It has resonance in long cultural association with myths and folk-wisdom. The symbology is generally recognized, and carried over into dreams and mass entertainment, and so they're shared by a great many people.
As a psychological tool, though, the element of chance renders it meaningless. If the 'seeker' were to spread out the deck, face up, and rearrange the cards in a meaningful pattern, it might be as useful as the I Ching: open to the reader's interpretation.

As fortunetelling, it's exactly as useful as tea leaves or palm-reading: just for fun.

I agree in one sense and disagree by the other.

Ultimately, the chance of picking up any given combination is entirely down to probability and factorials. A Mathematical function. Therefore we can easily reason that the cards drawn in any instance are meaningless and just for fun.

Just as if we have a bag M&Ms the chance of drawing 3 yellows, 2 greens and a 1 red are a mathematical probability that can be calculated from the total sum of possibilities.

However, M&Ms and tarot cards have a distinct and important difference.

Tarot cards have an assigned meaning unlike the mere colours of M&Ms.
And that meaning is not a specific, superficial or a particular one, but rather a deep, resonant, broad, interconnected and overlapping fundamental one, generally applicable to most contexts.

The chances of picking something specific in a set of 20 distinct and unrelated things, is 1 in 20. A 5% chance.

The chances of picking up something fundamental, in a set of 20 fundamentals, is 1, 100% chance. A certainty. Because if they are all "fundamental" , their significance pertains to the same thing.

Its like having 20 cards that all pertain to a toothbrush. One card says: it is used to clean your mouth with repetitive movements, another says it has bristles, a head and a handgrip, the other says it is made by colgate and found on the bathroom sink, and another indicates that it is used daily where toothpaste is applied to the end.

In this case, what are the chances of picking up a card that describes the fundamental - a toothbrush? 100% chance right? It may be interpreted differently in isolation - mouthwash, floss, etc. But the collective stands for one concept.

I believe tarot cards do the same. In this way perhaps random chance is compensated for, because all you could ever draw is a card that is relevant to some principle embodied by all the components - every card pertaining to one facet of the same thing.

Tarot cards appear to have been designed very specifically, with common tropes and archytpes in mind. Many of the concepts they embody or personify seem to reflect what I would say are the fundamentals of human experience: — Benj96

Yes. Like most other forms of prophecy or fortune-telling, Tarot uses symbols & archetypes as plot devices for storytelling. As "fundamentals of human experience" they can be woven together into narratives that will seem to have personal significance to someone who is motivated to look for certain meanings & feelings.

Unlike abstract & random tea-leaves or animal entrails though, these figures & metaphors are more directly associated with common human experience : love, grief, etc. So, they are easier for the untrained person to interpret as the next chapter in a specific life. However, a talented & experienced interpreter of human emotions will make a fictional fantasy sound more personalized & believable. :smile:

What Is a Plot Device? :
A plot device is a storytelling tool or technique that is used to propel a narrative. A well-written plot device can be deeply satisfying to a reader or audience member.
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/common-plot-devices-and-how-to-use-them-in-your-writing

I believe tarot cards do the same. In this way perhaps random chance is compensated for, because all you could ever draw is a card that is relevant to some principle embodied by all the components - every card pertaining to one facet of the same thing. — Benj96

But not necessarily you, and not necessarily now, and not necessarily relating to the question you want answered.

But not necessarily you, and not necessarily now, and not necessarily relating to the question you want answered. — Vera Mont

No, not neccesarily me, anyone can engage with them. And yes not neccesarily now, as they can be played at any time, and yes not neccesarily answering the question I had in mind, as often in interpreting them, one is lead to new or novel combinations of thought, new points or reference or forms of framing something that may decidedly make the orignal question more redundant, instead revealing new insights into aspects of experience you had not considered to be relevant.
That's a pro-tarot opinion.

An anti-tarot opinion would be, if they don't intrinsically refer to you, and the time aspect is irrelevant, and they don't directly answer a particular question, then they're truly meaningless. As there is no grounds for anything objective or tangible meaning when you remove yourself, a time stamp or any particular motive.

In essence the debate is actually sort of one regarding determinism verses free disguised as "Do tarot cards have any inherent meaningful use".

If one is deterministic, whatever tarot cards one pulls at a specific time, place and question/desire in mind, were always going to be that exact combination and so a determinist could argue that they do apply to the situation because the situation is determined. Therefore they can have meaning about what was determined, what is determined, and what will be surely be determined ahead of you.

If one is non-determinist, what is drawn from the deck is pure random chance, as is the idea to play them, and the questions one applies, all just probabilities and flights of pointless fancy. In that case the cards have no relevance to anything. And you are left to either come up with your own imagined meaning, or consider the game worthless and never bother with it again as it offers nothing valuable.

I find both the Tarot and astrology interesting as providing a kind of vocabulary or system for thinking about aspects of human experience and personality.

I was into astrology for a while in my late teens, and I found myself seeing people's star signs in their personality. I suspected myself of confirmation bias so I tried predicting people's star signs before they told me. Absolutely hopeless. My success rate was probably worse than chance.

as often in interpreting them, one is lead to new or novel combinations of thought, new points or reference or forms of framing something that may decidedly make the orignal question more redundant, instead revealing new insights into aspects of experience you had not considered to be relevant. — Benj96

Or, you could just lie on your back and stare at clouds for the same result. The difference is, clouds don't charge a fee.

I find both the Tarot and astrology interesting as providing a kind of vocabulary or system for thinking about aspects of human experience and personality. — bert1

All divination does that. And the stories of Native North Americans shamans, and the icons of Eastern Orthodoxy. They are meaningful as the beholder makes them.

I was into astrology for a while in my late teens, and I found myself seeing people's star signs in their personality. I suspected myself of confirmation bias so I tried predicting people's star signs before they told me. Absolutely hopeless. My success rate was probably worse than chance. — bert1

That was also my experience. Although skeptical of the stellar mechanism, I was impressed by the array of symbols & archetypes that had been assembled over time into a relatively simple, but sufficiently comprehensive, pattern of options from which to assemble a meaningful story. Consequently, found the personality charts of sun signs more useful than the astronomical data. For example, I typically view Donald Trump as a prideful Leo*1, but he could also be a two-faced Gemini, depending on your observations & assumptions.

So, Astrology seems to be a pseudoscience, but still useful for human-interest purposes. Also, like Alchemy & Chemistry, centuries of trial & error & imagination finally resulted in something more reliable -- not for predicting human fates, but for predicting star & planet futures via Astronomy. :smile:

*1. Typical sun in Leo traits include being confident, comfortable being the center of attention, drama-adoring, ambitious, loyal, fiercely protective of their nearest and dearest, generous, luxury-loving, sunny, and big-hearted.

Tarot cards may be 100% hokum, but that wouldn't prevent someone from gaining personal benefit by using them. After all, a good share of psychoanalysis seems just as hokey, but within living memory it has been quite respectable. Penis envy? Oedipal complexes? Sounds like bullshit to me. The interpretation of dreams holds that certain things, like staircases, have definite meaning when they appear in a dream, nuanced by whether one is ascending or descending, what's at the top and bottom and who is on them. Could be, I suppose. It's no more unlikely than 1 of 20 cards revealing truth.

The thing is, people like attention, and sitting down with a tarot card reader is probably at least somewhat satisfying. The reader appears to be peering intently into one's 'situation'. Feels good. Same for fortune telling, tea leaf reading, or channeling the dead. Hocus pocus, but nobody ever went broke underestimating people's gullibility.

I find both the Tarot and astrology interesting as providing a kind of vocabulary or system for thinking about aspects of human experience and personality. — bert1

Yes, exactly, it's an arbitrary frame, providing a kind of window on to one's life and mind.

I only came to appreciate this when someone I know, who had her own personal Indian astrologer, convinced me to do a consultation. I was impressed with the complexity of the charts he produced, and by his non-trivial insights and sometimes weirdly specific predictions and warnings. The real Indian astrology is so much deeper than anything I'd heard of before.

Of course, I don't believe in it at all, but it almost seems like that's missing the point.

And as Niels Bohr said of the horseshoe that was hanging in his house when asked if he really believed it brought good luck...

“No,” Bohr replied, “but I am told that they bring luck even to those who do not believe in them.”

(probably apocryphal, but it's a good one)

EDIT: One of the warnings was "do not take a long-distance car journey in the second half of 2022."

Your discussion of the Tarot is interesting because it includes the symbolic meanings. In thinking about the Tarot both this and the idea of divination are involved. Of course it is possible to see the symbolic aspects and intuition of life as being involved as opposed to literal fortune telling.

I have never used the Tarot but I once had a girl do a reading for me when I was living in a student hall of residence. The thing was she did the reading and was so stressed out because she said it was the most disturbing spread of cards she had ever seen. I wasn't that surprised because I knew that I had a rather upside down life!

While I haven't consulted Tarot cards, I did go through a phase of using the I Ching. I found it fairly helpful for decision making although it became a bit addictive. It may be that the oracles can give intuition about future dangers but there is a danger of literalism. I have known people who have gone to fortune tellers and getting really freaked out. For example, I knew someone who was told that her father was going to die and was so stressed for many years about this and the warning was not true, other than probably showing how how much about how important her father was to her.

I sometimes cook up a magic potion in my kitchen and I use things like eye of needle, tooth of comb and finger of fish. I'm hoping to become king of Scotland without actually harming anyone.

I do not believe in any of this superstitious nonsense, but I do have a hamsa hanging in my kitchen window to keep out the evil eye. I do this because I'm not fucking crazy. I don't want no evil eye bullshit in my house.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamsa

I do have an book called, 'The Book of Destiny' by Barbara Meiklejohn-Peters and Flavia Kate Peters. I have consulted a couple of times and found it helpful psychologically. I decided to consult it earlier today because I was feeling low in mood and despondent. This involved opening a page at random and the one I got was titled 'Doors'. It seemed particularly relevant because it was about seeing open doors rather than closed ones. I have felt as if I am at a deadend recently and it may that I need to see new opportunities rather than dwell on things which have ended badly.

Connecting this to the idea of the Tarot and other oracles, what may be important is intuitive guidance or wisdom. In my own example that doesn't mean that I wait for doors and complain if none appear as such. It may be more about framing and the need to approach the future with a positive attitude and intent, probably as a basis for navigating new possibilities.

I find sometimes that the only way to have a sensible conversation is by talking to myself. Random elements are always a good way to start a conversation, and generally one will find in whatever arbitrary stimulus a connection with whatever is on one's mind. Rorschach ink blots, tarot cards, I Ching, and the Bible have all been well used for such purposes. But I would caution that occasionally one should also engage with other mortals to inoculate one's wisdom against the folly of the world.

That's a great addition to the thread. I also agree. I think self contemplation and interaction with others stabilises one another. They require balance.

At its extreme, living as a recluse and thinking only to yourself, slowly eroding your conventions and societal reality, shaping what you want to make of it may potentially lead to all sorts of strange fantasy and mystic ramblings.

At the same time believing too much in the news, media, politics and what other people think or say can be very disenchanting and disempower you from thinking freely for yourself. Rendering you very skeptical and often pessimistic too.

So I think tarot, as well as other devices of introspection are useful in a limited capacity just to add a splash of wonder, mystery and perplexity to life, in the same way maybe that meditations or prayers offer reflections of one's desires and current state of affairs.

Tarot cards appear to have been designed very specifically, with common tropes and archytpes in mind. — Benj96

Yeah? No.

Various card games require various deck set ups. A 32 card deck is called a piquet deck. Likewise, a full set of 78 cards is called a tarot deck. There are specific games you can play with such 78 card decks, and that's where tarot cards come from. The whole idea of an occult tarot was a later invention and had very little to do with the actual card games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosstarock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot_card_games#Tarock

Gypsies used the old game decks for divination before they were adopted by occult people. Obviously the deck has been redesigned a thousand times since then, so Benj is correct.

My dream-catcher has not caught any dreams yet. Does anyone know a reliable model?

Gypsies used the old game decks for divination before they were adopted by occult people. Obviously the deck has been redesigned a thousand times since then, so Benj is correct. — frank

So the game decks where used by gypsies before occultists got a hand on them? Uh huh. Hey dude, the claim was that tarot cards where "specifically designed with common tropes and archetypes in mind", so your comment doesn't even connect. Or maybe you're trying to say that because gypsies used those decks before occultists did, this somehow points to the designs referring to "common tropes and archetypes"?

Whatever. What I'm saying is that those cards started out as playing cards. What occultists call the major arcana are just trump cards used in card games of the tarot family, which use 78 cards in a deck. The makers added the pictures to make them visually appealing, Basically the same as art on Magic: the Gathering cards. They could have used naked ladies with giant boobs as illustration too, since it really doesn't matter. Case in point being, I'm sure you can get one of those tarot decks on amazon right now.

Why did I start about the major arcana? Because the regular suits don't actually have illustrations depicting scenes when you're looking at the oldest extant cards. They just denote the value and the suit. Like the 2 of coins has, surprise, 2 coins on it in the Minchiate deck.

What I'm saying is that those cards started out as playing cards. — Ying

Yeah, I know. They almost disappeared altogether until some guy saw gypsies using them for divination and he decided they must be ancient wisdom from Egypt (I guess because the gypsies he knew were Egyptian.). Through him the cards travelled into occult groups like the Golden Dawn.

Any deck you see now is decorated with symbols that link them up to astrology and/or cabalism, so Benj is correct that as we've received them, tarot decks are designed to ping archetypes as they appear in astrology.

nlb

Yeah, I know. They almost disappeared altogether until some guy saw gypsies using them for divination and he decided they must be ancient wisdom from Egypt (I guess because the gypsies he knew were Egyptian.). Through him the cards travelled into occult groups like the Golden Dawn. — frank

What? No they didn't. A tarot deck is just a regular deck of cards with a few cards added to the suits and with an extra set of trump cards. We generally use the French suits these days (Spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds), but the suits generally used in tarot decks aren't uncommon in certain countries in Europe.

Any deck you see now is decorated with symbols that link them up to astrology and/or cabalism, so Benj is correct that as we've received them, tarot decks are designed to ping archetypes as they appear in astrology.

:roll:

Anyway, if Benj96 wants to know how tarot cards where meant to be properly used, try reading up on the game of grosstarock. I provided a link earlier.

Yes. It was originally a deck for card games. You appear to be enthralled by that fact. :lol:

Yes. It was originally a deck for card games. You appear to be enthralled by that fact. :lol: — frank

And you seem to be "enthralled" by some vague recollection of shards and snippets of the life of A.E. Waite (you called him "some guy" earlier). Note that decks like the Minchiate and Marseilles decks predate the Rider-Waite one.

Anyway, yeah, I focus on the issue that tarot cards are playing cards. Because it might just be relevant to the discussion. Or, we could just talk about imaginary tarot cards with a made up history or something. I know I'm bowing out then.

And you seem to be "enthralled" by some vague recollection of shards and snippets of the life of A.E. Waite (you called him "some guy" earlier). — Ying

It wasn't Waite. Waite was a Golden Dawn guy. The tarot had become attached to the occult before the Golden Dawn even existed. It was some French guy who was supposed to have seen the cards being used by gypsies.

Anyway, yeah, I focus on the issue that tarot cards are playing cards. Because it might just be relevant to the discussion. Or, we could just talk about imaginary tarot cards with a made up history or something. I know I'm bowing out then. — Ying

It's vaguely related that the cards were originally for games. There are people now who use regular card decks to do divination. It's that the four suits align nicely with the four elements and the face cards line up with the three states (known in India as the three gunas).

Notice 4 suits x 3 face cards = 12

12 has been a significant symbolic number for ages: 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles, 13 signs of the zodiac, etc.

My guess is that the creators of the cards dropped into worn cultural grooves. That made them ripe for later profound symbolism.

Some guy described the cards as God's Chessboard. It's a garden of symbolism that goes on and on. It's really pretty fascinating.

ds

They are useful as a psychological tool. I have used them a few times.

Pretty sure you know this by the hints in the OP. The cards cab be interpreted in many, many ways and this allows the ‘reader’ to find out what they really think is best rather than merely they want to be true.

When I did a reading for one person the answer they saw was completely different to what I saw. I do think the technique works best for those emotionally invested because they really want to know what do regarding their question and so the unconscious mind presents itself.

If used seriously it works very well. If used for fun, or just causally, the results read are pretty random.

Should be haggis, whiskey and deep-fried heroin for that to work mate ;)