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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.tarot From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva) Subject: Re: 'Real' vs. 'Nonhistorical, Intuitive' Meanings (was Re: Dog in The Fool card?) Date: 14 May 1997 11:10:47 -0700 49970514 AA1 Hail Satan! "Jan Tier": #># To clarify my question, it seems to me that if a person was (were?) a #># naturally gifted psychic, #> ~~~~~~~ nagasiva: #> I'm sorry, but I don't really know what this term means. "J. Karlin" : #I'm sure you wish you didn't. actually I had several ideas what it *might* mean, but at the time I did not know what it meant to Jan Tier. as with symbols, words have a variety of meanings depending upon the reader or speaker/writer. #> you and jk are using it, but [it] is so thrashed by modern newagers #> and the 'psychic community' #Who the hell do you think runs the tarot industry? I'm not sure what 'the tarot industry' is. my point was that it is very widely used by a number of people in a variety of ways, such that no single meaning can accurately be presumed 'solely correct'. this is the case with tarot symbolism also, but you have yet to understand it. #> that I don't really understand it in use within magical forums. #What is a 'magical' forum? Something with the word 'magick' in it? that's what I meant, as compared to the 'paranormal' forums or 'newage'. #> at times using traditional associations #What's a 'traditional' association? Is that like the #Lion's Club? a 'traditional association' is an association between symbol and significance which has become popular or well-known within certain social circles. in this case I was implying the ever-broadening cultural expression regarding what is gradually expanding around the term and tool 'tarot'. there are traditional POPULAR associations (e.g. the Atu 'Death' being associated with the prognostication of imminent physical danger), and there are more central traditional associations (comparatively, that the Atu 'Death' represents some significant and transformative change). in neither case are these the 'correct' associations in any absolute sense, though each has its own relative value and application. #> and at times using their own or a combination of the two. #That's NOT the 'impression' anyone would get from reading tarot #books, it is the impression *I* have obtained from reading tarot books, but I read with a critical eye and do not trust 'authorities' until and unless they provide explanations which stand up to more than sustained dogma. there ARE writers on the tarot who provide this more expansive perspective. you just have to know what to look for (more below). #or from sampling I-party postings to alt.tarot concerning #their methods of reading. I don't know what "I-party postings" are, but I have found many postings on alt.tarot and in general magick forums which conform to this perspective. #Nor is it the impression one would get from reading anything #YOU'VE previously written about the subject. I've remained quite consistent on this point. #...interest in actually learning tarot, which does involve #READING (and more importantly---'getting') the works of those #who created its traditions. please elaborate on who you identify as the originators of the traditions of tarot and who is valuable to read. if this is in your REF, please make this known as I did not scroll through its length to discern this. thanks. #> these tools are better described as 'mirrors', however, than as #> 'channels' or 'springboards', since the cards are given their #> configuration via an unconscious process #What does that mean? What 'configuration' are you talking about? the particular session in question. sometimes people will use very specific formats ("layouts") wherein the card positions are provided with pre-designated contextual significance (e.g. "this is the general atmosphere surrounding the querent"). sometimes the reader will not do this at all, laying out cards in a seemingly 'random' or 'inspired pattern', intuiting the signification from the way the reading develops, what issues it involves, hir intuitive feelings, and the meanings which she has tended to ascribe to the cards over time. #What is the 'unconscious process'. besides the obvious element I've described above, there is the element of the sequencing of the cards themselves. this is set into motion or entirely arranged by the querent (often through cutting or selecting the cards or somehow 'initializing' them through passing or touch of the hands). sometimes when I am reading cards (almost always for myself) I will lay the cards out, face down, fanning them. then I choose from them, as if I can see their faces, intentionally selecting the cards I want and placing them in particular spots on the table. this process of card selection is unconscious in that I have no conscious idea which cards I'm picking or, sometimes, even the significance of the placement. only later, during the 'reading' phase do I begin to interpret the meaning of the card, how its position and even (when I keep track of this) placement in the series factor into what the cards (and/or any entity beyond them) may be telling me (the 'message' which I am to read). #># ...to be able to read tarot effectively. #> ...studying and interpeting the symbols is STUDYING tarot, it isn't #> reading the cards #Yes, it is. THAT'S WHY it's called 'reading' and not 'imagining. it is 'reading the cards' only in an unconventional sense, as I have already said. conventionally the cards are placed in a 'layout' and there may well be some issue of focus during the divination. the 'reading' then includes the interpretation in this important context. #That's WHY I asked you where the meanings of symbolism come from. we've already discussed that, yes. I have said that I think the meanings reside in our minds in reflection of the symbols themselves. #The divinatory meanings SHOULD be derivative of the symbolism of #the card (as it IS in the small cards of Thoth, for example). we are agreed that the meanings are DERIVED from a reflection on the cards. this is what constitutes 'interpreting the symbols of tarot'. #> perhaps this is what jk is getting at ('reading the keys of the #> ancients'). #Yeah, except he'd never say anything quite that moronic. it is one of the phrases of the traditional paradigm. I'm quite surprised that you would consider it 'moronic'. I no longer think I can guess what you consider 'traditional' and what you do not. [re: divination] #> it does not require the assimilation to a traditional system #> of symbols, but this can deepen and enhance one's language-set. #How do you know? as Tom has made clear, knowledge is something which can never become absolute outside omniscience. I am merely reflecting my own experience of the tarot and how I have seen it working in people's lives. #> I find it best to choose sources which I like, #'like' in what way? that is very important question. I don't think I've tried to express that clearly and I appreciate your asking it. in some ways this 'like' takes on the character of an aesthetic and visceral pleasure. it 'feels good' in the way certain fabrics feel good, certain foods taste good, or certain smells are exquisite to my nose. in other ways it is rather intellectual, in that it somehow 'fits' into the conceptualization of the cosmos which I have constructed, it 'makes sense to me' in relation to the rest of my experience. it 'reflects truly' the knowledge which I have accepted into my personal world. I like it when a source does not provide a clear-cut and intellectually-dry taxonomy of a card's 'meaning' (e.g. Eden Gray or Waite if memory serves). I always find their description to be contrived, incomplete, unbalanced, and generally not as useful to me in my readings, during which I may *interpret* a comparable meaning. I like a source which is rich in poetry, takes a number of differing slants on not only a particular card, but on many of them, relating the individual to the whole deck, to subsets, to its rank, to its suit, to its class (Major/Minor). I also love it when the source speaks of the cards in a variety of ways, not just the poetic but the psychological, the mystical, the bodily, the practical. whatever depth can be attained in a description of the card that integrates to the symbols contained therein *as they see it* I find valuable. I find that my most favorite sources take *many different perspectives* not only on tarot reading, but also on how the cards can be understood and how they can be used. they explore a variety of options, historical, popular, and innovative. I have rarely come across sources which achieved this quality of text, though a few I have mentioned of late in this forum do offer some partial example of success in my estimation (Crowley, Pollack, Newman). thank you for your patience and your questions, nagasiva -- see http://www.hollyfeld.org/~tyagi/nagasiva.html and call: 408/2-666-SLUG!!! ---- (emailed replies may be posted) ---- CC public replies to author ---- * * * Asphalta Cementia Metallica Polymera Coyote La Cucaracha Humana * * *
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