{"id":38189,"date":"2011-05-11T11:00:59","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T16:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=38189"},"modified":"2011-05-11T18:24:06","modified_gmt":"2011-05-11T23:24:06","slug":"weighing-in-on-synchronicity-and-tarot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/reading-tarot\/weighing-in-on-synchronicity-and-tarot\/","title":{"rendered":"What do you think? Weighing in on synchronicity and tarot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free\u00a0tarot spread generator<\/a> using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread.\u00a0This article<\/a> tells you how to use the spread. You can\u00a0visit Sarah’s website here<\/a>. –efc<\/em><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Sarah Taylor<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I propose that the body is a temple for the energy of the archetypes. In the chaos of the shuffle, the cards react to the energy of the shuffler’s archetype of the moment. So much so that when the client’s hands shuffle the cards, the energy of the heart Chakra with all it’s [sic] archetypal energetic information affects the cards. The cards magically fall in line with a synchronicity that is part of the mystery of the cards. The resulting segmented pictorial layout is a portrait of the client’s psychological state or their inner worldview.<\/p>\n

— Toni Gilbert, Messages from the Archetypes<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Priestess from the Xultun Tarot deck by Peter Balin. Click on the image for a larger version.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This passage describes holistic nurse and transpersonal counsellor Toni Gilbert’s hypothesis on how it is that tarot works — how it is that we seem to get just the cards that we want or need during a tarot reading, whether as reader or as client.<\/p>\n

To explain two of the terms that she uses, and which I often refer to in my writing:<\/p>\n

Synchronicity<\/strong> is a term that was first used by psychiatrist Carl Jung to describe, in his words, “an acausal connecting principle.” Wikipedia explains it<\/a> as “relationships that are not causal in nature [which] … can manifest themselves as simultaneous occurrences that are meaningfully related.”<\/p>\n

A bit of a mouthful, but I venture that most of us know it when we experience it. For example, several years ago I was driving in my home town, and I kept passing cars with number plates that had three consecutive sevens on them: 777. The frequency started to become a little unsettling, but I rolled with it … until I passed a car, looked at the plate, and burst out into incredulous laughter: 777 777. “Okay!” I said out loud (and I paraphrase). “If this is some kind of sign, then show me one more thing that I absolutely cannot pass off as coincidence. Come on! Show me!” I looked ahead, saw a car coming towards me. It had a personalised number plate: 777 WIN. That, for me, was a sublime moment of synchronicity. My thoughts — and also my feelings<\/em> — and the number plates I encountered — all of them converged at a single moment in time.<\/p>\n

Archetype<\/strong>, in the context in which Toni Gilbert uses it, refers to a blueprint of a behaviour, characteristic or feeling. Tarot cards are “archetypal,” in that they reference people and situations that we can identify with both deeply and immediately. They are collective: they describe an aspect of the human condition in which we all share to a greater or lesser degree, consciously or unconsciously, at one time or another. If you are taking a risk by stepping out into the unknown, then you are embodying the tarot archetype of The Fool. If you are encountering a moment of grace, where you feel in the flow, then you are encountering The Star. If you feel part of a joyous celebration of love and harmony, then you are in a dance with the Three of Cups.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And so, back to Toni Gilbert’s ideas about why it is that we draw the cards that we do when we work with the tarot.<\/p>\n

She suggests that our energetic body has an awareness of who and where we are at the moment of shuffling, which affects the cards and causes the ones that fit with this to be drawn for the reading. In other words, the cards we get are an archetypal match, and an accurate mirror of our “psychological state” or “inner worldview.”<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the point of this article:<\/p>\n

What do you<\/em> think is happening when we get the cards that we do in a tarot reading?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’d like to offer up the rest of this discussion for your theories, musings and questions. I have my own ideas, of course, which I’d describe as fluid, simply because I cannot know for sure one way or the other. But this space is primarily yours, and I’ll be reading with great interest, adding my own thoughts where I feel I can make a contribution.<\/p>\n

To get things rolling, here are some statements that I thought I’d put forward for your perusal.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Cards are selected through the process of synchronicity<\/strong> that Toni Gilbert refers to above; there is a point where we and the cards converge meaningfully.<\/li>\n
  2. The cards we get are based on coincidence<\/strong>: there is no underlying connecting principle; it is simply the co-occurrence of two separate events.<\/li>\n
  3. The cards seem meaningful because of our projection<\/strong> on to them. Seen this way, any<\/em> card will have meaning — because it is the meaning that we give to it.<\/li>\n
  4. We give tarot cards meaning because of the discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance<\/strong><\/a>: because we need to believe that there is something greater at work, we confer meaning to justify that belief.<\/li>\n
  5. Tarot is meaningless<\/strong>: it simply doesn’t work.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Catch you on the discussion board!<\/p>\n

    — Sarah<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free\u00a0tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread.\u00a0This article tells you how to use the spread. You can\u00a0visit Sarah’s website here. –efc By\u00a0Sarah Taylor I propose that the body … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":470,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}