Tarot doesn't believe in you either.
A lot of people dismiss Tarot as New Age fortune-telling for suckers. Unfortunately, some people do approach it that way; but Tarot doesn’t have to be super mystical, scammy, or woo — it can be a practical, psychological tool for using symbolism to approach parts of the unconscious mind that we can’t see directly. Working with the cards doesn’t require crystals or psychic powers; just familiarity with the language of symbol, and a willingness to suspend your disbelief.
(This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, The Panopticon: Tarot, Symbols, Myth, and Meaning, the companion to the Panopticon: Symbolic Oracle deck. Pre-orders available now at https://standupforthegods.com!)
To successfully work with the Tarot, you must assume that you’re actually capable of using symbol and metaphor to look at yourself in new ways; the good news is, we're all capable of this! A concept known as symbolic recursion underpins all of human language and thought. Popularized by the great thinker Noam Chomsky, symbolic recursion basically describes how our minds think in layers of abstraction. We can have symbols for concepts, or symbols for symbols for concepts, or symbols for symbols for symbols for concepts, and so on.
A simple example is instructive here: when we see the letters “C”, “A”, and “T”, we don’t get hung up on the literal letters themselves. In fact, we immediately see them as a unit, the word “CAT.” And when we see the word “CAT,” we don’t get hung up on the group of letters, the sound of the word, or the shape of the strokes on a page; we immediately know that it’s a word, and a word that we know. And what’s more, we don’t get hung up on the fact that it’s a noun, or that it rhymes with “HAT”, or that it’s an abstraction on a page: seeing those letters in a row kicks off a near-instantaneous chain of mental events that end with us… thinking about cats. Nothing about the letters “C”, “A”, and “T” have anything to do with the abstract concept of cat, but we get there every time — and our brain makes abstract symbolic leaps like these countless times a day.
This is endlessly extensible: we know that “CAT” means a feline animal, but beyond the literal, the concept of cat can also symbolize grace, curiosity, skittishness, or in the case of the lion, even bravery. All of these associations are somewhere in the back of our head, automatic, and present even when we’re not thinking about them. You may have noted that we’re now moving further from the literal toward the abstract: what started with a curve on the page (the letter “C”), we’re now thinking of a whole complex of meaning. When someone is described as catty, catlike, or a scaredy-cat, these higher order concepts build on the symbol of cat — in an increasingly non-literal way.
Whew, sorry for the TED Talk — back to the Tarot. Bearing this “language of symbolism” in mind, perhaps the simplest way to approach working with cards is this: once you start digesting the symbols in the deck, each card is a lens through which you can look at some aspect of your life—yourself, your situation, a relationship, a question, and so on. When we do a reading with multiple cards, we’re stacking those lenses, and then looking through. The subtle symbols in each card mix and combine into a unique lens that we’ve not yet considered — and much of this happens subconsciously. When we go deep enough, the ego can step aside, and through symbol learn about what’s going on in the deeper parts of the psyche. In psychology, this connection of ego consciousness — our thinking mind, the part we know as “I” — to the deeper unconscious by way of symbol is known as the transcendent function. When taken seriously, certain symbols can unite the ego and the unconscious whole — and coming to understand the parts of us that we’re not consciously aware of is the cornerstone of self-knowledge and development.
You might be thinking, “psh, I already know everything that goes on in my mind.” You and everybody else! Our culture puts a hyper-focus on rationality, logic, science, and individualism — all of which are excellent, but they’re not complete. We’re implicitly taught that if we just have the right information, our life will fall into place, but this doesn’t actually happen. Everyone knows how to get fit: exercise, eat right, don’t sit all day, don’t drink too much, get enough sleep. But the first thing you learn when studying human nature is that logic fails. We do not act in line with our knowledge, certainly not consistently. If you’ve ever lashed out at someone who didn’t deserve it, looked up at 5pm and thought “crap, I got nothing done today,” or waited til the last minute for something important (taxes, anyone?) — then it’s happened to you. These are all examples of a failure to act in line with our best interests. Why does that happen?
Under the hood, our psyches are very complex. We feel like our ego consciousness runs the show, but it’s just not true. There are other aspects to psyche, some more hidden than others, all competing for their own interests, which often conflict. This is where tools like therapy, journaling, and yes — even Tarot — come into the picture. Carved above the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi was the imperative to “Know Thyself.” This is much easier said than done, but before we can begin, we first must understand that our “Self” is much bigger than we realize. To truly know oneself, an individual must first find ways to see the parts of themselves that lie beyond the light of consciousness.
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To be continued… Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for Part II, and for more information on all of this stuff, check out https://standupforthegods.com. Pre-order the book and the deck today!
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—John Selig writes about the intersection of myth, psychology, and the occult — with an eye toward making life a little more interesting for all of us. Follow along at @standupforthegods