The truth about tarot

This sounds very similar to a basic technique I find useful for making difficult decisions: the coin flip.

If I can't seem to decide between A or B, I flip a coin. If, in doing so, the answer is A, one of three things happens: I find I like the answer, and it turns out it was my preference all along. I find I prefer B after all, and just didn't realize it. Or, I really don't care in which case the coin flip was as good an answer as any I could've come to.

The coin didn't tell me anything. But by forcing a decision it revealed something I didn't consciously understand.

Exactly this. I appreciate tarot cards because the symbolism stimulates your imagination and helps you to think of new ways to solve problems, or new perspectives on things in your life.

The approach of mentally asking a question or thinking about something such as "my future" and then selecting a random card gives you one of 78 different lenses through which to think about that topic. From there your mind takes over and does the rest of the work to figure out if that particular symbolic lens applies to the subject at hand, and sometimes it helps you to realize things that you already had subconsciously.

I'm solidly in the "soft" camp mentioned in the article, but I'm also pretty into tarot, enough that I've gotten a large half sleeve tattoo that features various tarot cards that I felt were especially meaningful at various points in my life. I plan to continue it as I experience life events that I think are meaningful enough to be associated with a card from the deck.

Seconded. I have seen Jodorowsky perform in public in a couple of occasions and he was always very interesting. Also, he is humble, warm and funny and a pretty fascinating speaker.

Introspection nails it, I think.

I remember a woman volunteering to give me a reading. The question I wanted divined was about "relationships", the answer she interpreted from the lay of the cards was "work".

I leaned back and thought, "Perhaps the relationship thing will take it's own course, I should be thinking about getting my financial house in order."

And so it did and so I did.

Yes, I have read "the way of the tarot" and watched several videos regarding the idea of using the tarot for healing. I agree with the idea that the tarot is not a tool for "seen the future" instead as a tool to dive deep in the unknown of our daily life. What mean is, it can really help you to be aware of things about a situation or about yourself that you aren't aware of.

I think that's the wrong perspective. They don't tell or make the future. They have very little to do with the future. They take advantage of psychological archetypes to encourage examination of the present in a new context, which might lead to thinking about the future differently.

The idea behind ascribing meaning to the tarot is one of reinforcing symbols.

Think of the Tarot as a programming language for the mind. The more one uses it, the more the rich symbols become grounded to one's individual psyche.

In the Western esoteric tradition (Hermetism), the human mind is viewed as a collection of disparate, autonomous, intelligences. What one considers to be his "Ego", his personality, can be modeled as an emergent illusion that arises out of the interplay of these underlying intelligences that are buried in the unconscious mind. What the alchemists called the King and Queen, the Eagle and the Lion, Mercury and Sulfur, what Carl Jung described as Anima, Animus and Shadow, what the Jewish Kabbalists describe as Sephirot, are all essentially these different aspects of the unconscious mind.

Using the Tarot in this fashion is an essential technique for bridging the gap between the conscious and the unconscious, as through repeated symbol reinforcement the unconscious obtains a way to "talk" to the conscious mind. Initially, through abstract "impressions" and "daydreams" and, if the process continues, through further crystallization and rigidity -- one may start seeing visions or hearing voices in his mind -- till the dissolution of the conscious ego and full-blown mystical experiences. One of the axioms of Alchemy -- Solve et Coagula -- refers to the practice of taking the human mind apart and reintegrating it. In the Hermetic tradition this is called Initiation. Carl Jung calls it Individuation.

The Tarot has been used in this fashion for hundreds of years, but this practical knowledge kept occult whilst different explanations ("divination") allowed to propagate in the popular sphere.

I hope you have seen the Alchemical Tarot: http://a.co/gcRQpfJ

The most beautiful tarot I have come across. (I like the more sparse, earlier editions though if you can find them.)

the four suits are explicitly tied to the classical elements (swords = air, wands = fire, pentacles = earth, cups = water) and the source material for the cards is drawn directly from Western esoteric traditions, especially Hermeticism and Alchemy.

The Hero's Journey is Campbell's analysis of archetypal themes present in most mythologies, and especially in Ancient Near Eastern and medieval Eureopean hero stories. It maps well to the Major Arcana because they are both archetype maps of the same underlying cultural milieu.