Books vs. No books

Yes, I love the story analogy.

Here is something else. Most of us aren't noticeably psychic. Most of us need something to hang our intuition on. Most of us need something to get us talking until our intuition or our sub-conscious or whatever it is that we use when we look at the cards and get meaning for our lives starts working. That something is the meanings we get out of beginner's books and web sites. That something is the techniques we learn from books like Mary Greer's Tarot for Yourself and her 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card. Or from suggestions we find here at Aeclectic and other web sites.

You need to get your mouth open and you need to start talking (or writing) or nothing is going to come out. You need some place to begin.

And then there is the more advanced reading that we start doing as we continue to learn. The kind we do once we are beyond keyword memorization. It provides a depth to the meanings we get from our cards that wouldn't be there if we were just winging it.

So reading books puts a solid floor under intuition and adds layers and depth to what our intuition discovers. And maybe we wouldn't even have intuition about a card or a reading without the book reading we are also doing.

They cannot be separated. There is no way to separate them. They are two interdependent functions of the human consciousness... It is like suggesting you can have light without shadow.

The only thing I think is silly in Tarot practice is laziness. There is no excuse for it: but for my money, it's something I can't abide in the world. Tarot is just part of that. Anything worth having requires an investment: that is one of the main reasons it's worth having.

Books are useful. But only if you interact with them as an active consciousness. Personal Gnosis is useful, but it cannot be articulated. We all have to find our own way and it is a wide and arduous and wonderful way. We are not insects.

Scion

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I think that Scion puts it very precisely.
And I think that this is a false schism in the first place.
I don't that there is anything wrong with reference, research and scholarly knowlegde. I think this gives you the deepth and background material for the readings. And while doing the readings the books should be put aside, (that is btw my personal challenge at the moment.)

To my it is like having to choose between two kinds of knowledge (or gnosis)that deepen eachother, and help you on the way.

As for the tarotreader loosing his memory of scholarly knowledge - maybe it would give him a huge set back, since this qualifies his readings - but hmm - then he would have to start from there, obtaining new knowledge, linking it to his new life situation and experience.

By the way - I don't think we are able to access all our knowledge all the time, some knowlegde loose relevance with different life circumstances, and some knowledge simply comes from funny and strange sources, that are hard to keep track on or articulate. Sometimes the socalled scholarly and socalled intuitive knowledge blends together, creating new knowledge (I think). Sometimes we have to cut out some knowledge, some aspects, some methods - just to get things done, to grasp something. As for example to leave out using reversals, and focusing on elemental dignities instead. I don't think that there something wrong with that as long as we are aware of what we're doing.

That's just my 25 øre.

Gazel.

Scion said:

Splunge, I have to confess this is a topic that depresses me every time it appears, which isn't your fault...

First off, there is no division between study and intuition. They are two spheres that are both inextricably linked. If anyone in the entire world can tell me how anyone operates SOLELY on either intuition or study then I will happily proclaim that individual a robot. Humans use these functions consonantly and constantly. Every hardcore scholar has flashes of insight. Every pure psychic observes and absorbs the world around them.
Scion

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Bravo. Perfect. Your whole post was right on. Frankly I just don't understand why this question comes up again and again, it's so basic and obvious, at least to me. And a few others.

Books - what about shakspeare

Sometimes i think we too soon forget the classics in our journey into the human condition. I have watched, read Mabeth for exampel - well pretty morbid, but yes it gives insight. Machiavelli does give and interesting read, when considering business, and how one should/should'nt act/react. Even Dante can give insight in our journey though life and our various vices. Can one use these examples in a tarot reading? I think so. Guilt, love,averice, power struggels are universal. Even reading that everyday novel can help us. How dose the character react to different situations. Will they had better insight into their reactions by having a reading with Tarot - will they have done differently? Ive tried a reading on a character in novel, but that is another story........

Umbrae said:

I've often said (so why not - I'll say it again)...
Intuitive is "Uh-oh...the children are quiet, that's trouble."
Psychic is, "Uh-oh...the children are quiet - they've found the gun..."

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That's psychic? Wow! I've raised 6 kids and I've always been psychic then. My kids still look at me sometimes with odd looks on their faces and say, "You're psychic, Mom! (Or Grandma)" LOL

The more you read the cards, the more it all comes together. I believe reading books has merit, provided it's done separately from the cards. In other words, provided you don't grab the book when reading.

I'm teaching young people now and I insist they separate the two. I don't forbid reading the book because, for one thing, one of them is using the Llewellyn deck and the Majors are based on the Welsh legends. The book is necessary, even for me, to learn those legends. (Besides, we all know the kids are going to read the book anyway if they have one or can get their hands on one. Let's be real. ) But they aren't to have the book handy to them when they read. Just the cards. We're doing it on the honor system when they're away from me. They're like kids getting ready to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time, but this way they're learning early on that the magic is within them, not within the book.

Furthermore, I believe your psychic ability increases the more you read the cards. That psychic channel is going to remain closed the more your mind remains closed to anything but what's in the book.

I like the storybook idea...It's a good way of putting it I think.

I want everyone to know (again) that I am not regurgitating the old debate. I KNOW that's a tired subject. This is less a debate and more of an analysis of how research affects a face to face reading. In terms of card meanings...some will tell you that the meaning varies from sitter to sitter, from reading to reading, so memorizing fixed meanings is not the way to go because what if your fixed meaning is not what the card means at that particular moment. They'd say you have ruined yourself by memorizing fixed meanings and that you essentially have to unlearn everything you have learned in order to move forward and develop your....well...since there is such a problem and confusion with the word 'intution' and the concept of 'psychic' I'll just call what we're talking about 'glorp'. In order to develop your glorp, memorizing fixed meanings interferes with the glorp flow.

My question is can research have the same effect?

I don't think it changes it all that much.

The cards are still the cards and they don't change depending on who reads them.
But the reader may choose different words, different angles, different descriptions and different ways of explaining the cards and their meanings to the client.

And by different, I don't mean "better" in any meaning of the word. Just Different.

For a client, it may help to see a reader who has a view on the world that the client shares since that will increase the chances of the reader using words and explanations that the client will understand.
But other than that, which really comes down to personal chemistry and vocabulary anyway, I don't think it makes that much of a difference.


Edited to add...

Knowledge will not by default prevent the glorp from flowing, but it may take it in directions that we may not have been able to bring it had we not gathered the knowledge.

The glorp will always flow.
The reading merely alters the landscape, and sure, if we decide that knowledge is all, it will create a blockage and prevent the glorp to flow.
But if we incorporate the knowledge to the landscape and just let it lay there and rest til the glorp stirs it up, it is more likely to help us tell the message in a clearer way or explain it in a different way if the client does not understand the first explanation.

It's really up to us to not make the "one true word-situation" take over and prevent the flow. In fact the "one true anything" is something we should take care to avoid...
Tarot tells possibilities, not absolute truths.

*sigh*

Actually, Splungeman... if you look at what you just asked, you are literally restating the same question in different terms. Implicit in this is the assumption that some kind of qualitative difference exists between them. You are assuming that there is a distinction/division between these two interconnected components of skill development.

Splungeman said:

My question is can research have the same effect?

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If they are interdependent then of course it is the same. Built into this "new" question is the idea that they are different, therefore separate. And my point is that they are not only NOT separate that naming them two separate things is a way of discussing spheres of a single activity. By using the word "Can" you are implying the boolean possibility of a "can't" as a response. And since I don't believe a "can't" is possible for the reasons described in my post above, I extrapolate that the question itself is as meaningless and misguided as ever. I hope that's okay to say. And of course this is only my opinion...

Again, I don't mean to seem grumpy, but calling it "Glorping" and then saying that THAT is different and something distinct from Study does not eliminate this basic (and to my mind) fallacious, pernicious new age assumption of a division that can inevitably be traced to poor vocabulary or sloppy rhetoric.

An easier and more accurate way to discuss it might be to think of these two modes of exploration as theoretical extremes of a spectrum. But even then, there isn't a question to ask because every single human on the planet experiences these things individually and subjectively. It is gnosis and therefore un-articulable. So the only thing to do is recount personal experience that will resonate in differing degrees with people based on their functional similarities to you. So not a discussion but shared memoir. Which is perfectly valid, if slightly self-involved way of exploring a topic.

Short version: you are asking the same question, and because it is based on a fallacy, it cannot be answered.

How many fish is an umbrella?

Scion

And another thing...

Books were written from peoples own conclusions and interpretations, and so the personal interpretations, the verbally told stories, the myths etc where the symbols originated from were always there from the start.
The books merely presented a new way of telling it and people have taken advantage of the medium to write down that which before was told from generation to generation by word of mouth, or drawn into pictures on walls, or pressed into clay tablets, or carved into stone.

So, which was first?
The chicken or the egg?

We need both to keep the chickens hatching.

Except of course that many meanings and methods still widely used by tarot readers were completely invented by a crazed Parisian hairdresser who apparently got tossed out of even a most irregular masonic lodge.

ancient wisdom where?