talkmagic.co.uk

As best I'm able I will point folks to the resources and/or examples

I made a post earlier asking for studies, reports, videos/photos etc, and have not had any given

I'll have to presume that there are none, even though 'the prove it' gang get flamed for refusing to look at the 'proven facts' from the alternative point of view.

More food for thought:

DrTodd:

In many ways the Tarot provide metaphors for typical concerns in people's lives and can be a useful means for clarifying the types of questions with which people are grappling.

Mark Lewis

We think we are all different but in many ways we are all alike and have many of the same attributes, sorrows and ambitions. By having the client in front of me, my gut feelings and intuition (call it psychic ability if you like) kicks in perhaps at a subconcious level and these feelings are triggered off by the cards and what they mean to ME.

Mark Lewis

However let me be clear that I do NOT believe psychic readings are baloney. I believe they work and can do a great deal of good for people. They can also do a great deal of harm so I would advise people here to steer clear of any readings that have any depth to them. You can screw up someone's life if you don't know what you are doing.

DrTodd

There is a certain 'power' to the cards as they are steeped in history and have connections to metaphysical developments over hundreds of years The symbology and iconography (or branding if you will) do draw people in, which makes them more effective than pieces of card board. While there are hundreds of decks available,I am personally drawn to the more historical versions such as the Noblet decks.

Shufton

Fortune telling is a skill that has often been developed without consciousness of the psychology, and subtle "intuition" or deductive reasoning involved. In modern times, a more "scientific" approach has become popular, in which folks can "learn" to tell fortunes - even if they lack intuition skills. They probably won't be as good at it as a more sensitive and life-experienced person might.

DrTodd wrote:

In many ways the Tarot provide metaphors for typical concerns in people's lives and can be a useful means for clarifying the types of questions with which people are grappling.

Perhaps you are suggesting then, the Tarot enables one to delve into the subconscious? In other words, a skilled Tarot reader could delve into the deepest thoughts of their client and extract information by "whatever means" the client doesn't know on a conscious level? That's very different to telling me my lucky numbers.

I think every time we hear the word "psychic" we tend to want to see someone bend a spoon, pick the lottery numbers or talk to a dead relative. When that is shown to be c*** (not the best), we label it "all" c*** (not the best) even though there is no doubt there are in fact many untapped, not yet fully understood areas of the human mind.

B0bbY_CaT wrote:DrTodd wrote:

In many ways the Tarot provide metaphors for typical concerns in people's lives and can be a useful means for clarifying the types of questions with which people are grappling.

Perhaps you are suggesting then, the Tarot enables one to delve into the subconscious? In other words, a skilled Tarot reader could delve into the deepest thoughts of their client and extract information by "whatever means" the client doesn't know on a conscious level? That's very different to telling me my lucky numbers.

I think every time we hear the word "psychic" we tend to want to see someone bend a spoon, pick the lottery numbers or talk to a dead relative. When that is shown to be c*** (not the best), we label it "all" c*** (not the best) even though there is no doubt there are in fact many untapped, not yet fully understood areas of the human mind.

It is a dialogical process with the cards rather than applying fixed meanings to a situation...Abraxus applied this particular approach to his reading of three cards re Randi...he actually described what was going on in the cards (e.g. the Emperor has dropped his shield) and then related that to the question at hand. Using the cards as metaphors and triggers for the client and then working through the implications is the approach. I am not sure any Tarot reader would attempt to tell you your lucky numbers...that simply is not the point of the exercise.

It is a dialogical process with the cards rather than applying fixed meanings to a situation...Abraxus applied this particular approach to his reading of three cards re Randi...he actually described what was going on in the cards (e.g. the Emperor has dropped his shield) and then related that to the question at hand. Using the cards as metaphors and triggers for the client and then working through the implications is the approach. I am not sure any Tarot reader would attempt to tell you your lucky numbers...that simply is not the point of the exercise.

You're very close to par here Tod; the majority of full time Readers will, once they are familiar with the system, work more from a "flow" level of association such as you are suggesting over "wrote" (the concrete niche meaning of each card, card position, etc.) However, when doing an in-depth Reading in which one seeks to pin-point (for an example) possible causes of an effect and how to correct things, it is critical to hold to the more classic meaning of the cards, their position, the number of cards in each suit that appear in the spread and where, etc. Understand, we're talking about the sort of Reading that can easily take more than an hour's time and frequently involves several sessions.

Like many Readers I work with two different decks; the main deck I use (Tarot of the Old Path) is employed for quickie "generic" Readings. On the other hand I use the Ancient Egyptian deck when a client wants to look at a specific issue and try to grasp the deeper significance around things.


Lucky Numbers, etc. are derived via Numerology and to some degree Astrology. If you are working with someone that honestly knows these disciplines then no matter who you go to, everyone of them will give you the same numbers in that they are based on the same data i.e. your date of birth and in the case of Numerology, your full name. The information would be the same throughout life though you will find "cycles" in which one number or combination of numbers has greater influence over you than at other times.

I'd suggest you take a look at two primary publications both by Richard Webster QUICK READINGS WITH NUMEROLOGY (a.k.a. Chinese Numerology) and COLD READING THE FUTURE WITH NUMEROLOGY (then too, there are my books -- Easy Reading and those found @ mevproshop.com) This material will give you a fair understanding of Numerology and empower you to step outside the limitations of canned spiel and Forer double-speak; lending to you a legitimate oracular system that allows you to do some rather uncanny demonstrations as a Reader, without sounding like a Parrot trained by Ian Rowland.

I don't believe Tarot cards themselves provide ANY information. I believe it "may" be possible for a skilled and intuitive Tarot "reader" to interpret a client's reactions to certain cards in combination with other factors and as a result, based on all these factors in combination and their experience, the reader "may" reveal things the client was not directly conscious of.

My decision to think anything beyond that is gobble-dee-gook does NOT make me a skeptic... at least according to the dictionary meaning:

skep·tic n
1. somebody who questions the validity or truth of things that most people accept
2. somebody who is not willing to accept the doctrines and principles that form the basis of a religion

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

This really has been a most excellent discussion, and I hardly dare say it but...we may have reached some kind of middle ground where readers and skeptics can meet and agree. Well done TM.

My final thoughts are that it doesn't matter what magicians, mentalists, and psychics think. What really matters is the beliefs of the general public. Interesting though it is, I really couldn't care less what a magician thinks about my tarot card reading. What I really care about is the people who book me and the people who sit in front of me with their palms upturned. If they believe in me then I'm happy. It makes me happy because then I'm earning money to feed my family with and it also makes me happy because it means I'm not deluding myself and I do actually have some kind of ability in this area - again whether that be described as being psychic, intuitive, having good gut instinct or just being a lucky guesser really doesn't matter. The people who book me and sit in front of me will ascribe their own belief systems to what I do anyway.

As an aside I worked at a student event last weekend next to a more generic magician with strangely long thumbs and sponge balls in his pockets. Guess who was the more popular by a country mile?

You obviously. No close up magician can compete with a psychic reader.

Agreed, this has all been fairly peaceful and interesting!

One thing that occurs to me though is this: it's very well people talking about intuition, exploring the subconscious, the cards as a self-exploratory prompt etc. but your psychic in the street doesn't seem to play it that way. I flicked past "Psychic TV" the other day and it was a woman with a weird hair cut, answering badly phrased idiotic questions posed by random text messagers with a quick shuffle and a three card spread. It was literally, "the chariot - oh yes, your man is thinking about you, you'll see him very soon. Also, you're about to win something, but beware of the colour blue."

If I wanted self-exploration, I'd go to some kind of counselling or therapy (not that I necessarily put any more stock in their type...!), but people go to tarot readers for another factor... the spook factor, the weird factor, the psychic factor, the spirit factor... whatever you want to call it.

Please understand, this is not an attack! I just think some of this stuff sounds like moving the goalposts, given that most tarot practice and belief seems to stem from what 3 guys made up in the late 18th century (according to tarotpedia, anyway).

I can understand why you'd want to move away from the "I will stare into the mystic cards, ask for a spirit guide and reveal your future" kind of stuff, but I personally see it as equivocal to the move away from spooks towards hypnotism/NLP that mentalism has taken. Same goods, different flavoured snake oil.

I find these mystical aspects of mentalism a bit hard to grasp in terms of where the practitioner is coming from. Such as Richard Webster. He can do a trick where he forces some colours on people, then reveals he predicted it when he "drew their aura". So it's a trick. But if you'd ask him if he believed or even saw "aura", he'd probably say yes... so... it's not a trick? Same kind of deal with Geoff McBride; he'll weave a trick (i.e. a deception) into something that he then also seems to believe is kinda "real" pagan magic too. They're happy to enjoy (possibly exploit?) the craziness but if you pin them down, it starts to be much more about "connections", "stories" and just "people".

I'm sure a response to this would be about "cherishing mystery whatever it's source" or some such, but it's a very strange concept for me to see as attractive... constantly shifting between what is a sideshow trick and what is "real". If a miracle that is attributed to religion etc. is exposed as a trick, no one says "ah, but isn't it really all about the mystery of life anyway?!"

You (one) can learn to give readings, fact. Cold reading, secret hot reading, whatever - I really don't think this is "honing your intuition", I think this is practicing a person-manipulation skill. Salesmen do it, goodness knows many religious leaders do it, and you guys - with all due respect - are doing it. I have no problem with that, it's part of the deal, it's a long tradition of career choice and you've got to make money somehow.

The difficulty comes when you are inevitably asked about what extent you "believe" in your craft yourself, and expectedly there is an incredible variety of responses. Some believe in it totally and assign their people skills to mystical powers, others say "yeah, it's bunkum but it pays the bills so don't tell anybody", and then there are the million in the middle who give a wry smile and (probably wisely) choose not to reveal too much. Or choose to gently lever the beast that is "tarot" towards something they are more happy to genuinely profess to believe in.

It's all very interesting...

mark lewis wrote:You obviously. No close up magician can compete with a psychic reader.

Amen!

Been there, Done That and still am amazed by it (not to mention the amount of denial surrounding it.)

One thing that occurs to me though is this: it's very well people talking about intuition, exploring the subconscious, the cards as a self-exploratory prompt etc. but your psychic in the street doesn't seem to play it that way. I flicked past "Psychic TV" the other day and it was a woman with a weird hair cut, answering badly phrased idiotic questions posed by random text messagers with a quick shuffle and a three card spread. It was literally, "the chariot - oh yes, your man is thinking about you, you'll see him very soon. Also, you're about to win something, but beware of the colour blue."

This is the type of Reader I love devouring for lunch (far more fun to chomp on than all the poor magicians I take bites out of)... the only problem with eating psychics for lunch is that they aren't very filling... all that air in their head... it's horrid!

Aside from the silliness... I really do get quite agressive with this sort because a.) they are such obvious jokes a blind man could realize it using his cane; and b.) they ruin business for the legit Readers (just as schlock magicians hurt the good guys).

I'm certain brother Lewis can tell you about more than a few that fit into this sort of niche. But then I know of several "Mentalists" who "think" they pull the wool over people's eyes during a sitting but if one were to listen to their patrons following the session, such is far (very far) from the truth (and yet, these are some of the "experts" that explain to everyone how we do it )


Just a side note... I noticed something that was said by a couple of folks about how the cards serve as a kind of "cue"... a mnemonic trigger, if you would. Which is exactly how I've used them for years even jokingly referring to the as 'cue cards'. Then again, it's as I've shared, they are a language that guides us, once we understand that language and the significance of each symbols, it's place in the spread, etc. we are able to communicate things, molding the information to "fit" the energy or emotions of the sitter... Not by weaving fantastic tales and obvious hokum (as our aforementioned freak of nature seems to have been doing) but in a manner that is "humble" as well as viable... learning to do that is when you become an Artist within the Craft.

themagicwand wrote:As an aside I worked at a student event last weekend next to a more generic magician with strangely long thumbs and sponge balls in his pockets. Guess who was the more popular by a country mile?

Oddly enough, there's a recent thread on Magicbunny about this phenomenon, but from the other side!

It's entitled "Charging for lies...".

Some of you might like to have a read, especially to see one of the responses.

Farlsborough wrote: people go to tarot readers for another factor... the spook factor, the weird factor, the psychic factor, the spirit factor... whatever you want to call it.

And I'm more than happy to provide it! Bear in mind that I'm a "psychic entertainer", which means that I work only at functions and don't provide a one-to-one service (trying to make a living that way is bloody hard work!), so the people I generally read for have had a drink, got a bit of dutch courage, and it's one more thing to tick off the "must do before I die" list. Nine times out of ten the people I read for have never had a reading of any kind done before. They're giggly, excited, and this will be the most exciting thing that happens to them this week. The women are even worse.

mark lewis wrote:No close up magician can compete with a psychic reader.

That's because they're two different games. You might as well say that Tiger Woods can't compete with Shaquille O'Neal (That analogy might be out of date - I don't follow sport much).

queen of clubs wrote:

mark lewis wrote:No close up magician can compete with a psychic reader.

That's because they're two different games. You might as well say that Tiger Woods can't compete with Shaquille O'Neal (That analogy might be out of date - I don't follow sport much).

Shhh... don't tell the magicians that, most of them don't want to believe such things are true.

queen of clubs wrote:
That's because they're two different games. You might as well say that Tiger Woods can't compete with Shaquille O'Neal (That analogy might be out of date - I don't follow sport much).

Not to the general public they're not. Honestly. To the general public they're both magic/weird/spooky stuff. How many times has a close-up magician been told "Ooh I don't believe in magic" or "Can you tell me the lottery numbers?" There's no dividing line as far as much of the public go. Believe me on this.