The Tarot Reputation
Playing cards began as tarot decks, which explains fundamental religious leader’s objections to the “devil’s pastime.” The Reverend Jeff Hopewell, who is a minister in the Church of England and a Council Member of the International Playing-Card Society, submits that it is not the cards themselves that are evil, but the intentions of those who may use them. Since gypsies, often the earliest purveyors of the iconic decks, are associated with Tarot, its negative connotations seems to have been earned by their nomadic disreputable reputation, justified or not. So-called witches or social misfits, who favored the Tarot, were also culprits. There are, in fact, many versions of decks entitled “Witches Tarot.” Witches and gypsies may or may not enjoy the tarot, but there is no evidence anywhere that they have any particular insight into it. That distinction belongs to a Swiss psychologist who emerged in the first quarter of the 19th century.
Jung and the Tarot
There are scores of books and web sites with different lay out or “spreads” of the 78 cards comprising the Major and Minor Arcadia of the Tarot. Into this mix comes a new and modern interpretation of the cards, based on the psychology of Carl Jung and his theory of synergy. In his famous Psychological Types, published in 1921, Jung postulated that there were “irrational” yet legitimate personality functions such as sensing and intuition.
Sensing and intuition draw their resources from insights based on the six senses and from experience, perhaps even long-forgotten experiences bred into the evolutionary DNA. These functions, although perceived differently by the individual, enable certain innate outcomes to assume a semblance of rationality and even inevitability. Thus, the “random” shuffling, cutting, and selection of the Tarot Deck and its consequent interpretations may assume not only a semblance of validity, but also an otherworldly quality of precognition that, in the right hands or on the right web site, may be astounding in its interpretive ability.
Free-Will Tarot
Tarot interpretation books abound and there are various decks available in book stores, on eBay or in novelty shops. Of course, tarot-card readers still set up shop at fairs, theme parks, or in psychic communities such as Casa Daga, Florida. These readers tend to be the most expensive and the least reliable. The easiest way to use the Tarot to answer a question or to give a general impression is to use a free or low-cost web site.
Simply Google Free Tarot or Free Will Tarot and select the first or second listing. Another good free site is Web Tarot. After using these sites, the questioner is hard pressed to remain neutral. When the cards fall in a particular way that pinpoints the exact nature of the question and poses a probable outcome, the results tend to speak for themselves.
