaching, books, or tips in this thread, all of which are of value.

But you are not doing it "wrong", that's all. To do it at all is to do it "right".
If you have good visualization skill, odds are you'll make a great job of it.

 

[tigerlily]

Some in my crazy tribe say this regarding that side of your experience.

"Compare and despair."

LOL That is so true. However, I'm not just comparing myself to a book, but to my own experiences with Lucid dreams and such. If you've experienced the realness for yourself, but can't repeat it, it's immensely frustrating. So far I only had it happen to me, not "doing" it on my own. I'm impatient, I know...

Apollonia, thank you for mentioning shamanic drumming. I have a drumming tape and will try it. And Alta, you are right, I probably don't have enough practice yet, but 22 Majors should be a big enough training ground

Thank you all for replying

 

[rif]

Experiences with that level of reality take time and practise. I also enter cards, in fact my big readings are generally done that way. But it is really a learned technique, and except for a lucky few you won't get those kinds of results immediately.

That's an interesting technique for doing a reading. Do you "visit" one card after another, and then mentally combine the results? Or do you combine all the cards into a single scene that you then visit?

I've thought about working on my visualization skills by imagining the cards in action; coming to life, as it were, during a reading. But I'm not ready for that yet.

I have been working with Gareth Knight's book, and I find that a good way to bring the cards to life. Rather than entering the cards, you enter a set landscape and branch off to various locales where the figures from cards are waiting to interact with you. Similar but different to entering a card. This is my third time coming back to this book's method, but my first at putting in the work to really get to know the cards. It really appeals to me, as a way to better learn the cards, by learning "from the tarot itself," as he describes it.