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