The Bible says to avoid all forms of fortunetelling. I think tarot cards are evil.
How can a tarot card be evil? I mean, for crying out loud, it’s a piece of cardboard! Cardboard has no soul, no mind, and no heart- it cannot think or act, therefore in what way can it be said to be evil?
Now, people who USE tarot cards to fleece or otherwise abuse the gullible…now, there’s an argument that can be made that THEY are evil. But that’s people, not cards. Any decent poker player can use a regular deck of cards to do the same thing.
Felice
“There’s always a bigger fish.”
Okay, I meant fortunetelling was evil. Tarot cards can make a nice fire to cook marshmallows over.
Okay, okay, sqrlcub’s not here, so I’ll have to step up to the bat.
Hi, I’m a loopy Pagan, and I read Tarot cards for myself and friends. And anyone who asks politely.
Do I think that they “predict the future” or “reveal unknown secrets”? No.
I think they’re a powerful tool that uses archetypal imagery and ritual in a way that forces me to be subconciously more objective in how I consider a question. It’s the old saw about how you can give someone else advice, but never yourself. Tarot allows me to take a step back, project my thoughts, worries, preoccupations, et al onto the symbolism of the cards and their placements in a reading. When I do that, I’m able to more clearly evaluate myself and my situation and make decisions from there.
When I give readings to someone else, the cards allow me the same extra objectivity, and I can couch observations and advice that I would normally give a friend in terms that they may accept more readily. If a friend asks me how I do a reading, I do not lie. I don’t pretend that I have special powers - except maybe for being able to read a person a little better than the average schmoe. I don’t take money for my readings, and I won’t do a reading for someone who considers Tarot or fortune telling to be evil (sorry, orangecakes) or something that only the completely delusional fall prey to. But that’s just me.
Thanks, phouka. VERY well said.
Brilliant point, Felice. And Picasso’s “Guernica” is just a big piece of canvas with some paint on it.
Eve, I’m getting a mental picture of you in kindergarten, going around and making SURE all the other little kids know that Santa Claus is a big phony…
Jiminy, Ike, I knew you looked familiar—was that you in Mrs. Dunkirk’s K-4 class at Belmont Hills?
Santa not real?! Now you are going to tell me the tooth fairy is a myth.
I am wiccan myself, and yes I do use the cards in much the same way as already stated. I use them not to predict the future, but to help people let out some energy, and maybe to give some helpful advice that might not otherwise have come up. Yes, they are just card, and I have help many people with interest learn to read them, but I teach them by just telling them that they are flash cards to jog your mind and nothing more.
The one thing that pisses me off about that commercial is that fact that the moon faced woman with the oh so pretty eyeshadow makes the statment that the cards were used to tell the future for kings and queens!!
Um, hello?! They were used as regular playing cards then. I don’t know if the games were the same then as now, but I know that that is what they have been used for.
And my opening statement of santa might have people confused about me with being wiccan and all. To clear it all up I married a Baptist, so we celebrate christian and pagan holidays.
But to the point, those people get on my nerves also, but I think with me it’s more personal. Because of them some people think anybody who has anything to do with tarot is off in the head, and I assure you that I am a very nice person, when the voices quiet down and let me think for myself. 
Very well said Phouka. I don’t believe the cards have any powers. The universal imagery allows me a method to think of things objectively. I also never read a “future” reading because I think it is 1)not really designed to “tell the future” (even if I did think it was able to) and 2)even if it could tell the future, I would not want it too. I don’t want to know what will happen to me.
From previous experience, I know anyone who doesn’t believe they work never will. Saying that chance makes up for the rest of it. That is probably true, but I think subconsciously one would read the cards and interpret them in a way which makes sense to their current situation. If the reading is for someone else then that in turn can be interpreted by them in a way which makes sense.
I will give an extremely rudimentary lesson on MPSIMS if someone wants it that can be done with regular playing cards. I don’t want to be attacked or harassed about it so don’t even start here.
HUGS!
Sqrl
PS. I haven’t been reading things in the PIT lately. Esprix’s thread seems to be pretty interesting but everything that needs to be said has already been said.
One last thing, telephone psychics are the equivalent of televangelists. They just don’t have as wide a target audience.
HUGS!
SQrl
:::Getting behind Phouka::: Yeah! So there.
“It’s okay. I wouldn’t remember me either.”