How does the Tarot work, a personal view.

Two Of Wands - Choices and consequences

When you mention you read Tarot or are asked to do a reading, most people are curious and ask questions, the main ones being - "How does the Tarot work" and "Can the Tarot cards predict the future" which is what most people think.

I recently read this quote and for me it goes a long way to being able to answer those questions

We have no idea, now, of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile.... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition.

WILLIAM GIBSON, Pattern Recognition

This quote is basically saying that there are too many variables in our lives, these variables change with our own actions and reactions, those of our family and friends, in fact anyone we come into contact with, as well as environmental influences. 

The Tarot is not about predicting the future but about recognizing energies and patterns and giving likely outcomes based on those energies and patterns, as they are NOW and giving insight and guidance on how that outcome will be achieved.

Risk Management. - If the Tarot can give us insight into what may happen, what the likely outcome will be, we are empowered to consider it and change the circumstances to change it, if we wish to do so.

The spinning of the given moment's scenarios – The given moments are shown by the Major Arcana cards and I feel that these are the closest that we will get to predetermined events or outcomes, they are events that are likely to happen and if you try to stop or change them they will find another route and appear again later. Most events are changeable and represented by the Minor Arcana cards.

Pattern recognition. If you can see a pattern emerging, this will give a chance of 'predicting' a likely outcome, by looking at a sequence of event or comparing it with other patterns to see how they resulted. If you don't like the likely outcome, you break the pattern.

What the client does with the insight and guidance given in their reading is for them to decide, we all have free will, we can choose to follow or ignore what the tarot gives us, the Tarot is empowering us to make informed choices to go with the proposed outcome or change it.

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.

Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.

The chances, the changes are all yours to make.

The mold of your life is in your hands to break.

J. R. R. TOLKIEN, The Hobbit

So how does a reading work?

The client asks a question or states a situation or issue they want insight or guidance to.

The Reader, using their intuition, gives this insight and guidance, now many would say that this is just the reader applying common sense and in a lot of case this is just what we fight doing, but why?

Using our common sense brings into play our own morals and judgement, this at times will not benefit the client and may not allow us to give an unbiased reading. Using the tarot allows us to focus on the cards, these act as tools to stimulate our intuition, yes we have all trained and learnt the meanings and a set of key words for each card, but a one size fits all approach doesn't cover the individual need of each client, the reader needs to know how a card or set of cards relates to that client's question and use that understanding to relate the insight and guidance the client needs.

There are times when a Reader's intuition will step in on it's own and the more experienced and intuitive Reader doesn't always need the cards to be able to give the guidance and insight sought,  however the Reader will still use the cards as a prop, to keep them on track and to allow the client feel that they have got what they have asked for, a Tarot reading.

Once the Reader has established what the client's question is, they will break it down into key elements and devise a spread / layout which will best give the insight in a orderly manner. Each card position reflects an aspect of the whole, the cards are then shuffled and drawn from the deck and place in a position relating to how they were drawn.

The mystery is how are the cards needed to complete the reading end up in the correct position in the deck in to ensure that they are drawn or are they?

A skeptic may say that the cards are randomly drawn and that the Reader then makes the cards fit the insight that the Reader wants to portray, OK that may explain how the Reader can give advice which may or may not be accurate, which if it fails to be accurate it can be pushed aside by saying that circumstances change because they, can as it says in the quote above.

What it doesn't explain is the numerous occasions where the likely outcome comes to fruition  where aspects of the clients life are revealed, where events and people from there past are identified or the card that the reader cannot make fit but the client can.

As I have said the Tarot is a tool, an aid, it picks up and tunes into energies and it recognises patterns or is it a tool to help the Reader do this? Whatever way, why, how does it? There is so much in the world, especially the natural and spiritual worlds that we don't know or understand, so much that is a mystery to us, so much that science doesn't recognise, let alone study.

How does the Tarot work ?????????????????????????????????????????????