Premonitions - do you believe in them?

[rylla]

I'm especially interested in your opinion as tarot teaches that the future is not set in stone.

I am a math person. I don't believe in premonitions. I believe in 2+2=4. Still there are things I can't explain.

Without entering in too much details, one of them was:

a few years before the actual event happened a voice said: 56. This voice repeated itself every now and then, approx. twice a year. Along with came the feeling of what this number meant (not by thinking about it, I just knew) and that the event that will happen will completely change my life. What the event itself was going to be (or if it's going to be a good or a bad event) I was never 'told' in advance. In January of the year when the event actually happened I saw the number '56' in front of my eyes more again. Every week it became bigger and bigger, in the end the '56' appeared about the size of an 1 meter high neon sign, flashing in front of my eyes a few times a week. All that time I did not give the whole thing too much importance but something really big and life changing happened in February of that year (the exact year the prediction was referring to - the year when I became 56 years old). It didn't happen to me but to a loved one but changed my life forever too.
If the future is not set in stone how does it come that I was 'told' about it years before it happened?

What is your take on premonition and fate? When I think about it isn't it strange that tarot doesn't have any card that would represent fate? Or does it?
[The Wheel of fortune could be about fortune and not fate]

 

[Padma]

Rylla, that is an interesting experience, to be sure!

(For cards - I've always thought of the Wheel of Fortune being fate, not fortune - because it dictates in essence that we are fated to go up and down on the Wheel, as a matter of course. It's only logical that what goes up must come down, and vice versa. Stuff happens because it *must* - law of consequences, law of opposites. If that makes sense.)

I am not so sure that nothing is set in stone. I do believe that there is a - book, as it were, for lack of a better metaphor, with the main events of our lives in it. What we flesh that out with is up to us, but I think there is a main theme in the book that is predestined. As though the outline of the story is there, the chapters are already named, the end happens on a specific page. But what we write under the titles or themes of those chapters is up to us. How we react to it, I guess, and how we decide to fill it in. But a chapter title is a foreshadow of what is contained within.

I've had too many premonitions that came to pass for me - and very accurately too, to the last little detail - for me to believe that life is just random stuff that happens, and that we can change any and all of it any time we like. And some things that happen are so fully charged with the feeling of fate, that I cannot think it is anything else. Also - I believe, myself, that we come equipped with a knowledge of how our lives are supposed to unfold - that we choose in advance what our lives will be, and who will be in it, and what lessons we want to learn.

Further, I had readings done when I was 17 years old that came to pass 15 years later, exactly as I was told - and they weren't the kind of experiences that I could contrive to make come true! How can anyone read the future, and that far ahead, if some of it is not predestined?

I hope your life and that of the other person was not affected in a terrible way

 

[gregory]

I've always seen wheel as fate rather than fortune, too.

But OK - you turned 56. And SOMETHING was going to happen that year. But not WHAT. So - fate might just have "said" that something big would happen to you. If it wasn't showing ahead of time what that thing was - how do we know it was set in stone ?

 

[Grizabella]

I am not so sure that nothing is set in stone. I do believe that there is a - book, as it were, for lack of a better metaphor, with the main events of our lives in it. What we flesh that out with is up to us, but I think there is a main theme in the book that is predestined. As though the outline of the story is there, the chapters are already named, the end happens on a specific page. But what we write under the titles or themes of those chapters is up to us. How we react to it, I guess, and how we decide to fill it in. But a chapter title is a foreshadow of what is contained within.

Yes! I agree with this. Thank you for being able to articulate it so well because I never seemed to be able to.

Further, I had readings done when I was 17 years old that came to pass 15 years later, exactly as I was told - and they weren't the kind of experiences that I could contrive to make come true! How can anyone read the future, and that far ahead, if some of it is not predestined?

I've given readings that contained things that didn't happen for quite a number of years, so I don't think we can put a limit on what time period readings will cover, like that they'll only happen within 6 months or so. I think if you specifically ask for information on things coming up in 6 months, then the reading will answer that for the limited time period asked for, but otherwise, they can happen at any length of time into the future.

 

[Abrac]

One aspect of the RWS Devil is fate. Waite calls it the"chain and fatality of the material life." I interpret this as bondage to a belief in fate as over and above intelligence or "supernatural grace."

As for premonition, it's happened to me. I had a very lucid dream and the next day it came true in every detail, even things which I had no control over. It's never happened since. I don't see myself as a victim of fate but I do believe there are things that defy logic. I can't explain what happened to me, all I know is it happened. Was it set in stone? It seems that way. But could I have done something to alter its course? Probably, but I didn't.

 

[rylla]

I am not so sure that nothing is set in stone. I do believe that there is a - book, as it were, for lack of a better metaphor, with the main events of our lives in it. What we flesh that out with is up to us, but I think there is a main theme in the book that is predestined. As though the outline of the story is there, the chapters are already named, the end happens on a specific page. But what we write under the titles or themes of those chapters is up to us. How we react to it, I guess, and how we decide to fill it in. But a chapter title is a foreshadow of what is contained within.

Thank you Padma. I really like what you wrote. I'll give this some serious thoughts.

So some of you think the concept of 'fate' is included in tarot (in one form or another -WofF or Devil). I do believe that the 22 majors reflect life and are full of wisdom.

 

[rylla]

I've always seen wheel as fate rather than fortune, too.

But OK - you turned 56. And SOMETHING was going to happen that year. But not WHAT. So - fate might just have "said" that something big would happen to you. If it wasn't showing ahead of time what that thing was - how do we know it was set in stone ?

I was 'told' about not just any 'something' (that would leave me room to interpretation) but about something that would happen that year that will change the course of my whole life. And it did. Completely.

 

[danieljuk]

I do believe in premonitions. I have done many future looking readings and people asked me for predictions. Compared to readings for myself, I have made far more predictions that came true from the cards for others but I am always very cautious. I can't guarantee it or say "this is definite". Sometimes it happens.

The funniest one was predicting a friend would get married. She had a boyfriend who was a good friend for many years and they never realised there was a love there! I did a 12 month prediction reading and the Hierophant came up and I just had a feeling that it was marriage. It didn't really make sense though, she wasn't interested in getting serious that way and also she would not have a "traditional" wedding, it would be alternative and non traditional. But I just said I think it could be this.

By the end of that year they had got engaged and marriage all in the 12 months and they did have a pretty traditional wedding (well with marriage traditions which I would not have expected from her).

Currently with myself I am getting a lot of random psychic symbols for change and transformation, they just appear randomly like your number rylla. When I look up the symbols they always have a symbolic reading about change lol! So I am just writing them all down to see what happens.

I've noticed they are often hard to work out or get a clear message until afterwards and you realise with hindsight that you should have seen it clearer at the time they are like a puzzle! I do try to rule it all out logically first but often they are a surprise.

 

[Disa]

I don't have too many premonitions during readings, but they have occurred. However, I have had precognitive dreams since the age of 4. Some came to pass years later, others the next day. I've also had visions while awake that came to pass years later. So I can't say that some things aren't set in stone. I have to believe in premonitions because I have experienced them personally. I very much agree with Padma's explanation. I've always felt we were sent here with some sort of destiny, some goal we are to achieve as an outcome or finish line to our lives. Whether we get there at all, or the means by which we do finally get there, can be determined by us when we wander off the chosen path.

 

[Tanga]

I don't know about fate.
But I do believe in premonitions (and "spirit" communication) - as I've experienced both - though rarely.
My premonitions usually come like Deja vu in dreams.
My mother dreamt about the death of her boss the night before it happened (saw him being taken away on a stretcher covered in a white sheet - and the next day he promptly electrocuted himself to death in the basement and was taken away just so).

Perhaps there are some fixed tracks that we're just hurtling towards.
If premonitions were clearer - then maybe we could change some of these - but most of the time they don't give enough to work with I think.