Tarot by a Non -Tarotist?????

[Rosanne]

I was reading a thread about someone who wanted the symbols of tarot so s/he could design for a friend. Nice idea as a gift!
What crossed my mind was a combination of questions that I always wonder about.
Firstly can anyone create a tarot with the barest of knowledge about Tarot?
So I did a small test on a friend who knows only that I use Tarot, she has never had a reading (does not want one) and truely knows very little about the subject. In conversation she thinks that Tarot is a pack of playing cards like Poker that you read fortunes as with teas leaves. She does not think she is artistic, nor able to read signs and symbols. (she can but does not realise it!! ).
I gave her a pen and two blank cards and asked to to draw A. The hermit and B. The four Coins. I told her only that the card was called the Hermit and he was number 9 in the sequence. Could she please draw an image of the Hermit card with that info?
I showed her the Hadar 4 Coins and asked to draw an illustration of what that card meant.
I have attached her drawings with her permission. Cont. next post... Rosanne

 

[Rosanne]

It is interesting that she explained the four Coins this way :-
There are four seasons in the year and you have to look after yourself throughout the year. You have to spend to live (shop), pay your dues (parking metre), give some away(Donation box) and save some (piggy bank). If you get these things out of balance your house will fall down. OK I think she is a dorment Tarotist.
Next The Hermit- Well a hermit is a slightly mad person who leaves people behind to go live in a cave. He thinks he can manage and will cope away from people. In this case he has gone to the Egyptian Mountain of the Sun- the only association with number nine she could think of. In his backpack he has nine tins of coffee and some matches.
Which brings me to my second thought/question. Maybe Tarot is inherent in us all and and the cards that are so important to me exist within me and I just assume I need the images? I have lots of thoughts about this wee experiment and I am glad we did it- but I feel less confident about whether you need to be a Tarotist to draw the images now. What do you think? ~Rosanne

 

[Chronata]

Amazing.
and There's something that feels like Magic here.
But maybe that's the wrong word.

actually I am so sleepy at the moment that I don't know what to think!

But the drawings are amazing, and they show to me a mature and enlightened individual.

I think it's about archetypes. And they inherant in the collective consciousness.

I am reminded of my first ever tarot drawings that I did when I was ten. I had never seen a real tarot deck before, but I had gotten the titles for the cards from an almanac, and just from the titles I drew my own images.

Half looked very similar to the RWS. A couple looked like TdM. The rest were something else entirely my own vision.

But I think the Tarot is in all of us.
Whether we choose to see it, or recognize it.

There are so many new people finding thier way to tarot everyday...this place has grown tremendously in the short time I have been here.

Maybe we don't need the images, because the archetypes are so strong in us already.

 

[seneris]

I read this thread with interest. The idea intrigues me. Did you let her draw more cards, Rosanne?

 

[Rosanne]

No seneris I only gave her the two. I was tempted to suggest the 'Hanged Man' - and I did not want her to get into the mood too much in case she started thinking too deeply about it all. I was truely amazed at her insight into a discipline she knows little about. Life teaches one heaps (as it should) and I wondered if I was a little elitist in my views about Tarot. Someone here once commented that they did not want to see Tarot as 'normal' as it made them feel special to use this tool. They liked all the ritual and mystery about it, and to make it 'everyday' was to demystify it all. ~Rosanne

 

[Talisman]

Archetypes

Amazing.
and There's something that feels like Magic here.

'Lo Rosanne and all,

Your friend's amazing cards sort'a define the power of archetypes don't they, the innate patterns or symbols that people share collectively.

I think this wonderful and fun experiment makes me appreciate once again the power of the archetypes expressed by a Tarot deck, just brought together and assembled in one pack of cards.

'Course it helps a bunch that your friend is obviously intelligent, imaginative, open to new ideas and challenges, and able to express her ideas with a few strokes of a pen.

Great stuff !

Talisman

 

[Sienna]

I really think Chronata has something when she mentioned the collective subconcious archetype. But saying that, how do we explain the 4 of coins? as this is a Pip card... Hmmm very interesting and has definately given me some food for thought here.

I would be very interested to see other cards if she draws them.

 

[Sophie]

What an interesting experiment! Yes, it seems the archetypes are strong...

Sienna - numbers are also archetypal, at least the lower ones. And coins, of course . They are the very stuff of exchange - and a potent symbol of civilized humanity.

A young cousin of mine who is not much given to introspection (and does not know the tarot) once described a vision he had. He was "visited" by a man wearing a cloak and bearing a lamp and a staff. His description (I made him go into some detail) was an exact match of the tarot Hermit. He was still a bit shaken by the apparition. It seems these images are buried very deep in us.

 

[Grizabella]

I agree about the archetypes. That's how Tarot works-----by using archetypes to tap into that 90% of the human brain we don't consciously know how to access knowledge and wisdom from on demand. Our subconscious contains everything we've ever seen, heard, or read and Tarot taps into that using archetypes to bring us the information. I'm sure that's an over-simplification, but it works for me.

 

[Lillie]

It seems like she is a really intuitive person, even if she does not realise it her self!

What an interesting experiment.