I've recently decided to get back into studying the Tarot and using its insights more in my daily life. Sometimes we all need a little religion, I guess.

So, anyone else have any interest in this? To talk about what you understand about it, or wish to? Perhaps bring up a card to discuss in depth, as well as to discuss what the cards mean as a whole. Talk about how to read the cards and to apply them to yourself. How to see the cards as archetypes of the human condition, and of the journey of the soul through life and its travails.

I don't want to be talking to myself, but I feel that I will learn a great deal by trying to teach it, so if this is of interest, please chime in and let me know.


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............... THE MUSLIM

subtext

The Leper

I am kind of serious about this, so after the initial jokes are done (and I think that makes the 3 joke limit), then I'd like to solicit actual interest now. Thanks.

I learned from James Bond.... good way to get to Jane Seymour I'd say.

That said, I don't really know much about it at all really. I'm willing to listen and or read as it were

Y'know, I was always interested in the Tarot when I was an early teen. 'Bout the same time I was into bands like Morbid Angel and all that death metal stuff. Occult interests and all that. I never got around to examing the Tarot though. Wanna give us a crash course, PD?

I'd love to.

It's really about basic archetypes for human situations and larger universal forces that people encounter. They don't give direction, so much as they ask you to examine yourself and your feelings and circumstances to try to understand how the basic lessons of each card may be applied to yourself at any given time.

At the most basic level, there are two categories of cards in a deck: The Major Arcana and The Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana are the greater forces cards that most people are familiar with from popular culture, like the four I put in the lead post. There are 22 such cards, numbered from 0 to 21, and those represent a journey and progression of understanding of the human condition. They include such iconic images as "Death" and "The Devil" and "Justice" and "The Lovers".

A tremendous amount of wisdom can be gained just by learning about the images and meanings of the Major Arcana, apart from any use of the cards for divination or specific prompting for a given situation. If you read any literature about the symbols and archetypes of the cards, you will see yourself at different times in your own life and emotional and spiritual progression. There may be cards that understanding of which eludes you, and that is likely because it is a lesson that you have not yet worked through in your life, and more likely that you are supposed to be working through at this time. Personally, I know I have a lot of trouble understanding the triad of The Star, The Moon and The Sun.

The Minor Arcana are the "suits and numbers" cards that resemble your average set of playing cards, except that there are 56 instead of 52 due to there being 4 face cards in each suit instead of 3. The suits are Wands (or rods), Cups, Swords and Pentacles, which roughly correspond to Fire, Water, Air and Earth. The meanings of the individual cards are a bit less intuitive, but meaningful if you are using a deck with good illustrations on the minor cards. These cards tend to describe situations more than they describe forces. Some ideas that you might see include "enjoying the fruits of your labor" or "clinging to things or people". Basic situations we all know, and sometimes need to have our attention drawn to in order to see ourselves inside of them, which is harder than seeing them in retrospect or in others.

the death card means change.

I think it's more complicated than imagined.

Does the Tarot have anything to do with astrology? Or are they totally unrelated?

This can be a good thread. I love the artwork involved in the most famous rendition of cards. I have the hanged man tattooed on my back and I'm looking for more tarot inspired ideas for future work.

this thread just got pasty

one night me and my friends were playing poker and by accident i dealt out my tarot cards. 4 of them dropped dead

That's a good question.

I'd say that apart from both systems dealing with archetypes to understand people, they have little in common. Astrology is much more "tied" to the measure of time and of definite cycles, and there is obviously the limited number of archetypes. Tarot introduces much more the idea of "randomness", or if you are more of a believer in the interconnectedness of all thought and action, the lack of randomness in the world.

In any case, while I have found astrology very entertaining over the years, my wife seems to think that I may have used it as a way of avoiding getting to know people on a more personal level, by fitting them into neat little categories of basic understanding, failing to grasp their nuances. She's probably right.

Anyway, Tarot is not like that. It is all about understanding of yourself on a deeply personal level. That's kind of what I need in my life right now, so that is what has interested me recently.

punkdavid is articulating my own thoughts/understanding of this better than I could myself.

shutuphalfdead!

Can't being alone and using that 'alone' time for introspection achieve the same goal without the use of cards?

Hollylooyah.

I'm in PD.







Astrology is different, and yet I don't think it ought to be held exclusive from any of these types of practices. They can all work together. I've recently taken to initiating a personal exploratory into Yì Jīng. (I Ching - Book of Changes).


Hey Chud, that tattoo surprises me. Didn't know you had that. Care to share the motivation you had in having that done?

:/