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cragglecat wrote:Thanks Robbie I will try to get hold of this - are you aware of any books or articles that attempt to provide evidence for the accuracy/validity of Tarot card readings? (from either side of the fence). Skeptics like me are often accused of being closed minded but I, for one, am not - I just need something more than faith to accept something as fact.

I don't know of any scientific experimentation that's been done on the Tarot. Some studies have been done on aspects of astrology, and their results been debated for decades. It's hard to find decent books on the Tarot or any other esoteric subject -- there's a lot of fortune-telling dross out there, and not many gold nuggets.

A book called Cartomancy, translated from the Italian by Alessandro Bellenghi, is very good on the history of the Tarot deck. Again it's out of print and hard to find, but worth looking for. His interpretations of the cards have some interesting differences from Gettings', and I've obtained new insights by comparing them.

The cards of the Major Arcana seem to be descended from educational card decks that were popular in medieval times, depicting different classes of society, the planets, animals and plants, etc. The Minor Arcana have nothing to do with the Major symbols, and probably derive from simple numbered slips that were used as substitutes for dice. Our own playing cards descend directly from this set.

No-one ever claims that the cards themselves have any special powers. They're just slips of pasteboard. My own first Tarot set was one I made myself using index cards. The power lies in the symbols, which speak directly to the subconscious mind. Rich pictorial symbolism is the native language of the subconscious, which is not bound by linguistic definition or rigid distinctions of time and space. (And if someone says depicting symbolism isn't "having power", then they've never been moved by art.)

There are at least three accepted points of view about how the cards work to give readings:

1 - The symbols tap into your own subconscious mind and spark off your innate ability to sense and interpret the situation. In essence, you're providing a counselling service, using the cards like Rorschach symbols to free up your creative talents.

2 - All human minds are connected at a subconscious level, forming a vast "universal mind". By opening channels to your subconscious, the cards allow you to gain access to this universal mind and therefore tap directly into other people's thoughts and emotions that have a bearing on the subject under discussion.

3 - There are spiritual forces (gods, spirits, or simply energies) which help to arrange the cards during shuffling so that they come out in the right order, and which might also communicate with you during the reading, including providing knowledge of future events.

These three points of view are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In a broader sense, they are applied to all occult work such as spell casting: are you using your own mind, the power of interconnected minds, or superhuman forces? Or some combination of these, at the same or different times?

It seems that people get equally good results whichever point of view, or combination of views, they believe in. The important thing is to have some sort of belief system -- even if it's only belief in yourself and the powers of your own mind. What never works is going through the motions without any sort of underpinning of belief.

Basically it does come down to a combination of faith and personal experience. You might even start with one of these points of view and eventually, with study and experience, accept others or even change your mind completely.

I must inform wild card that it is not our job to prove anything to sceptics. They never give us any money.

Sorry Mark, but I think you do. If you are to claim that something, like mind reading, tarot reading, RELIGION, you must put forward some strong evidence to support it.

If a scientist puts forward research, he has to have strong evidence that other people can analyse and judge whether or not it is true.

I think Tarot Reading is great, I think it is clever, insightfull, but I personally have been shown no evidence that it is strongly works. That doesn't mean I show any less interest in it, but it is ridiculous, to claim wonders, if you have no evidence to support them.

queen of clubs wrote:I'm a cynical, bitter and twisted skeptic. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in elves or fairies. I don't believe in magic. I don't believe in the supernatural and I don't believe in mind-reading.

I recently chatted with a very dear friend of mine who does amateur Tarot readings for her friends, and I pretty much told her it was all utter charlatanism, bunk, tosh, Barnum statements, lucky guesses, cold reading, inside knowledge, psychology, sociology, misdirection and piddle.

This offended her. She told me to her it was real. She's not misleading people.

It will offend her. It's perfectly normal for her to believe that it works in some supernatural way. Her perception is that it does work that way, and you're the one that's wrong. For her, it's perfectly real. The more you try to convince her the more adamant she'll be that she's right and you're wrong. It's called confirmation bias and it works to protect and add structure to existing beliefs. Any evidence that confirms or supports her belief, she'll accept. If you attack her belief, confirmation bias will cause her to reject your argument. Similarly, whenever her readings turn out to be true, she'll remember them because they confirm her view that it works, but she'll forget the inconvenient times it didn't work and rationalise them away.

Confirmation bias exerts immense control over us, so basically, you won't convince her. You can use it to your advantage, however. In the upcoming Naked Mentalism III, I weaponise confirmation bias along with a range of other quirks in subconscious thinking. In testing, I've used it to implant new and utterly bizarre thoughts, including convincing a friend that there's a gang of hoodies going around piercing cats' ears, and a nasty bigot I met at a party that there's a special special tax on Polish astronauts ...what a rotter.

Confirmation bias is also one of the most studied of all our quirks in thinking. Here's a very good introductory paper including the history of it's study by Raymond Nickerson of Tufts University (PDF format).

Craig, perhaps you could re-read your post and consider what our communal response might be to someone new who pitched up on forum and started writing things like that.

Wild Card wrote:If you are to claim that something, like mind reading, tarot reading, RELIGION, you must put forward some strong evidence to support it.

It is the essence of religion (or any similar belief system) that there can be no direct and provable evidence. That's why it's called faith. I'm speaking as both an occultist and a scientist here; some things just don't come within the scientific framework.

There are many people in this forum, I'm sure, who cherish their religious beliefs. Not to mention all the millions out there in the real world.

Here's something to think about: militant atheism is a belief structure in its own right. Scepticism is always good, but rigidity is usually harmful.

Robbie wrote:Here's something to think about: militant atheism is a belief structure in its own right. Scepticism is always good, but rigidity is usually harmful.

Amen brother! no...wait...

i totally agree with you there Robbie...

From Collin de Plancy's Dictionary of Demonology, 1825:

Abraxas or Abrasax
A god in certain Asian theogonies; from his name is derived the magical word Abracadabra. He is represented on amulets as having the head of a cockerel, the feet of a dragon, and holding a whip in his hand. Demonologists have made him a demon with the head of a king and serpents for legs.
The Egyptian Basilides, second-century heretics, looked upon Abraxas as their supreme god. Finding that the seven Greek letters of his name amounted to 365, the number of days in the year, they placed at his command several spirits who presided over the 365 heavens and to whom they attributed 365 virtues, one for each day. They also claimed that Jesus Christ was a benevolent spirit sent to earth by Abraxas.

Just thought you might want to know.

Abraxus: mispelling of the second Santana album that i was listening to at the time of joining

it's wierd though, I'm always getting followed by those crazy Egyptian Basilides nearly every week...now i know why...

I don't agree that atheisim is a belief structure. It is a lack of belief. If it is a belief structure, then I have a lack of belief in an infinity of things (as we all do) which means I have an infinite number of belief systems? For example, I don't believe in fairies...is that a belief structure? I don't believe in dragons...is that a belief structure. Where is the dogma, the blind faith, the lack of evidence etc in atheism?

i think its more like if you choose to believe that there isnt a god for whatever reason, then that is your belief system...as in, you will require scientific proof of things before you accept it...

so we believe that all things created from randomness, and progression/mutation of dna and all that stuff...

at least, thats how i'd try and explain it...

on a slightly different note, i find the whole debate interesting, because neither "side" has the genuine definitive provable answers of the world/universe/life...

PLEASE! no one say 42, or i shall hunt you down...

one team cant definitively prove that their chosen god exists
the other team cant definitively prove what happened before the big bang

i blame the aliens that obviously created us all personally...

AndyRegs wrote:I don't agree that atheisim is a belief structure. It is a lack of belief. If it is a belief structure, then I have a lack of belief in an infinity of things (as we all do) which means I have an infinite number of belief systems? For example, I don't believe in fairies...is that a belief structure? I don't believe in dragons...is that a belief structure. Where is the dogma, the blind faith, the lack of evidence etc in atheism?

Not all atheism is a belief, but hard-line militant atheism is. See Richard Dawkins for a very outspoken example. (Great geneticist, lousy at open-minded scepticism.)

There's also a big difference betweeen atheism ("I know there is nothing") and agnosticism ("I don't know what the truth is").

Dawkins has managed, in his own mind, to equate all the various religions in the history of the world with each other and with everything else non-scientific, from unicorns and mermaids to social rituals like making a wish and blowing out the candles on your birthday cake. As far as he's concerned, making a birthday wish is just the beginning of the slippery slope that inevitably leads to creationism, fairies, and spending your life savings on psychic phone-ins.

He used to paint very interesting abstract pictures. I wonder what his current views are on art and symbolism, considering that these are also outside the realm of hard science.

Wild card, old chap-or perhaps I should say young chap. There is no MUST about it. I don't HAVE to prove anything to you whatsoever. What possible benefit would there be to me?

I am only interested in me. Why would I be interested in you? Your hang ups about these matters are YOUR affair not mine.

My clients come to see me anyway without me having to offer proof of any kind. If I don't have to prove myself to those that give me money why should I have to prove myself to you who gives me no money whatsoever?

So no. I don't HAVE to do anything. I haven't the time and quite frankly I can't be bothered. However if you were to pay in advance....................

I must say that I am quite astonished that there are such things as scientists in ghastly places like Bolton. However Robbie has it right. I happen to believe in the second of his scenarios

The cards are indeed just bits of cardboard that come up at random. It is not the cards per se that are important but the "vibes" (for want of a better word) that they trigger off. I could give a reading to Adolf Hitler and with EXACTLY the same combination of cards give a completely different reading to Mother Theresa.

Consider it like a mirror. The cards mirror the subconcious mind of the client back to me. If the client didn't exist I couldn't do it.

It is all perfectly logical. Nothing supernatural at all if you think about it. 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. I capitalise "ME" since I do not use the traditional meanings of the cards. You should decide when learning the tarot what the cards mean to YOU. Those will be the meanings that work.

For example the death card means change to me rather than physical death. However if you think about it change comes into the lives of everybody. So it is not going to be inaccurate for me to see change in the client's life if the card shows up. However I refine and define it according to my feelings about the client. And the feelings come from my intuition or if you like pyschic ability.

There. Now you know.

One tip I would give about reading the tarot though is that you should read the palm first. It is not essential but I find that if you follow this plan your readings will have twice the accuracy because you will have gathered information about them from their hand first and this will stand you in good stead when you come to do the tarot for them.

queen of clubs wrote:I recently chatted with a very dear friend of mine who does amateur Tarot readings for her friends, and I pretty much told her it was all utter charlatanism, bunk, tosh, Barnum statements, lucky guesses, cold reading, inside knowledge, psychology, sociology, misdirection and piddle.

This offended her. She told me to her it was real. She's not misleading people.

A dear friend? Why would your attempt to crush the belief system of your dear friend?

Have you ever studied Houdini? He had a dear friend too - his name was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Houdini's hard line stance against mediums cost him that friendship.

Do you honestly want to lose a dear friend? Well, you will if you indict her belief system.

I'm an atheist. When I have dinner with my parents, they pray. I pray with them. Why? Because I love them and I respect them. It is a show of respect. And, does it hurt me? Nope, not at all. They know my beliefs, but I can still respect their beliefs in their own home.

And, it's already been brought up, but would you attempt to explain to a cancer patient that they're just going to be eaten by worms? Would you crush them, too?

I'm all for having the courage to stand by what you believe and to refuse to remain quiet, but there is a time and a place - and attempting to crush your "dear" friend's spirit will never have a time or a place.

Mike.

Robbie wrote:

AndyRegs wrote:I don't agree that atheisim is a belief structure. It is a lack of belief. If it is a belief structure, then I have a lack of belief in an infinity of things (as we all do) which means I have an infinite number of belief systems? For example, I don't believe in fairies...is that a belief structure? I don't believe in dragons...is that a belief structure. Where is the dogma, the blind faith, the lack of evidence etc in atheism?

Not all atheism is a belief, but hard-line militant atheism is. See Richard Dawkins for a very outspoken example. (Great geneticist, lousy at open-minded scepticism.)

There's also a big difference betweeen atheism ("I know there is nothing") and agnosticism ("I don't know what the truth is").

Dawkins has managed, in his own mind, to equate all the various religions in the history of the world with each other and with everything else non-scientific, from unicorns and mermaids to social rituals like making a wish and blowing out the candles on your birthday cake. As far as he's concerned, making a birthday wish is just the beginning of the slippery slope that inevitably leads to creationism, fairies, and spending your life savings on psychic phone-ins.

He used to paint very interesting abstract pictures. I wonder what his current views are on art and symbolism, considering that these are also outside the realm of hard science.

Spot on...John Gray's book Black Mass makes a similar argument about the fundamental atheist...as for Tarot, I like Mark Lewis's account above about same cards, different person, different reading.

I had a querent last night for whom I did a three card spread initially. The querent selected the Magician, Justice, and the Emperor. I used Enrique's system and did a 20 minute reading, where we explored how each card and the relationship among the cards evoked answers for the querent's concerns. The three cards were supplemented by a remakable draw of the 7, 8, and 9 of swords. All in all, the querent found the reading useful in providing a new way to address a current concern.