The Spectacle

[reader_brad]

The Spectacle

I've studied and practiced Tarot for a long time. I've done a lot of readings. There are three very common questions that come up when reading for other people. The first question is: “What do I need to do to be more successful in my career?” The second question is: “Will my new partner and I work out?” The third question is “What do you see in my future?” All of these are very important questions, and I want to address each of these.

First, I think I should spend a minute talking about movies. In my view, movies are very fancy recorded plays. Even the scripts for movies and plays look very similar. So rather than talking about movies, I'm going to talk about plays. There is a fifth grade lesson plan named Aristotle's Six Elements of a Play. This plan operates on the principle that each play has a plot, character, theme, dialogue, music, and spectacles. I'm not going to take us all back to middle school language arts class, but I do need to bring this up to make my point. Spectacles are intended to add drama to a plot in order to make it more riveting and to increase the imagination. Sound always supplements this by creating an emotional effect. In movies, the Tarot reader will either predict a dire future, or give cryptic advice that comes back up later in the movie. This is a prime example of “spectacle.” When I read, I don't read for the spectacle of it. I read for spiritual guidance and insight.

“What do I need to be more successful in my career?” Making a decent living is very important. However, what this question normally translates into is “How can I make more money?” The answer to that is very simple. Sell stuff, or sell services that you can provide to an employer that wants those services. Perhaps a better question to ask is “What can I change so that I can be more successful at realizing my goals?” This opens a whole new realm of possibilities to explore. Pagan teachings seem to often state that when a person prays... they should be asking to be shown a path to the desired end result, rather than asking a specific question. Exploration is the true purpose of Tarot. Using a question like this, we can look at important aspects of your current situation, find road blocks, and find solutions to them.

“Will my partner and I work out?” This question is one that SHOULD be the opening to a rabbit's hole. How deep does the hole really go? Well... how deep do you want it to go? Let's first rephrase the question to something a little more precise. “What can I expect out of this relationship?” That seems a little bit better, but something is still missing here. With that question, the reader is still acting the role of the spectacle. Poets and romantics always seem to say love is an experience. Lets change the question again, this time keeping the experience in mind. “What can I expect to experience from this relationship?” Now that's better. You may not experience anything relating to love at all. But, you will definatly experience something. This question should help you to pack accordingly for the trip! Of course, some people may not care about this depth of understanding, introspection, and learning. Tarot is not for these people. Fortune cookies might be more up their ally.

“What do you see in my future?” At first serious thought, this question is similar to the “What can I expect to experience?” question. However, we need to reduce this question to the bare bones basics. The primary command of all life is “Survive.” So, if we look at the question again, it turns into something closer to “How can I negate the bad that will happen to me?” This question still goes against the rule of thumb for prayer... so lets try something such as “How can I handle the unexpected events to make them all a growing experience?” Wow, that's better. Oh, just imagine the possibilities that could lead to in a serious reading!

A penny for your thoughts?

 

[Thirteen]

Greetings, Brad.

First off, your thoughts are very astute. Of course, you are on a tarot forum, which means that while the advice about movies is correct, I don't know that it's necessary. From what I've seen on this forum, there's less a problem with new readers predicting dire things for their sitters than for themselves. New readers tend go into obsessive mode on reading for themselves, and worry a lot when they get Death cards and Tower cards and such. So the warning about "not reading for spectacle," is less important than a discussion of how new readers are influenced by drama and expect to see movie moments in the Tarot. They expect romantic cards to bring them Romantic Movie encounters, and scary cards to bring they Scary Movie events.

But that's it's own thread

As for the rest, I like what you came up with on the career, but the other two are a little confusing. "What can I expect to experience in this relationship?" I don't know about you, but I have a successful relationship. Yet I'd say that I've experienced joy, anger, heartbreak, disappointment, pride, wonder, delight....Can there ever be one single experience in any relationship no matter how good or bad? I think I'd rather have the person ask, "In what ways will this relationship fulfill my expectations? In what way will it fail my expectations?" And, "What can I do to make this relationship the best it can be for the both of us?"

“How can I handle the unexpected events to make them all a growing experience?” also confuses me. Aren't all events "growing" experiences? And even if they aren't, is there really only one way to handle all unexpected events to make them all growing experiences? That's everything from a wrong turn made by the driver while you're in the passenger seat to an Earthquake to a proposal of marriage. Isn't it?

I think what you're really after is something like "What most inhibits my growth in handling the unexpected?" And "What most promotes my growth in handling the unexpected?" Thus, the sitter knows, in particular, what they need to work on when dealing with the unexpected. Tone down anger, for example, and be more fair and just in how they view things.

 

[SunChariot]

The Spectacle


“What do you see in my future?” At first serious thought, this question is similar to the “What can I expect to experience?” question. However, we need to reduce this question to the bare bones basics. The primary command of all life is “Survive.” So, if we look at the question again, it turns into something closer to “How can I negate the bad that will happen to me?” This question still goes against the rule of thumb for prayer... so lets try something such as “How can I handle the unexpected events to make them all a growing experience?” Wow, that's better. Oh, just imagine the possibilities that could lead to in a serious reading!

To me, particularly in this paragraph, every time you reduce the question you're changing its meaning drastically.

I think when someone asks what we see in their future they are talking about events and feelings. While "What can I expect to experience in the future?" is in fact the same question as "What do you see in my future?"
The answer should not be survive. Unless the person has a life-threatening illness and their survival is uncertain it is highly unlikely that that is the answer the cards would give.

The point of a Tarot reading is the give the querent information that they don't already have or see clearly yet, information taht will be useful to them and help them live their best lives. Most people expect to survive and not drop dead tomorrow, and even take it for granted, so telling them that is useless information. Since it is not news to them it is very unlikely that they cards would go out of their way to tell them something that mundane and they already now. The cards are just not likely to tell the querent that.

You lost me ever more with the next turn of thought. That if the answer is :"survive" which I maintain it would not be. That the question then becomes: “How can I negate the bad that will happen to me?” That is an assumption. There may well not BE anything bad coming in that person's immediate or longterm future. There may well only be good things coming.

To include an unverified assumtion in a Tarot question is something we're not supposed to do as readers. Because if we ask something like “How can I negate the bad that will happen to me?” and there IS nothing back that is going to happen to you there is no way the cards can say anythign to you that will make any sense and you'll get a nonsense answer.

On the other hand the question “How can I negate the bad that will happen to me?” if you include the time period for the entire rest of your life, the question becomes equally impossible to answer. There may be a number of "bad" things might happen in a 50 year period. IF there were say 100 bad things that were scheduled to happen (although the future is not set and there is not really schedule)...but for the sake of discussion let's say there were 100 bad things that were scheduled to happen in the rest fo your life. Some might be mundane like missing your bus,...but let's say 100.

If your question was “How can I negate the bad that will happen to me?”
The answer to each of the 100 things might be different. There might be 100 different answers. Let's say if Tuesday at 10:00 you were set to miss your bus, leaving earlier might be the solution. If you Saturday you were to get a sunburn, you could put more lotion on or not stay out as long.

But to ask one uniform anwer to how to negate any bad things that might happen in the rest of your life is going to get you another nonsense answer.

The question needs some rewriting.

This question: How can I handle (the) unexpected events to make them all a growing experience?” IS a very good question the way I see it and one that Tarot could answer well.

About to the relationship questions, to me “What can I expect out of this relationship?” and “What can I expect to experience from this relationship?” are really pretty well identical. The "to experience" part is implied in the first question. The meaning is identical even though it is not stated outright and only implied it is still there, that part is implicit.

Of course the querent is not asking what they can expect someone else to experience in their relationship, the question is about them and their experiences of it." To me the meanings of the two questions are really identical. The " to experience" part is implicit in the first question.

Those are my opinions,

Babs