Tarot devoid of spiritual applications...

[tarobones]

the difference

Thank you for the clarification. I think we're using the term meditation in very different ways. The Western meditation tradition is quite different than the eastern. The goal, as I understand it, of meditation in the western tradition is not to empty your mind at all, but rather to use the images to open doors to the Spirit within. IT's quite a different focus. Thanks for your help. BB, Michael

 

[noby]

You're welcome, and thanks for the question. I love any opportunity I have to spout about this stuff.

"Meditation" definitely is a word which has many different meanings, some contradictory. I hesitate to use it sometimes, but the "technical" term for the practice of cultivating the mind in the Zen tradition, zazen, seems to me it might not communicate at all, as it is not nearly as widely used.

And I must say I wonder if the difference between "stilling the discursive mind" and "open[ing] doors to the Spirit within" is a semantic difference, while the experience of the "result" is actually the same. I don't know, but it's an interesting question.

 

[WolfyJames]

I am rereading Wang's book on Qabalistic Tarot at the moment, and one thing he said struck me last time, but I was too caught up in the book to stop and ask for feedback, so am doing it now.

This quote is rooted in qabalah, GD style, but I am hoping it will lead to a broader discussion, hence am posting it here.

Originally Posted by Robert Wang
The tarot is best used for divination about mundane matters. It is not particularly well-suited for furnishing answers of an important spiritual nature because it is rooted in Yetzirah, although one brings down insight from higher worlds in interpretation (p47)...

To each Minor Card and Decan is attributed a pair of angels, one of whom rules the day and the other rules the night. So each card represents a duality. Here again we return to the idea that the cards are rooted in Yetzirah, the world of Angels, as opposed to the Archangels of Briah or the Gods of Atziluth. The cards are Astral images, illustrating the world of matter below, and symbolically reflecting the worlds of mind and spirit above (p 48-49)

So what you all think? What are the applications of tarot? How far into the spiritual can we reach? Are there boundaries, and if so where and why?

Well, there is nothing that connects tarot and qabalah. Tarot was, and still is, first and foremost, a playing game. In Europe, people have kept playing tarot and it seems the game didn't cross the ocean. It's ony centuries later that people have noticed similarities with tarot and qabalah and the Golden Dawn worked a lot to make all sort of connections and tables of correspondances. They have done a lot of great work but sometimes it has to be taken with a grain of salt. It's one way among many.

So, using qabalah to say that you can't do anything spiritual with tarot is a bit silly. I guess on this matter it depends more of the reader and of the querent than qabalah. Personally, I'm very much like Yuko and thinks the mundane and the spiritual are as important but I know some who use tarot only for spiritual purposes and others only for mundane purposes. I think that tarot has no limit in itself but that people are the one applying limits, it's in the eyes of the beyolder.

 

[Ffortiwn]

The tarot is best used for divination about mundane matters. It is not particularly well-suited for furnishing answers of an important spiritual nature because it is rooted in Yetzirah, although one brings down insight from higher worlds in interpretation (p47)...

To each Minor Card and Decan is attributed a pair of angels, one of whom rules the day and the other rules the night. So each card represents a duality. Here again we return to the idea that the cards are rooted in Yetzirah, the world of Angels, as opposed to the Archangels of Briah or the Gods of Atziluth. The cards are Astral images, illustrating the world of matter below, and symbolically reflecting the worlds of mind and spirit above (p 48-49)

Seems to me that if one is definining "mundane matters" in terms of the world of Angels, that could still be quite powerful work for many human beings, so it begs the question (in my mind) of what Wang meant by "important spiritual nature". I could be in over my head here, but the more I re-read the quote the more I think he is not making a particularly strong statement here. As to Similia's excellent question, I'm not quite ready to respond.

 

[Grigori]

I think I choose the title of this thread very poorly, sorry guys. As pointed out, even working with angels, is far from "devoid of" spiritual aspect, and doesn't fit well with my interpretation of Wangs intention. Perhaps "limited in" would have been better.

I agree with WolfyJames that a connection between tarot and qabalah is not a necessary or original aspect of tarot (certainly not the GD system at any rate). However I do think that the qabalah serves as a neat system to arrange information within, and in that case it doesn't matters that you use the qabalah to justify an observation, but rather that such a phenomenon was observed, and fitted into the GD-qabalah system. But perhaps this is just Wang's experience and should be seen as such.

I did once sit down as use the tarot to address a few questions I wanted to ask God about the plan for my life. Getting 9 Swords (Crowley's Ruin) as a first card was a bit of a shock, but the reading was very interesting and useful to me. Although I stopped using that specific deck for a while afterwards as I found the readings became nonsensical for some time. I wonder how much of that was due to my own fear of the questions I wanted to ask, as well as the answers I didn't want to get.

Thanks for all your wonderful responses guys So much to think about!

 

[TheOld]

I can address verry deep spiritual work with Tarot and i'm not bound by any associations like TOL/Caballa, symbology,Numerology ...

People can be attach by their aggrements but whitout them you can do so much with so little.

Omeada

 

[Scion]

Hogwash, says me.

Sounds like a weird Cartesian kernel at the center of Golden Dawn thinking. A lurking embarassment about the basic fact that a soul and a body are inextricably linked... and if so why the childish eagerness to separate them. Isn't that the point of Qabala?!?! They're actually interwoven for a reason: because they aren't separable.

I'm always surprised when people decide that the spiritual and the mundane can be sectioned off with these imaginary velvet ropes. As if the soul was a VIP party for the cool parts of your self while your corpus has to mop the bogs. In my experience I've never had a mundane concern that was not at least slightly brushed by the spiritual or a spiritual concern that was not rooted in the mundane. Where is it exactly that people draw the dividing line between the two?

I always feel that the desire to ascribe all the value and purity of your life to a separate "soul" is more an exercise in looking at your entire self and ascribing all higher functions to something that is "worth" more. What is the value of partitioning yourself if not to assign arbitrary values and subjective judgments on the little parcels to which you've assigned boundaries? The dualist rejection of the physical always seems like a simplistic model which places value in some invisible treasure room that recedes infinitely... an asymptote of the soul. Bottom line: Descartes sucks.

This sounds terrible, but I think I need to reread my Wang.

Scion

 

[Aeon418]

Originally Posted by Robert Wang
The tarot is best used for divination about mundane matters. It is not particularly well-suited for furnishing answers of an important spiritual nature because it is rooted in Yetzirah, although one brings down insight from higher worlds in interpretation (p47)...

Wang isn't saying that you can't use the Tarot for spiritual questions because you can. But because the questions you are asking pertain to a higher, more refined level, any answer you get might not be completely accurate or reliable.

A simple example might be to compare it to being in love. When you are in love it doesn't need explaining, you just know that you are in love. Now suppose that you wanted to communicate what you are feeling and experiencing to someone else via a set of pictures or a poem or some other form of art. You just can't do it. The results of your work will probably be very beautiful but they aren't the same as the actual experience. Anyone looking at your art or reading your love poem may get a hint of the feeling of being in love but it can never be the same as the actual experience.

This is the same position that the Tarot stands to spiritual questions. Any answer you get won't necessarily be wrong, it just might not be a complete answer. You might not be seeing the full picture.

It's like the difference between intellectualisation and direct Gnosis.

 

[Kiama]

This is the same position that the Tarot stands to spiritual questions. Any answer you get won't necessarily be wrong, it just might not be a complete answer. You might not be seeing the full picture.

I think that this is the case no matter what question you ask the Tarot, be it 'spiritual' or 'mundane'.

As far as I'm concerned - and have experienced - the Tarot works like the alethiometer from Phillip Pullman's Northern Lights trilogy. The cards contain images, and those images pertain to certain meanings and messages... but these messages aren't on just one level. You can travel down or up these levels (NOT presupposing a value system here when I say 'up' and 'down') and see the many layers of meaning contained within the simple symbols.

And thus, I believe you can apply the cards in a practical and meaningful way to both 'mundane' questions and 'spiritual' questions - and get answers.

People are concerned with accuracy of answers to spiritual questions... but really folks, if these questions are so big, is there another method that is going to give you more accurate answers? I doubt it. I'd rather have a hint at an answer than no answer at all, and I honestly believe that accurate is not the same as meaningful. The Tarot may not give the complete, unadulterated, unedited answer (to both mundane and spiritual questions) but it can still help by provoking us to question, to search, and to think about the meaning we create in our lives.

Kiama

 

[Cerulean]

Just thinking about the quote again...

"...Here again we return to the idea that the cards are rooted in Yetzirah, the world of Angels, as opposed to the Archangels of Briah or the Gods of Atziluth. The cards are Astral images, illustrating the world of matter below, and symbolically reflecting the worlds of mind and spirit above (p 48-49)..."

I believe that I would now have a qualified agreement in how Kiama phrased the idea of 'rather having a hint' when receiving messages/answers to questions that I would put to the tarot. This is a qualification to my first reaction, my first thoughts in how Wang was writing about the tarot questions and realms of angels.

At first, I thinking of the question in a global sense where there are spiritualities and belief systems that do not use tarot at all. But upon reflection, there was some comfort in having had a reading of sorts in the family member that I remember. My grandmother's life journey from the Kingdom of Hawaii, to Okinawa, to Hawaii and then Colorado and California went on without tarot; her life reading by an I-Ching reader may or may not have answered her expectations and curiousity of her future paths. But she seemed to sometimes reflect on her life path in retrospect in regards to one reading long ago. Getting a hint of ages and expectations might have helped her confidence; her day to day beliefs over time came to reflect a blend of Christianity and the Asian folklore she remembered. Therefore, you would see one picture of Jesus on her 'organ' and pictures of her husband and ancestors mounted higher; and guardian Fu dogs were near the entrance of the home.
It worked in her mind.

This mix works for my mother in a funny way that I like myself (There are Fu Dogs and pictures in a similar way that reflects my grandmother's arrangement).

And like others, the realm of angels, even lesser angels, does have a spiritual ring! If I thought of the heavens as symbolically poised for a moment in time as in Paradiso into that dim mirror of concentric circles and rings of angels--why yes, even the lesser angels giving a small hint might allow me some comfort!

Thanks for the further discussion--quite a bit of interesting things to see as people give their thoughtful answers.

Cerulean