Why Tarot Readings Work
Many people may view Tarot cards as a pointless pastime or play
thing of certain "new age" dabblers or "crazy psychics", but the
truth is, the images and concepts imbedded in the Tarot are
ancient expressions of deeply ingrained human archetypes. As
such, the cards can be very useful in exploring the subconscious
mind, its hidden fears and desires, and its suppressed
potentials.
What is an archetype? The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung used the
term "archetype" to refer to the generalized patterns of images
that form the world of human representations, through which
humans relate to their outer reality. Representations of
archetypes can be seen in all cultures throughout history. Since
archetypes are rooted in the collective unconscious, they may be
brought to the surface through the "psychic" activity of
individuals who are in tune with their intuition, the bridge to
the unconscious mind. This is literally a bridge to what some
scientists are now calling "implicit reality", where everything
exists in a state of chaos as one. In order to perceive reality
as a solid stream of time and space, humans require a set of
archetypes, or symbols, to guide their awareness. This is why
the same archetypes, many of which are contained in the Tarot,
can be found repeating in numerous works of cultural creation
throughout the world and throughout history.
The first modern psychologist to recognize the potential of the
Tarot in exploring the far regions of the unconscious was Carl
Jung. In fact, during a Tarot reading, the client, with the
assistance of the reader, discusses possible meanings of the
symbols in specific cards and relates those meanings to the
client's problem in much the same way as psychotherapists
conduct dream analysis.
Jung was first drawn to the Tarot when he noticed the images
contained within "descended from the archetypes of
transformation". Many of these archetypes can be seen in Jung's
"individuation process", which is a representation of the
natural psychological maturation of the human being. The Tarot
also contains symbols representing other important archetypes of
the transformative processes, including the Self, the sacrifice,
the hero, rebirth and the mother. A typical Tarot reading can be
compared to a chaos model of therapy in that it can help induce
in the reader a period of psychic instability by stimulating the
imagination via the archetypal symbols in the Tarot.
Chaos Theory
Modern chaos theory was formulated to explain complex systems
with many interrelated components as well as dynamic systems.
Such complex systems, especially living systems, are known as
dissipative structures. This is because such structures
dissipate energy as they interact with their environment. In the
case of living systems, this allows the process of growth to
occur. Ilya Prigogine, who won the Nobel prize for chemistry in
1977 for his work in dissipative structures, noted that
dissipative systems are systems that are able to maintain
cohesion only because they are able to open to flows of energy,
matter or information from their environments.
How does the Tarot work into this? Well, besides our body being
a dissipative system, our psyches are as well. Our "ego
complex", the part of ourselves with which we identify, is only
a part of our psyche. Jung looked at the psyche as a
self-regulating system that maintains itself in the same manner
that the body does. Dreams are one way in which the psyche
regulates itself, by bringing rise to suppressed unconscious
energies and allowing them to dissipate. The Tarot is another
way we can bring our unconscious energies to the surface.
History of the Tarot
The Tarot has been called the oldest book in the world. Legend
has it that the cards came from a book called The Book of Toth.
Toth was depicted in ancient Egypt as the ibis-headed god of
wisdom and knowledge. He is said to have helped with the
founding of Egypt, and to have given humanity mathematics,
engineering, medicine, astrology and language, among other
things. When the Egyptian empire began to fall several thousand
years after its inception, Thoth intervened. To keep the
knowledge and wisdom that he had passed to humanity alive, he
summarized it on a series of 22 tablets. This was done using
symbols instead of words, so that anyone could read it. These
tablets came to be known as The Book of Thoth, and it is said
that a roving people later known as the gypsies copied these
symbols onto cards.
Whatever the origin of the Tarot deck, one thing is certain: the
images correspond well with known human archetypes, and the
cards have been used for centuries not just for divinization and
fortune telling, but for serious psychological growth. Many a
skeptic has tried their hand at a Tarot reading, only to be
genuinely shocked at the accuracy and quality of information
provided to them, and there is no doubt that many more skeptics
will continue to be convinced of the power of the Tarot as it
becomes increasingly popular throughout the world.