tarot: offensive

[Northwind]

Tarot is something which always works by attraction and faith. I don't think we should be surprised at the negative reactions Tarot sometimes gets because people really don't understand it. I used to hate and resent football too until I went to a match and gave it a go . I had to do that or miss out on a lot of family fun.

I think we have to be careful how we promote tarot and how we speak about with others, particularly in sensitive family settings where there may be so many other dynamics at play. I think it takes quite a while to become a good tarot reader and I would be learning and practising as much as I could before using the cards with people close to me. I don't read for family members even now, after years of experience!

In reality I read and studied tarot personally and privately for years before I read for others, and I only discuss it now with people I know are interested or with clients who seek me out. The latter is usually by word of mouth, although I do have business cards now.

I'm speaking now in general terms, not specifically to the issues Ellie121 raised because I see that others have done that. Good lluck with it Ellie. The better your relationships with your family and friends, the more they simply accept your interest in tarot. I hope it all works out for you.

 

[tarotbear]

In the end we decided just to never discuss it again. Although once in a while it still slips out, like he can't say the word Tarot without calling it "that Tarot crap". It did create a rift between us to some extent.

I have found the best way to 'bring to their attention' that they are offending you is to apply their term to their own stuff ~ childish, I know. But after you refer to his religion as 'that Christian (or whatever) crap' or his hobby as 'that fishing crap' enough times the situation will blow up. When you finally say - if you cannot say 'Tarot' without adding 'that Tarot crap' to it, then be prepared for me to call everything you enjoy or like to do 'crap.'

My mother still thinks I should apologise to my aunt - after all she is older than I. I told my mother that age does not excuse you nor give you permission to be obnoxious or offensive.

 

[Anja]

scared

People are so scared of things they don't understand. It seems to get worse the more advanced we get in this world. I did a reading for a co-worker who is going thru a bad time. He was a non-believer. He couldn't believe the accuracy of the reading and what the cards said, yet he had the audacity to insinuate that I looked at each card and decided which one I was going to use. Needless to say, I was irritated at him. He kept saying it's unbelievable. Why are things so unbelievable to people? It's sad really how people in todays world are so closed off to things. Well...my co-worker is now a believer, but the majority of people are so scared and turned off by things like Tarot or anything "metaphysical". Heaven for bid people connect with their higher self and gain valuable information. That is sooo evil ; )
I had a conversation with a self proclaimed born again Christian at work 2 weeks ago. I am a very spiritual person myself. He was going on and on about the Bible. I asked him his views on Tarot cards. He said they were of Satan. I asked him why that was and he couldn't say. I brought up connecting with your higher self etc. and he changed the subject so quick. I loved it. He couldn't come up with an answer. I feel sorry for people who are so closed off to things like this. They are like lemmings.
Anja

 

[sharpchick]

My SO has a unique way of handling those sorts of things. When someone asks him if he's into "that new age crap," he asks where they are coming from with the question. Inevitably it will be "because the Bible tells me so."

He then points out to them that actually it is they who are members of a new age religion. . .

 

[Tarotphelia]

But when he found out and saw I had my first deck he was like "You're going to do WHAT???" And he kept yelling and screaming

Oh dear. I'm afraid that if that happened at my house, he'd be finding individual tarot cards in very inlikely places .. the Death card under his pillow , the Devil under his car seat, and the Tower in the shower ..

 

[Moonleap]

My aunt said to me recently "I don't see how any intelligent person can believe in Tarot."

I believe that the more open-minded a person is, the more intelligent they are.

But, if you had said to me ten years ago that I'd be involved in Tarot, I would have thought they were crazy. I was such a non-believer! So, there is hope. I do believe everyone is on their own path and if you are lucky--or destined--when the time is right you will be led to higher levels of understanding.

 

[SunChariot]

Oh dear. I'm afraid that if that happened at my house, he'd be finding individual tarot cards in very inlikely places .. the Death card under his pillow , the Devil under his car seat, and the Tower in the shower ..

I honestly don't have a vengeful of vindictive streak at all, but it seriously did make me stop and think about how compatable we are. My spiritual side is very important to me, and he is not really I guess a very spiritual person in the way I am. I don't honestly think we will be together forever. I think I need someone with a more spiritual bend to them. I am not ready to leave this second, but that was one of the deciding factors as it were...

Babs

 

[levannah60]

I often think this was a big factor in times past . Imagine high officials with a lot to hide realizing that the wise men and women could read them and come up with correct information ! A good reason to make every effort to put a stop to it and see those people imprisoned or put to death, and blame the devil.

Good point DarkInquisitor...At the same time, now days, A lot of people are just raised to belive that anything to do with the cards or fortunetelling is wrong. However, a lot of those same people may not know exaclty why they fear it, or dislike it. Ignorance breeds ingnorance....sad. My Mom, when she was screaming at me one time for standing up to help my Elderly Aunt, sudenly spun around and screamed: "What are you going to do?!? Use your TAROT CARDS Against me!!!" Whats sad, is my cards were hidden in my purse at the time, and when I got out of the shower, I found them not in my purse, but under her bed. I had the strangest feeling that she had gone through them, and when she shouted that at me a few days lator, I KNEW that she had done it. She's also the one who told me, after leaving my cards out on a chair when I had gone in to get something to drink, "Don't leave your 'power' out on the chair." Yea....werid. Anyways. there's a good example of ignorance, and I am fixed to move back in.

 

[Pagan X]

Nothing freaks out a skeptic of all things psychical like a good Tarot reading.

Their whole world is torn away from them, and that's pretty frightening.

Then there's the whole "reading Tarot is the same as learning active hostile speel casting." We can thank Holly wood for that...

Never forget, Tituba, the first charged in the Salem withcraft trials, was doing fortune-telling, not spell-casting.

 

[Alpha-Omega]

I Told a good firend i read taort a while ago , he is Negative twards it but he does not say anything to put me down, i can speak about to him and its ok. He just wont let me read for him, I told another freind and she was very kool about it, and i told 2 more today and they were very Excited and i was "forced" to read no stop today for them and my head was hurting lol
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