Recently the charming Dawniris Hotcake Eyres asked me what my theory on Tarot was, and rather than be curt as I normally am when asked such a thing, I wrote the following little response. None of this information will be all that new and interesting to those well versed in the subject, but I suppose this has more to do with my personal approach than anything else. Reposted here.

Theory of Tarot, eh?

I prefer to be as minimalistic when discussing the esoteric, so forgive me I am obtuse. In fact I prefer not to have a theory, but more of a workable hunch.

Divination works by using meaningless random results to discover novel meaningful information.

The human mind craves meaning and can find it anywhere. Any string of truly randomly generated numbers can always be found to have an underlaying pattern, simply if one looks for one hard enough. In the end, the question is then more about whether or not that pattern is personally satisfying to the one looking for it, rather its objective validity.

Yet somehow, as bland as that may sound, there is room for the uncanny to occur.

With the Tarot, the cards tell a narrative story when viewed individually in order. When I draw cards, part of that story is revealed, and somehow a different story occurs. It is almost as if a string of xmas lights tells philosophical story about the cosmos and humanity, light by light, and when I read the cards for someone, its like I’m trying to untangle a persons individual ball of knotted up wires. In the tangled narrative, a new story emerges. Its my job in that case to loosen things up, and make the confusion a little bit more manageable to broach.

The Tarot are especially helpful since they are great visual aides and make the whole divination process more entertaining, plus there is the added allure to them since people find them mysterious or even possibly dangerous.

Certainly there is a bit of ‘cold reading’ involved, [ie: sizing someone up by their appearance and manner, and working up a reading based on that], but thats only a facet of how I work personally. The Tarot story that emerges has to be personally relevant to the individual in question, after all. Beyond that, some people are happy for the chance for someone to assess their outward manner in a frank and sensitive atmosphere, sometimes that is all they are really looking for out of the experience in the first place. There is tons of nuance to the different types of people I have read and how I handle each person individually, thats just the nature of what it is.

Let me know if you want a reading sometime, or if you have any other questions, and I will do my best to oblige.

Tags: occult

Cats: art, writing