I’m glad this was the first thing I saw in the comments - because that was me after reading this.
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That was me, 40 years ago. How did you know? 
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Strong agree! A lot of the concepts of Jungian psychology are in/from tarot cards. As well as Campbells’s hero’s journey. I got into tarot as a way to make character backstories and now I find it an interesting way to challenge myself to think in different ways about a problem.
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There’s only one way I know of that will ensure that your tarot-themed entertainment will be value for money:
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It’s Scammers all the way down!
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So, does the software stop them from charging people money for their bullshit, magic card readings?
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scammers are people who steal financial information, put victims into debt, or who gain access to victim’s estates. they manipulate victim’s trust in the same way any con-artist would
keep in mind, there are abusive christian pastors and charismatics who will take people’s money to save their soul. that doesn’t make the guy in the sky any less or more real to followers. this is exactly the same sort of thing. it’s just not an organized religion
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Some kind of alternative checkmark?
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I guess it’s people who truly believe that tarot reading is a valid and proven way of revealing information about a person’s future or “destiny”, and that they are uniquely qualified in obtaining that information, and thus helping the person navigate the complexities of life and “destiny” in a way that provides a more favourable outcome to them.
This actually proves that I am not a psychic, because I did not see it coming that I could actually write a snark-free response to this question.
While I do think that Tarot cards can be a valuable tool for these things, I can’t help but notice that using Tarot cards that way - or referring to Jungian “archetypes” - might introduce a certain bias. It will give you characters people immediately can relate to, but may also exclude the development of characters outside these stereotypes. Same goes for the hero’s journey, it is one way of telling a story, and it will create a familiar experience for people, but also prevents exploring kinds of journeys, that might even be more akin to what people experience in their own life.
The same goes, for using Tarot cards as a tool for reflection, they will facilitate certain insights, and preclude others.
So balancing these things with a set of unrelated ideas that come from an entirely different ideology might be a good idea, otherwise one might run a risk
of eventually of confusing the map with the territory, and we’d only perpetuate a certain set of stereotypes.
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I have a friend who does tarot readings and other types of readings. She’s not a close friend, but she’s a friend. I would not call her a con artist or someone running a scam. I got a reading from her once, out of curiosity. Afterwards, what I believed about what she’s doing is this. I think she’s remarkably good at reading people. I think she has a very well developed sense of empathy. And she gives generally good and helpful advice, even if that advice might be a little on the generic side. I also think she sincerely believes in what she’s doing, and doesn’t really recognize her own gifts. I think if she did, and she applied herself as such, she would make a remarkable therapist. As it is, she may be helping some people feel a little better about their lives, and she’s doing no harm. I also do not think all readers and psychics are like this. I’m sure most of them are running a con. But not all of them. I think it would be nice if we could find a way to redirect the “good” ones to more legitimate, proven occupations like therapy. I also would never, ever sit down at a poker table with my psychic friend. Again, not because I think she’s psychic, but because she is really, really good at reading people.
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Like, I get it, ha ha, but it’s not even only tarot readers or psychics that are at risk of these kinds of impersonators or scammers. Virtually anyone with any kind of profile within the pagan and witchy community - from tattooists to illustrators to photographers, seems to be at risk of their identity being cloned to aggressively go after people for ‘readings’ or other ‘services’.
It’s like imagine if an architectural artist who specialised in churches was at risk of their account being hacked and used to push exorcisms or something.
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Quite a lot of the critiques about white male patriarchy are based on a critique of how religion has in part driven that… Just because people are able to allow for some complexity about how religion has been on multiple sides of issues like form of oppression doesn’t mean that they’re ignoring it… Just a cursory survey of feminist theory would tell ya that…
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An overwhelmingly large percentage of Wiccans and Pagans consider the Tarot to be a foundational sacred text. Just a cursory survey of any Pagan source would tell you that.
Literally EVERY Jew or Christian or Muslim will tell you how when they need guidance or answers or they’re trying to make sense of any of the deeper questions, they open their Quran or Bible and read a few random passages. They go to their Imam or Rabbi and ask what does the Torah say about this? They tithe, they pay for private sessions, they drop money in the collection plate.
But when someone asks someone knowledgeable about the Tarot or the Runes what they have to say, it’s utterly inconceivable that that could be anything other than a scam or delusion.
Why? Explain to me in simple words why one of those things has an inherent legitimacy to it, and the other one doesn’t- And I don’t mean in terms of doctrine or being right or wrong or whether they’re talking about their ancestral spirits or guardian angels or their invisible sky daddy. I’m asking you, what is the actual, tangible difference between paying someone $20 to sit and tell you what the cards say, versus paying them $50/hr to sit and tell you what the Bible says?
Because one of those, any of the major credit card processors can refuse to facilitate. One of those gets to declare that money as nontaxable income. One of those can be shut down with zoning restrictions that have zero to do with safety or infrastructure. One of those can be denied to people in prison or hospitals. One of those won’t be used against you in an attack ad if you try to run for office. One of those can literally get you fired if you mention it at work.
Why? Why is that? Explain like I’m six. I’m not even going to pretend that my religion isn’t silly- I just want someone to say in plain English what makes it any more or less silly than theirs, and why only one of us should enjoy legal protection.
[Deleted by moderator: criticize ideas, not people. -Sekhmet]
Is Tarot a foundational text - or a text at all?
Wouldn’t it be against the entire ethos to have any set foundational texts anyway? Lots of different texts that different people find of value- but any kind of central foundational text seems oppositional to the religions or spiritual practices.
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Not for the reconstructionists like Druids or Norse Heathens, but Wicca and its offshoots are largely based on the same Victorian lodges and Hermetic traditions as Thelema. Tarot is absolutely one of the core teaching tools for all of that stuff.
Yes and no. There’s a common saying that Pagans aren’t people of the book, but people of the library. A lot of practitioners and modern paths are extremely eclectic, and it’s not like Gardner himself didn’t lift stuff from a half a dozen different sources- You are totally right about there being a strong underlying ethos of personal gnosis and appropriation of diverse mythos and symbol sets over any kind of core dogma.
But at the same time, each tradition does have it’s own core teaching, usually a text, that it does follow. Hand copying Garder and Sanders’ Book of Shadows is a central feature of BT Wicca, and Northern trads consistently cite stuff like the Havamal and rune poems or the Tuatha de Danann cycle of Celtic myth as a primary source.
I would personally argue- based on my own tradition, experience, and biases- That the book religions consider their foundational text to be the source of universal truth, while we consider ours to be the method by which we learn subjective truths; That there’s an explicit understanding that Book X is the definitive way we do things, but don’t claim it to be the sole capital-t Truth for everyone else and don’t see anything wrong with learning bits and pieces from elsewhere.
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So they are tools; not foundational texts. Certainly not in the sense of the equivalence to revealed truth foundational documents. You can take it or leave it in as far as they foster spiritual experience. This is not how foundational texts are considered.
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This topic is temporarily closed for at least 4 hours due to a large number of community flags.
Maybe I’ve missed it, but I can’t see anyone here arguing that it is more “silly”. Maybe because that would be one hell of a weird hill to die on.
Out in the world, what you describe is the result of existing power structures, and of prejudice.
I guess for many people it’s not that easy to accept when somebody has an entirely different explanation for how the world works. To accept that somebody else may have that right implies that I myself might be wrong, which makes people vulnerable to persuasion. Therefore religions often carry patterns to counteract that vulnerability, like the idea that their Truth™️ is universal and must not be criticized or even questioned, certain specific practices that demonstrate being a believer, and the idea that those who believe more are worth more (this is the main source of devaluation and dehumanization of non-believers).
Religions where these ideas are cultivated with will inevitably fight for dominance, and can become a tool for wielding power over people, even to a point where other teachings become less relevant than this fight. This is not a place where tolerance and solidarity thrive, and it curiously opens those religions to a lot of scams, but those often seem to be considered mere outliers.
Also I think when people are used to the major religions being like this, they might be more prone to perceiving other forms of spirituality as scams.
One last point may be that the veracity of predictions about the more immediate future - like those provided by Tarot or Astrology - can be more easily be verified than predictions about a kingdom in heaven. Which makes it loom like the latter claim is somehow better.
All in all, a majority of people is conservative (not reactionary), they think what they are used to is normal. That might be a problem now, but might become an asset once we achieve a culture of tolerance and solidarity- because then the conservative thing will be to uphold that. Something to look forward to.
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With all due respect, this is kind of exactly my point. Those definitions are entirely based on the Judeo-Christian idea of what those things are. I know what the definition is. I’m saying that the definition is wrong, because it was written by and for one specific worldview that isn’t inclusive of the many others that have analogous roles with different criteria.
