Books vs. No books

Splungeman said:

I'm back!

Noooo...no really driven away. Just weary at trying to rephrase the question again...which I am figuring out may be impossible.
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So...my opinion is that memorizing set keywords or ideas to apply to the cards is detrimental to Tarot reading, but more broad spectrum research and study only enlivens and improves the quality of a reading.

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If not impossible, then so carefully worded as to be unanswerable. I hear you.

And I don't think you'll find any argument about different modes of study opening up your readings. You make my point exactly about goofy books: one of the great powers and perils of a free press is that you have the authority to choose what you will use to mulch you rmind. And if I think reading about Hollow Earth theory will open up new vistas in my spreads: rock it. And who's to say they won't? Maybe I'm making a huge mistake by NOT reading Hollow Earth histories. We dismiss unfamiliar ideas to our own detriment. In a sense, Umbrae's question "which book?" is the first question, but I feel like the answer there is too subjective to have objective value.

You raise an interesting point about 100% correct answers. In a way isn't that the core of learning: approaching ever more subte distinctions between the 99% when something is true, and hunting for the 1% where it's not. Or vice versa: "Light is always a wave, except when it's a particle." And I'd add to that that broad spectrum study is bound up in broad spectrum intuitive work. As we exercise our preconceptions we wear them out and discard them. As Umbrae puts it: "Any time we refuse to leave our comfort zone – we limit."

So the answer to your original books question may be there, if you aren't stretching yourself in some new direction then you aren't growing as a reader.
Splunge, I hope that you don't feel "battered and abused" but it doesn't sound like you do. As I said a few pages back, I just wanted to be clear about the language that was being used in the discussion. I don't see the point of all of us sitting in a circle with half-smiles on our faces, nodding mindlessly as we each repeat personal clichés. That in itself is a comfort zone: everyone just huddled, grunting in agreement and staring at the shadows on the wall.

I agree with you about keywords, but there are other fundamentalist clichés that we settle into eagerly: whatever feels right, the system is the ONLY system, Tarot is an ancient book of wisdom, Tarot is a game of cards... blah blah. For my part, I believe cliché is one of the greatest evils of the world because whenever people repeat one it's because they haven't taken the time to formulate their own thought and state it coherently; it's borrowed "wisdom" that no one really hears because it isn't really said. The reason clichés are so popular is that they save time and effort. It's very hard to have any kind of a conversation without resorting to them.

Now what I'll be interested to see is if this conversation has (as usual) cleared the room, whether because they feel it's all semantics or because they can't be bothered to read through all this and join in. The hard part is that there are some topics that can't really be discussed casually in passing in sound bites. A lot of people are reading this thread without contributing to it; I'd love to know what they're thinking in their own words. Fingers crossed.

But mainly Splungeman, I'm glad that you didn't mind being "dissected" and were willing to see where the discussion led.

Scion

Ok, I'll bite. Are books good or bad for your glorp? Yes

With research, as with everything, it's what you do with it that counts. Does it feed your ego? Bad for glorp. Does it make you feel inadequate? Bad for glorp. Does it open new horizons? Good for glorp. Does it deepen your understanding of something? Good for glorp. And so on...

'Research' is life. We live and learn. Books are part of it, how big or small a part depends on the individual, they happen to be a big part of mine. I don't think my glorp has been harmed by anything I've read. Same goes for the worse B-movie I've ever watched or a scene I witnessed in the super-market. Perhaps my best reading ever will be the result of my watching the revenge of the mutant chopsticks. Or it will be due to Plato's Critias. Or none of the above, or a combination. You never know. It's all 'study' for me, it all feeds my glorp.

Btw Hollow Earth theories rock

We're birds of a feather then, elvenstar. I've gotten flashes of universal consciousness while reading Flaubert and while listening to Hannah Montana remixes.

And I think Hollow Earth theories are about to pitch over into retro cool. I'm waiting for David Icke to go mainstream.

Yes, there are bad books out there, and simply reading a few meanings for the cards and repeating them whenever the particular card comes up would hinder more than help because reading the tarot is so much more than just repeating keywords.

But the solution to that - for me - has not been to stop reading but to KEEP reading since that will give me alternate ways of looking at the card, which in the long run has given me an understanding of the meaning of the cards aswell as the freedom to let my intuition lead me to what the message is 'this time' when I do readings.

It's more about how we bring it onboard than whether we gather our knowledge from books, experience, conversations with others, a mentor, our friends, books completely unrelated to tarot or whereever...

Books are not the only influences to our knowledge and understanding of Tarot.
We see influences and meanings in artgalleries, buildings, architecture, math, crafts, belief systems, the way we treat eachother, the roles we play in life, the people we encounter and many other places and ways.

Reading books will influence the way we read the cards.
Most often, yes, but provided we don't hang on so tightly to the words we've read that Everything gets filtered through them, we can still have a free flow of intuition when reading the cards, or reading the wallpaper, or the sugarpackets...

My personal opinion is that I don't think you can learn how to read the cards without reading some books along the way. I am that type of reader you described. I read 99% by analysing the imagery in a card using my intuition. Although I do take into account the basic meanings of the suits and numbers (in my fashion) and the very basis meaning of the Majors.

What I have never done is memorize any meanings. For me, on my path, that would interfere with what I wanted to do. I also never read the books that come with the decks. I used to out of curiousity, then I would try to forget the meanings right away. Now I don't even read them anymore. For me, I am interested in finding my own personal meanings for the cards, not learning what they mean to someone else, even if that person is the creator of the deck.

That being said I have read over 30 books on reading techniques to get to where I am now. I was addicted to them when I first started. I was beyond fascinated, I just could not read enough on it. I think I needed each and every one of those books. They all taught me something that narrowed down my reading method down into the way I do it today. Bits and pieces of each have stayed with me on my path. And I am happy with where I am now, so I am grateful to all of them.

So I guess that is my answer, in my opinion books on technique are very worthwhile, likely necessary. As there are SO many ways to read. How can you know which way is best for you if you aren't exposed to a mulititude of ways so you can sense what feels right to you? I don't think you have to take any of them too seriously, like they are telling you THE way to read. There is no one way that is best for everyone. Still those books can give you ideas you had not yet thought of that then become a deep part of you and your skills.

But memorizing, or even learning, set meanings is not my path. Then again it might be someone else's. Whatever our individual paths are is something we each need to feel and sense inside.

Babs

I spent a few years, flying around the country teaching stock market trading. I had everything from housewives, other brokers, and hedge-fund traders as students.

One of the yardsticks of success, was if you could make it 90 days without blowing out your account. Didn’t matter if you had inherited a couple hundred grand or if you had a billion dollars of OPM, what mattered, was if you could make it 90 days.

The Ice Queen (our margin clerk) and I would spot them – we had to…the failures waiting to happen.

We had to. We were obligated to help folks not blow out their account.

But some folks would not listen. Some could not listen.

Without exception – every one of them – had read the books before they came to my class (which was not cheap, or easy).

Because they ‘knew’, they’d read the books, they had a difficult time listening – they spent their time thinking of what question they’d ask to show how cleaver and smart they were.

Try explaining to someone what a Reg T call is, that they have 3 days to come up with a half a million dollars because they just broke the Federal Reserve Regulation T rules (it was all explained, but they were stressing over ‘charts’).

See…we always had this thing going on…when I was teaching, real time charts had just come out. Real Time Charting! And folks had read all the books on charting and they knew! They had an advantage over the next guy who read the same books and had the same charts…

But I was teaching them how to read the Level 2 screen.

Without exception – every single real time chart student who read the books who went through my class – blew out their account within 90 days. I remember one woman lasted three hours. She had three million dollars. Blew out in three hours.

(What’s this got to do with Tarot? Everything)

There are a ton of books on tarot. Some good some bad. Looked at one the other day that included Miscarriage with the Three of Swords. Now what kind of idiot is going to use that in a reading?

Many of the books are cookbooks of meanings, some are history, and when it comes to books about reading face-to-face for strangers, or how to read face-to-face for strangers, there are 2.5 (The point five is in the process of being published) as of this writing.

Will a history book teach you to read face-to-face for strangers? Nope.

I think it was Kwaw who once said that ‘Divination with Tarot is one of the less interesting things you can do with it [Tarot]”. I agree. But the number of books on what you can do beyond divination is minimal.

As for all the books on what Tarot ‘means’, most have roots in Etteilla. Anything based on Waite & Crowley (or even Lévi), is based on Etteilla. That is a fact. Read enough books and you find that it’s all sloppy scholarship; and the folks who beat the books on the desks…well…like the traders with inflated accounts, they feel special.

Reading more books on what the cards mean, will not help you in any way when the stranger sits in front of you, her husband just left with all the money, her house has been repossessed, she’s alone, and she wants her husband back!

I remember once, I had a woman buy a stock because I mentioned it in my class. Even though I used it as an example of what NOT to trade. Later, I walked by her trading station as she was hastily attempting to cover something up. The Death card from a WCS. Of course me, I had to ask, “So what did that tell you?”

“That I shouldn’t have gone long the stock?”

“Depends on your point of view” was my response.

As for the thesis question “Book or no book?” “Depends on your point of view” is my response.

But the Tarot is a book (IMO). It has 78 pages which are not bound. It even has a cover page (IMO) that tells us what it’s about. And it’s a great read! But difficult for many.

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PS: The reason I know about the books – is because I AM a voracious reader and collector of books. I judge them because I’ve read them. I will not attempt to guess the number of Tarot books I’ve read – it’d be a guess.

The ultimate question is – out of all the books I’ve read, how many have helped me be a better reader, which have given me a deeper understanding of the cards?

Zip nada ziltch

Which gave me a better appreciation for the Tarot? I can think of four.

Am I glad I read the tarot for many years before I read a book on or about Tarot? Absolutely. It’s my opinion – it’s my foundation. Ain’t for everybody – but I never said it was.

In summation - more books do not equal more knowledge.

Glorp perhaps does...



Further, experiential knowledge augmented with intellectual knowledge is deeper and broader than intellectual knowledge compounded with the experiential – IMO – based no my experience across several fields of study.

One does not go to veterinarian school to develop a love of horses…

But Umbrae, if I may ask.
How many of the books contributed to making your ability to read the cards worse than it was before you read the book?

I do agree with you though.

It's not the books, it's not the content in them, it's not what we read but what we do with the knowledge and whether we are able to keep an open mind to learning more after we've finished the book and closed the covers.
If we close the learning with the closing of the covers, we probably would become worse readers from having read the book. But then, we would just as likely have become worse readers from just about anything else we've stumbled on aswell so book or no book, it's really about how true we can be to ourselves, how much faith we have in our glorp and how impressionable we are by the opinions of others.

Eco74 said:

But Umbrae, if I may ask.
How many of the books contributed to making your ability to read the cards worse than it was before you read the book?

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(From post #17)

Umbrae said:

…I learned without the books. But I studied. I studied the cards, I worked with them. I owned one deck for 29 years

I used it for readings (live face-to-face for strangers). I also read playing cards.

I read my first book after 12 years of reading.

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So it’s difficult to answer the question. I was firmly grounded in experiential knowledge, and then added the external intellectual.

Eco74 said:

It's not the books, it's not the content in them, it's not what we read but what we do with the knowledge and whether we are able to keep an open mind to learning more after we've finished the book and closed the covers.
If we close the learning with the closing of the covers, we probably would become worse readers from having read the book. But then, we would just as likely have become worse readers from just about anything else we've stumbled on aswell so book or no book, it's really about how true we can be to ourselves, how much faith we have in our glorp and how impressionable we are by the opinions of others.

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In general, I agree. But I urge folks to go out and with a critical mind begin exploring the world of Tarot readers. Go out into the real world. How many folks are there that read live using Keywords? How many read live by regurgitating entire paragraphs of Greer and Pollack?

A lot. I’ve sat next to them (although now I sit next to real readers who eschew this practice). They think that the books (intellect) equal wisdom.

I simply believe that experience placed upon a foundation of intellectualism is less solid than intellectualism placed upon a foundation of experience.

I also have never advocated the banning or destruction or the complete ignoring of books. Such is a mischaracterization and a willful mistreatment of my points and posts.

Ok, I keep seeing the word Glorp today. First thought is was a typo (Glory maybe?), but now I keep seeing it. What is Glorp???

Babs