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Underground > Temple >

A thought regarding tarot

09:55 / 26.05.04

I was reading through some old threads on tarot and this idea hit me: Laying a tarot spread, but instead of drawing the cards at random, you stack the deck so you get the prediction you want, hopefully insuring that this version of the future comes true.

Has anyone tried anything like this? Would it work? All thoughts appreciated.

10:16 / 26.05.04

Sounds like a sigil to me, pure and simple.

15:00 / 26.05.04

Yeah, a sigil that rquires you DO something, instead of LOOKING AT something. I mean, I guess you'd be fucking with divination, but I suppose if your goal was higher confidence levels or greater intuition, it might be helpful to do before going to bed.

What are your goals?

15:22 / 26.05.04

I have done this and got succes with it (Chariot was useful for inspiring an unlikley victory for my favorite football club !)

But yeah i used it as a sigil , then charged it at the ground (Thoth deck)

16:42 / 26.05.04

How did you charge the sygil? (which method in specific?)

21:11 / 26.05.04

Sounds a bit like a method I read in "Urban Shaman".

That book had a divination technique using coloured pebbles. If you got a predicition you didn't like, you'd very deliberatly change the order of the pebbles into a better formation and yell out loud to your Ku (or the universe or whatever) that THIS IS THE WAY IT WILL BE!

Don't take any shit from the future!

21:30 / 26.05.04

I didn't have any specific goal in mind with this. I just had the idea, and I wanted to hear if anyone had tried this and what their results were.
My idea of it is something like this:
1) Figure out what you want to happen in the future
2) Stack the cards so they show that future when you lay the spread, and put the cards away
3) At a later time, pick up the cards and pretend you are doing a normal divination.
4) When the cards come out the way you wanted them to, predicting the future you desire, you simply say "well, isn't that nice."

The idea is that you can now consciously expect the desired event, avoiding any insecuritites with reference to the fact that your divination showed that it would happen.

It is related to some problems I've had in relation to divination. When you haven't done anything to predict the future, it seems like all options are open. However, I often get the feeling when I've done some sort of divination that now the future is set, and that's the way it is. Sorta like the Schroedinger's Cat thing: as long as you don't look in the box anything is possible, but once you open the lid, that's the way it is.
Of course, that may just be my mental hangup.

Nietzsch E. Coyote

09:58 / 27.05.04

The future is not fixed. The cards are only trends and potentia. Make a spread based on that. I used to do the old past present future spread but I always added two alternatives for the future. the one in the center is the one if no action is taken to change it.

11:06 / 27.05.04

There's lots of material availabe on bringing Tarot imagery into your life/psyche - normally through the major arcana ie. using them as gateways for freefrom visualistion/astral projection. Nema, in her bok Maat Magick, describes a long term working called a "Dance of Masks" in which one would try and use each tarot trump as a personality type and act it out in day to day life.

13:44 / 27.05.04

I charged it by visualising the face of the striker playing as that under the armoured figures helm (incedently he played a blinder and scored twice ). Then as i was there during the build up , I focused on the fans intent to win and focused this on to the card. After that i placed the card out of sight and forgot about it for the match !

22:45 / 27.05.04

When you haven't done anything to predict the future, it seems like all options are open. However, I often get the feeling when I've done some sort of divination that now the future is set, and that's the way it is.

I understand what you mean - I got the same "problem". Sometimes I just can't bring myself to doing a divination, especially when it is a very personal matter, because I have the same thoughts.

Just having people tell me that the "future isn't fixed" isn't enough. A silly, occult hangup, perhaps - but still.

04:32 / 28.05.04

While I've never used a single tarot card as a magickal symbol, I have used different decks for inspiration for symbols to use in various forms of "mind magick". I think that to an extent though, doing a div IS magick. It places an expectation deep in the psyche, similar to a sigil. I've found that what the I Ching, (the form of div I most use) tells me about often comes true, but sometimes not in the way that I figured. I have to ask myself if it was due to the magickal effect, or portent. I suspect that the magickal effect has mostly to do with it, as I just can't quite buy the argument of predestination. There are just too many variables, unless of course it's an extremely heavily linked cause and effect.

Henningjohnathan

21:36 / 28.05.04

I'm not a practictioner at all, but I've wondered something about all the fortune-telling systems of divination. First, and specifically to deal with the Tarot comparison to I Ching. I have a friend who doesn't use the Tarot for divination (to predict the future or determine personal traits), but he does something he calls pathworking. He meditates on the image of the card for long periods until he's felt that it's "imprinted on his nervous system." His idea is that there are very primal symbols in the Tarot and by concentrating attention on them, they will eventually start a communication with the deep subconscious.
How many practitioners here feel that the Tarot and its practice is essentially a method by which you attune or reattune your nervous system (in much the same way Leary advocated LSD use)?

15:01 / 30.05.04

Well you good take the theory onestep further by saying that as we are a link to the esscence of creation . By using any form of pathworking (LSD, symbolic etc) we can assertain the most likley outcome to events that we focus our intention apon (nicley leading to the opening of an entire can of quantum worms there of course and the odd side argument of predestiny over free will ).

For my own ideas about divination , I,ve always felt its more like Frank Herbuts creation, the "mentats" from his Dune series. The unconcsiose processes the avaliable data and in some deliveres (for what ever reason) in images the most likley outcome of said event. (This then leaves room for free will , as we can choice to act or not).

Divination systems (for me)are just tools , you pick that which works for you, same way you use a hammer for nails and a screwdriver for screws .

Henningjohnathan

19:27 / 02.06.04

Interesting to note that in Herbert's DUNE the Mentats as well as the Space Guild navigators used the Spice Drug Melange to expand their minds for the tasks they performed. I wonder if this was directly related to Leary's 8-brain-circuit concept that we should use LSD and related metaprograms to prepare our neurology for an extraterrestrial existence.

Personally, it would seem that "stacking the deck" in Tarot would not work quite the same way as a "natural" reading since this would dictate the interplay between the subconscious and the cards. It would in effect make conscious what needs to be intuitive.

However, it would be an interesting experiment to see the reader stack the deck unbeknownst to the "readee" and then record the results. Also, it would be interesting to see the results of a stacked deck reading compared to a "natural" reading for the same person.

20:17 / 02.06.04

How many practitioners here feel that the Tarot and its practice is essentially a method by which you attune or reattune your nervous system (in much the same way Leary advocated LSD use)?

I have a special deck that I do that with. Basically, I only take it out when I have a "feeling" that I should. I'll draw a single card with no query, then meditate upon the imagery. The major arcana has short phrases that can be used as a mantra. If I get a major arcana card, I will do a meditation with the mantra. The deck uses a lot of deep imagery, so it's useful to use that way. Actually, that sort of attunement is mostly what I use the tarot for. I use the I Ching for divs.

Henningjohnathan

15:09 / 03.06.04

That's interesting. I'm currently reading two books that relate Psychedelic drug experience to mystical systems. Timothy Leary's THE PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE based on the TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD and Terrence and Dennis McKenna's THE INVISIBLE LANDSCAPE that relates psychedelics and the I CHING. I wonder if there has been any work relating psychedelic and mystical experiences to the practice of Tarot.
Personally, I feel that these divination techniques emerged from something basic and universal in the human nervous and neurological systems and can be used to manifest latent potential and talent.