Articles by Madame Katrina
Tarot for the skeptically inclined
I have a husband who is a skeptically inclined person. He likes getting his tarot read once a month as it points out different things about his choices that he might otherwise overlook. He views himself as non-spiritual but says, “You learn a lot about yourself in a Tarot reading. You find surprising perspectives come up, it introduces concepts that you can easily relate to, but maybe they are concepts and aspects of yourself you have not thought about in a long time.” I find it interesting how often I will read Tarot for someone who is skeptical and they find that by the end they relate so well to the story being told by the imagery of the cards that they have gone from being skeptical to being quite touched and intrigued. Tarot was devised by humans hundreds of years ago to help bring to light certain common issues that humans everywhere encounter like love, regret, money, addictions, sadness and hope. As time and technology has brought a world of change, the elements of Tarot are still pertinent and fundamental to who we are.
The Tarot can be used for entertainment, meditation, or divination. It also can be used as a psychological tool to look inside the unconscious as a form of therapy. Carl Jung (1875–1961) founder of analytical psychology, discovered the symbolism contained within the Tarot cards could be extremely useful during therapy. Jung taught that we can become conscious of the unconscious contents in our psyche by examining the symbols of the cards. By using the cards to stimulate self-reflection, the universal human symbols found in the cards could introduce to his clients fresh new elements and insights to the problems being discussed. These symbols, what Jung called "Archetypes", are powerful universal figures that live in everyone's personal and collective (shared) unconscious, shaping our perceptions and experiences. These symbols have not lost their importance over time. Jung's theory of archetypes gives rise to several psychoanalytical uses for Tarot. Since the cards represent these different archetypes within each individual seeker, ideas of the subject's self-perception can be gained by asking them to select a card that they 'identify with'. Equally, the subject can try to clarify the situation by imagining it in terms of the archetypal ideas associated with each card. Another method is to select random cards to see what thoughts and emotions these surprise elements stimulate, as what is done in a traditional Tarot reading.
Following in the tradition of Jung, psychadelics psychologist Timothy Leary (1920-1996) found deep theraputic meanings in Tarot. He would often use a deck during his vision quests for himself and for his fellow voyagers to communicate their thoughts when they were unable to formulate them verbally.
I share the conclusion that the Tarot deck can be used as a powerful tool in therapy. When you have your Tarot cards read with me, it is effectively a type of therapy session we share. My client and I use several cards to tell a story, and then discusses possible meanings of the symbols in his or her own words. The reader then relates the symbolic meanings given by the client to the client's problem in much the same manner as in Jungian dream analysis.
The Tarot is medieval equivalent of today's highly respected Rorschach and Thematic Apperception tests.
Use of Tarot also deploys elements of modern chaos theory. Chaos theory works to understand dynamic systems with many complex elements such as life itself. Every complex system, and especially every living system (self-organizing systems) requires chaos and change for growth as it interacts with its environment. In chaos theory, it is known as a dissipative system. A dissipative system gives rise to irreversible processes such as the growth of organisms. Dissipative systems are those which are able to maintain identity only because they are open to new flows of energy, matter, or information from their environments. Not only is our body a dissipative system, but our psyche as well. When you draw a random card from the deck, you have introduced into your life an element of transformation. If you are willing to be open to the random symbols contained in the card, you will allow your psyche to grow and change.
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