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Tarot : Use of Tarot

Nowadays, Tarot is used according to two radically different and often exclusive points of view: the divinatory or futurological and the therapeutically.

While the divinatory Tarot deems to foretell the future, Therapeutically Tarot presumes human transformation. To this purpose it works towards revealing and explaining psycho-emotional blocks, fears, and behaviour patterns which impede the individual's full realization, and by offering precise guidance in resolving these factors.

The discrepancies of view are three-fold:

Concerning the question of destiny to the futurological Tarot reader, Tarot is an intermediary between almighty destiny and mortals hence reduced to mere spectators of their lives. To the therapeutically tarot reader, one is the 'menu planner' of his destiny that he is continually creating though choice that can be changed at any given moment. Future and destiny are the response of the universe to our deeds, omissions and thoughts much like the physical force of action and reaction known in the Orient as the law of karma. It should be pointed out that the capacity to transform ones life or create the future according to our desires is proportional to our level of consciousness. Tarot, well implemented, is a tool to change one's destiny, for it helps us become conscious of what is really blocking our realizations and shows what attitudes are necessary to become liberated.

The Question of responsibility

In divinatory Tarot, the human being is a slave. What freedom can anyone's life have if it's bound by destiny, going as far as to be able to know one's future? Freedom and responsibility stride side by side. If we insist in showing our clients that their lives are the result of strange, alien and unpredictable forces such as luck, bad luck or divine will when not the works of magic where non-material entities intervene, we are simply degrading human beings to puppets of fate who will never be able to free themselves by themselves. According to the therapeutic vision of Tarot one is totally responsible for the life he leads. The first step towards change begins when one stops blaming others and destiny for our current situation. Fortune and happiness are a question of choice and not of luck.

The Question of good and bad

Good and bad are not absolute truths. What is good for one person today not be so tomorrow what is good for me may not be good for you. Whomsoever intends to help heal the soul, cannot work with absolute truths or doctrines, for there are no illnesses but rather those that are ill at ease. It stands to be considered (however) that some particular aspect of our intimate self untouched by the manipulations of our family programming wherein lies the essence of the human being, can be aided by a superior being or a supra-consciousness in its labours towards realization. These considerations are alien to the divinatory Tarot approach, which in general borrows its concepts of good and bad from official religions, indoctrinating even more its users thus making it even more difficult for them to be themselves