Christianity and Tarot Cards

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If there were any real smoking guns, like metaphysical objects dropped to earth and made of inscrutable substances, it wouldn't be a hot topic.

What you have to start out with is whether there's sufficient evidence that consciousness is more than just neurons, and there is enough out there to cross that bridge on a rational basis. There are studies like the Ganzfeld and others that suggest at least weak psi. There are models of reality, not reductive materialist ones but more along the lines of panpsychism, functionalism, neutral and dual-action monism, etc. that can handle both a world that's as rigid as the one we experience along with consciousness not being an accident of neurons (which technically if we really take the assumptions of reductive materialism seriously - the lights shouldn't be on anywhere including neurons). I won't go down the rabbit hole into NDE literature because people tap out immediately on that one but suffice to say there are experiences, like high fidelity 360 degree vision, blind people seeing during OBE's, where even having neurological and experiential hardware for such hallucination is really questionable.

As for the nature of entity contact being an internal or even projected external but still private experience (save some odd cases where things do supposedly leave physical disturbances), you really have to know all of your tendencies to want to spice up life, know what kinds of things fit into the category of hallucination, and very carefully weigh the remaining balance.

The one thing I would say about entity contact, if you end up asking yourself whether it was or wasn't then it most likely wasn't. Something really pronounced has to happen. A few good examples I can give - waking up and having what feels like the static-electric form of a person in contact with you. Another would be having a meditation experience where something far brighter than even your own cognition is making social contact with you and you can't even look at said entity or deity because they're glowing almost as bright as the sun (both of these have happened to me). These things don't have imagination or attempts to imagine as a lead-in, what's actually striking about them is that any such encounter was the furthest thing from your mind and that it physically exceeds, often exponentially, what your manual efforts at imagination could actually yield back to you. The other piece - a lot of it will hang close to border states (ie. like sleep vs. waking) and it does raise questions as to how it works or what your running into but the hallucination question at this point gets fraught because again - in a way, the way we handle hallucination these days, for subjectively rooted phenomena hallucination is an unfalsifiable claim.

That last paragraph, if someone's fairly well set in the idea that reductive materialism answers everything, typically has an infinitely malleable definition of hallucination. That's part of why I'd also say that these sorts of experiences would likely be less compelling to me if I hadn't already seen enough evidence that the world we're living in is mental in nature (we don't get to make it up - it's not The Secret unless you have a raft of beta orbiters ready to make any wish come true in hopes of getting laid) but to some degree it twitches and reacts to mental phenomena. Where people go wrong with that is they go full new age or New Thought and I'm sorry but no, if everything is conscious and everything has its own will then it's just your vote not only against the votes of 8 billion other people but everything that goes into matter that you would have thought was unconscious (going back to Donald Hoffman's conscious realism).

@techstepgenr8tion Sounds like you've dived deep into this subject. Hopefully nothing has come of me doing card readings.

Odd things seem to be happening lately. I was working with a client on Thursday morning who's not quite five and non-verbal, and we were at the library, scheduled to leave in at least a good 15-20 minutes. He was really wanting to leave though and started pulling me to my car when we got close. So, I decided that if he wants to leave that badly, we will go. When I got out, a snowstorm had just started to hit. I decided to drop him off at his destination early before heading home, and I was able to do so safely, but if I had waited 15-20 minutes as scheduled, I may not have known about the storm and it would certainly have been a much more dangerous drive. I wonder if this kid had some kind of premonition as we weren't near any windows at the time. Of course, that day I would later go on to perform readings for all my friends present at game night.

Yesterday, one of my friends who had a reading done fell at work and had a concussion. She's fine, and our mutual friend who has had at least several concussions coached her through what to do, but it's still a concern. Apparently a co-worker of mine had a concussion yesterday too. My mother told me her friend's husband had a heart attack while snow-shoveling yesterday and died. All these things could be mere coincidences, but if they're not then that's a concern.

Hopefully dark forces haven't been invited into my area. The cold snap we've been in has been unusually intense, and came about suddenly in what was initially shaping up to be an unusually warm winter, even setting some temperature records. It started the day after I performed my first reading. I was heading home from the last day of the convention where I bought the cards, and the first flurries hit just as I was nearing home. I was able to get home safely, just as it was starting to get bad. There was another snow dump on Tuesday as I was leaving class where the same thing happened, and I was able to get home before things got worse. Then there's that kid essentially saving me by inadvertently alerting me to a flurry storm just as it was starting. That particular snow dump was supposedly scheduled to happen overnight, but ended up happening around noon that day. Hmmm....

@Twilightprincess Hopefully it's just a case of me being in a highly suggestible state of mind and all the occurrences I have observed or been informed of lately have been coincidental. It had better not be any kind of sign of things to come. I will certainly refrain from reading tarot cards at night for the time being. Actually, unless I do a reading for my friend, I will refrain from doing any until I see a prophet.

Cold snaps happen and they always invariably have a natural explanation. You'll be fine, but it makes sense that when one is anxious and strongly fixated on looking for patterns that they might see them, even if other explanations are more 'reasonable' the one that feels more personal will always be appealing on a subconscious level. The world doesn't revolve around anyone, you're not responsible for "macro scale events" and it would be unreasonable to place that sort of responsibility on you, whether you're doing the blaming or it's someone else accusing you of witchcraft or whatever.

Also, isn't it possible the client just had something fun planned, or wanted to return to routine and the storm was coincidental? Would he even understand that a snowstorm makes it hard to drive at his age and state? One is unlikely to be able to benefit from a premonition one doesn't understand the significance of it; in the same way if you start complaining about the flu and I start yammering about how it's all the pigs and chickens fault in response, if you don't understand that flu comes from those animals my comment will lack significance and just appear to be a non sequitur and utterly out of context. Even if he knew the fact that a storm was approaching, would he understand why it might matter to you?

Last edited by funeralxempire on 18 Jan 2020, 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That's the other danger with this stuff - ie. apophenia gone wild.

I have to argue what's worse is that there's probably a 50/50 split with this and the more you tunnel into apophenia the more you do get actual hits which just pushes you along farther down that path and pretty soon you end up doing strangs Kabbalistic parsings of every bit of information around you. We have a guy here who fell down that rabbit hole and there was really nothing anyone could say to help get him out of that rut.

I think this is really my point though and perhaps why this stuff really can be dangerous, we don't have good terminology for things that are both true and BS simultaneously. A really good example of that go on Youtube and look at the guys and girls who are talking to 'machine elves', see the compatability between what they're hearing, and then consider the mountains of new age BS coming through. It's about as bad as channeled messages from the early and late 20th century where, to be fair, someone is writing - at breakneck pace - things that don't even seem like they're their own thoughts, these ideas are erupting, whatever source there is for the information is machine-gunning it out, and yet you look at it and... I'm sorry... it's New Thought drivel. I say to be fair because what they're experiencing doesn't have a better explanation, yet, than what they're experiencing at face value and perhaps needs one.

This is where I think we really need to get under this stuff and have a better grasp of what it is. If it fits Jacques Vallee's suspicions - ie. that it's a conscious control network of sorts, maybe best understood as a self-organizing system that's piping information back at us to obtain certain results and since informing us is really secondary and the cultivation is more primary it means we'll probably be getting gaslit on this topic until we actually get serious about getting to the bottom of what's happening with it rather than calling it angelic/demonic activity instantly on one hand or calling it idiots off their meds on the other - neither seems to have this quite right.

Also, if by some chance some of that new age drivel coming through about law of attraction were correct, it's just enough to be dangerous. We're born into a world where we're surrounded by talking apes from birth, all are in a competition where the unspoken goal is to get ones genes into the next generation and dominate/destroy anyone who'd be your competition, occasionally we have rare collaborative periods where the pie was growing (the west from 1950's thru 2000's maybe - that's ended) and people are a bit nicer to each other but other than that it's mostly zero-sum games, little progress because people are predominantly focused on backstabbing each other to make sure that they can have the financial assets or beauty assets to look good for the opposite sex and 'win' the procreation game while they deliberately and subtly or not so subtly undermine their opposition - even when they're ostensibly on the same team! Trying to make positive thinking for creating a new life in that sort of world is like standing with your back straight against the wall as a guy and trying to pick up a chair by bending over and then lifting back up - ie. zero leverage thus no luck.

It could be that we're having the piss taking out of us in useful ways, I don't know, but again we have to consider the possibility that there might be nothing or next to nothing out there interested in telling us the truth. That could be just because the lies are sort of like an insulating shield, reality underneath could be pretty rough and it could be that real truth would be unlivable for our species, but whatever the case is we'd want to right-size the situation first and deal with moral speculation on it as a distant second.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 18 Jan 2020, 4:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You mean a real “prophet”? How do you go about finding one and how do you know the person is legitimate?

I’m hoping that this won’t involve paying anyone...

A prophet, as the term is used at my church, is just someone who is exceptional at prophesy. Prophesy in and of itself is what is known as a "toolbox gift", which means that virtually anyone can prophesy if the Lord should choose to speak through them. I myself have had prophetic moments within the walls of the church, one of which kind of scared me, but it's not something I can just do on a whim and I've never once felt that it's an "ability" in the sense that it in any way came from me. There are a handful of people who are gifted with an exceptional capacity for prophesy. They tend to be able to prophesy consistently, and receive a far greater picture than someone who isn't particularly gifted in that way. My church also doesn't hold the belief that prophets stopped being a thing just because the bible ended.

In any case, there are quite a few people at my church who are exceptional prophets. The husband and wife I mentioned earlier are IMHO the best examples though, especially the wife. In the past she relayed messages to me from the Lord who spoke into something I never once told her. I've only had one other person who has prophesied like that over me, and it was an 11 year old (at the time). He might be an exceptional prophet too, although that was the only time he ever prayed over me (and he's now in his older teens).

I can easily go to that couple though as they're on the prayer team, I think. They tend to prophesy on a fairly regular basis too. It's just a matter of catching them before they leave as I will be helping out upstairs, and I will have to stay at least until everything is cleaned up. Worst case I can catch them next week though. I guess I will have to see.

Can’t you just pray directly to God instead of going through a “prayer team?”

That's a good question. I can, and I do.

However, it is believed there is even more power in Christians praying for each other, as well as more than one Christian praying for the same thing. Also, some people just have a real knack for being able to hear from God. When I pray, I sure as heck don't expect there to necessarily be an answer right away, and if and when it does come I may or may not recognize it as such, since God can speak in many ways. The term "hear" is often used, but He can "speak" through spiritual signs, in which case there's no audio cue, but a visual one. He can "speak" through situations, such as doors closing so that I can walk through a different one than I would have otherwise.

There are theoretically infinite ways in which God can "speak", and which we can "hear" him, but the verbs in this case are placeholders as there is no catch-all term in the English language that encompasses all the ways in which He can communicate with us.

Prophets are great at identifying spiritual signs, and they can and often do receive words or pictures in their heads that they can then relay to someone who they're intended for. Actually, one thing I've noticed with prophesy is I've only ever once done it on my own behalf (and that was a situation where I was asked to do it), so perhaps it's a more powerful tool when used for the benefits of others. Prophets are also good for confirming and/or interpreting what God may have said, so if I ever have any doubts, I can speak to one of them. Plus, church is very much about community. While there's nothing wrong with praying in isolation, my church in particular believes very much in strength in unity. Plus, on a non-prayer level, talking to someone else can be helpful.

For so many of your friends and yourself to be mystified and end up wanting to try tarot cards is an alarm bell of a lack of discernment. Does anyone have the gift of discerning of spirits in the church? I'eactually seen churches go astray through God sending this gift, but the church leadership ignoring it because the gifting was vaia people who the church leadership didn't want to use. (There is a clickishness in some churches where they will only let people into the leadership team if they come from certain family lines... In other words, a pastors son becomes the next pastor etc and no one else gets a look in).

There also could be a lack of teaching on subjects like this, and a lack of testimonies given out from the many who have recently come to know Christ from various other backgrounds. Their testimony of where they have gone wrong and how God saved them should keep people on track.

Churches tend to go astray when they get very inward. In other words, the same people go and bring their offspring... And when the older generations pass on and the newer ones come up the church keeps going... But outsiders rarely come in or are accepted as one if them... This is where churches can over generations go astray. Especially if there are no church members with the gift of discernment, or the church leadership are not listening when discernment is given. Discernment is a "Felt" gift.

Discerning of spirits? Hmmm...that's something I never thought about. Maybe that's something a prophet can do, but maybe it's worth talking to other people too as I'm not sure if there's anyone who has that specific gifting. It's possible there is. Maybe I'll ask around.

The kind of church you're describing sounds a lot like my old Catholic church, minus the nepotism part. The church I'm at doesn't operate like that though. We're actually pretty great at bringing in outsiders. It helps that we're a pretty fun church too, but most of all, we're a church that actually respects what's written in the bible as opposed to some arbitrary doctrine written who knows how long ago. The larger organization that it's a part of isn't so hands-on with telling pastors what they should or should not preach on, and the pastoral staff at my church all write their own sermons. The head pastor decides what themes to preach on, but how to preach on it and the actual content of the sermon is at the discretion of whoever speaks.

In any case, spiritual giftings are something my church is very much open to nurturing, no matter what that gifting is. If there is someone who can discern spirits, he or she would be at my church. I've had the experience of a then 10-year-old claiming he sees demons and that he saw one in the sanctuary back when we were in our old church building (this child also happens to be the younger brother of the one who prophesied over me that one time). After talking to the other volunteer leaders of that ministry, one of the head leaders said that she knew another kid previously who claimed to see demons and that she believes it is a spiritual gifting, even if it is kind of ominous. Being able to discern spirits can't be any more ominous than that. I'm also quite thankful I've never been able to see demons as they sound terrifying. But, yeah, I can look into whether there is anyone who has the kind of gifting you suggested.

If I had a ten year old who claimed to see demons, I’d get him evaluated by a psychologist ASAP!

This is an interesting one, I've seen Prof. Phillip Goff interviewed before on panpsychism and he generally does pretty well but I think he did particularly well here at breaking down the problems with reductive materialism as a total ontology. Whether or not that means tarot is something to worry about for spiritual rather than mental health reasons is a different question but it at least brings us back somewhat to the question of whether our conscious experiences are interacting with a conscious universe - which at least leads up the point of asking whether there's such a thing as a non-imaginary spiritual question, and the answer to that would be yes.

I often see demons and on rare occasions have seen angels etc. See demons in people. Is how I can tell if a person is into freemasonry because of how the demons they invite in during their ceromonies alter their faces. It can be quits obvious to me.
It is how God uses you I guess. If God uses you in profecy, you may not need to see them. If God uses you in other ways you do need to see them. I don't fear them. Why? If they start an attack I just cast them to hell and they're gone. But I don't want to open gateways to the things. That is what tarrot cards are. Gateways or permissions for these things to be there.

Many people can't see demons. I see and feel them. I can also see and feel the anointing of God.

I'd feel the exact same about an adult.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=NIV

I hope this will be of some help to you.

@funeralxempire: Maybe you're right about the weather patterns. It's difficult to say what my client does or does not know since he cannot talk to me. He actually broke routine by pulling me towards my car, and really, the only "fun" thing he had to do afterwards was more ABA stuff with some BIs from a different company. Still, if the kid has no gift of prophesy, then it's a heck of a coincidence that his insistence on leaving early was actually the best thing for both of us.

@Twilightprincess: That's certainly the first and only time I've heard of that particular gifting, but if a fellow leader believes it is a gifting, then I'm not going to question it. It had never occurred to me to imagine demons making appearances in our world, but maybe it is so. I've never been able to see them so I it's not something I can verify or falsify.

@techstepgenr8tion, Mountain Goat: If I've learned anything about this experience, it's that I do believe in a lot more than I thought I did when it comes to the unseen, and demons, and whatnot. Thanks for all the info you've provided and sharing your experiences.

That actually is. Thanks! I don't believe The Lord is as heavy-handed under the New Covenant, but that what I am doing is sinful and the bible says such is helpful. No sin can truly separate me from Him, but I should try and climb out of this rabbit hole if at all possible. All that's left is to verify if it was Him who spoke to me and my friends through the cards, or if that came from another source. It's all the more concerning that multiple fellow Christians have also dove down this rabbit hole with me, with at least one more expressing interest in doing so too.