Christianity and Tarot Cards
I'd feel the exact same about an adult.
Me too, actually...
Of course, with one’s own kid, there’s more responsibility involved.
Also, it’s harder to get adults to cooperate with this sort of thing. You can’t really force them unless they pose a threat to themselves or others. They might not be honest about their experiences with professionals, either.
Sometimes if these experiences are considered a cultural norm, mental health professionals treat them differently than they normally would, too.
It can be pretty complicated.
I'd feel the exact same about an adult.
Me too, actually...
Of course, with one’s own kid, there’s more responsibility involved.
Also, it’s harder to get adults to cooperate with this sort of thing. You can’t really force them unless they pose a threat to themselves or others. They might not be honest about their experiences with professionals, either.
Sometimes if these experiences are considered a cultural norm, mental health professionals treat them differently than they normally would, too.
It can be pretty complicated.
Well, the kid did say they come in different colours. He saw one that was yellow, and another that was blue. I never knew they came in more than one colour. I did show him a picture of my then GF making her angry face and asked if that's what the demons looked like, and he said he had now seen three demons. I have no reason to doubt this. She's been my ex for years.
In all seriousness though, I was actually able to catch the wife I mentioned and asked for a prayer. It did not go at all as I had anticipated. She did pray that I would listen to The Lord and only to The Lord, and also that she knows I have the ability to discern the voice of The Lord from other voices. I did not tell her about the tarot thing, of course, but she seems convinced that I know what the right decision is in that one aspect of my life.
If there is power of discernment to be had, apparently I have it in me. Hmmm...I mean, I know that God would never speak to me in a manner that is in any way discouraging. Semantically speaking, He will sometimes say there are certain things I shouldn't do or certain paths I shouldn't take and instead recommend others, but He has never once said I can't do something. The Devil has certainly tried speaking like that in the past and I was able to recognize his voice right away. Moreover, I know that God would never lead me down a path that wasn't ultimately for my own benefit. He may not give me the easiest route, but he would never lead me down the path to ruin and despair.
In that case, maybe I will keep walking the path I'm on. Heck, I might go a little deeper down the rabbit hole I found myself in, as sinful as it apparently is. I have the ability to turn back and right my path if I seem to be heading in an aberrant direction. What the cards told me seems to be the right decision in regards to that crossroads I found myself at. Heck, I did try experimenting by dealing with a more minor situation I had put off solving by acting according to what the January card said I ought to do, and the outcome seems to be for the best. I shall be cautious (and probably won't do any spreads for a while), but I don't seem to be in a bad place so far. If I ever have any doubt I can also get prayer whenever I need it. I read an argument too that Tarot isn't actually divination at all. If that's the case I have nothing to worry about.
You replied to a post that is over a year old, by the way; so the person to whom you are replying may not notice.
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Tarot cards do not have predictive power. They are bits of card. It is not possible to distinguish between real and fake readings. And one would expect that immediately consecutive readings performed for the same person would be identical if they were non-random... but they aren’t.
That is not to say that a sufficiently emotionally intelligent individual cannot provide “readings” that give their clients comfort. But that doesn’t make their readings true.
techstepgenr8tion
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If you want something that's relatively comprehensive there's Benebell Wen's Holistic Tarot that's a good 800 page brick:
https://www.amazon.com/Holistic-Tarot-I ... =8-1-spons
My only advice, if you're strictly into the divining but not all that curious on the theory or philosophy there aren't many inroads aside from raw intuition. I personally err in the other direction - ie. have a lot less general faith in the divining but I find the symbolic interrelations and the way the system is used as sort of a lock-pick for your own mind or as a self-authoring tool (open-sourcing your own cognitive software), much more stable in its returns.
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techstepgenr8tion
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A thread I authored back in late 2016 on that topic - 'The Tarot As A Map Of Cognition And Learning':
viewtopic.php?t=335000
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So if I’ve got it right, tech, you’re saying that tarot can almost be like a “prompt”? So drawing The Fool can prompt someone to think about foolishness, while drawing The World could prompt you to think about change, and drawing the two together could prompt you to think about the way they are connected?
techstepgenr8tion
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The Fool is actually tricky, its a description of Pantheos or Source. The tarot is thus seen as 'The Fool's Journey' where The Fool steps off the ledge of the mountain top and falls into physical form.
The thing that would be a hard line in the sand probably for people getting started with the philosophy that's at least baked itself into the tarot over the last few centuries is whether their own sense of metaphysics allows for some of the assumptions that are in the system of logic that's behind the cards.
Otherwise to your point - in some sense yes, you could call it a prompt but it's a bit deeper than that. A good analogy, particularly looking at something like Rider Waite's Fool and any other card in that deck and pretty much anything that's a tarot deck from either the Golden Dawn or diaspora organizations, it's a lot like what goes into heraldry and family crests in its attention to every detail. The bag over the fool's shoulder is memory and experiences, the colors on The Fool's outfit, the red and yellow wheels, the seven bulbs on the belt where five are hidden on the other side if It's waist, the white rose, etc..
That depth is part of why each card can have a stack of inter-related symbols that then can be compared against another card and it's interrelated symbols as something like a system of interactions.
The obvious note there - the system of symbols and relationships is only as good as the metaphysics of the author, so if their ideas are half baked then it doesn't work that well for these purposes. Still - the idea of having stacking sets of symbols with relationships based on other parameters like the number associated with the card or, getting into another labyrinth the Hebrew alphabet and all the interrelated meanings there, you can get a pretty deep system of meaning.
Way back when, early days of the Golden Dawn (as in the UK thing - not the Greek nazis) every person in that organization was in charge of making their own deck from what they were learning. In a completely different context I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be a bad idea, as people get through grade school, elementary school, high school, college, etc. that they were encouraged to build similar maps of reality through clusters of logical operators in symbol (could be reductive materialist metaphysics, could be idealist, could be anything really) because they'd get to really understand the workings of their own minds let alone it would be great for building a stronger relationship with 'known unknowns'.
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By "spirit of the glass," do you mean a Ouija board?
How do you know that this happened? Did you see it yourself, or did they tell you about it?
Are you sure there wasn't some chemical in the air or water affecting your and/or their short-term memories, such that, for example, your parents may have had false memories of actually doing some things (e.g. packing a particular picture in a box) that they had only intended to do?
Also, were they using any drugs at the time? (Getting heavily stoned can mess up one's short-term memory for a while.)
How did the ghosts manifest themselves?
I should probably mention here that I'm an agnostic supernaturalist. I believe in the likely existence of a supernatural realm, i.e. I don't believe in what techstepgenr8tion calls "reductive materialism," but I tend to be skeptical toward any and all specific supernatural claims.
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What do you mean when you say that you "see" demons?
The example you give is of people's facial expressions (or other facial characteristics?) that you interpret as demonic. Can you describe these facial expressions/characteristics? Whether you can or can't describe them, what is your basis for believing them to be demonic?
Do you see demons in any other way, besides seeing them in people's faces?
And what is your basis for saying that Freemasons invite demons in during their ceremonies?
What do they look like and feel like?
Can you describe what this looks like and feels like to you also?
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You replied to a post that is over a year old, by the way; so the person to whom you are replying may not notice.
Most of the other people in this thread are still here, however. I would be interested to read about any subsequent developments.
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- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.
- My Twitter / "X" (new as of 2021)