Tarot Evolves with Our Changing World

Although I am not a tarot animist, I will be the first to say that tarot has some magical properties. This post is about one of my favorites of those properties.

There are many different ways in which tarot can evolve to meet and describe new cultural situations and circumstances.

Here are three examples of what I mean. The last is a very recent one which many of us have discovered. Perhaps, though, we have not contemplated the magic therein as much as we could.

In my tarot practice, the Chariot, Major Arcana Seven, is very often a reference to a person’s car. Of course, when tarot divination was first beginning, no one had cars. Now, they are a very important part of society. They provide our ability to work, shop, and do the things we need to do. They are a status symbol, and very often a source of stress.

It is important that when we use divination to look at someone’s life, we have within the language of our divination tool the ability to look at all the important factors.

The car has definitely become an archetype in American culture. The archetype of the Chariot was easily able to expand to fit into that cultural need.

When I was living in Connecticut and the casinos were being built, the Wheel of Fortune, Major Arcana Ten, started to appear for clients much more often than it previously had. The Wheel of Fortune was suddenly signaling employment at the casino. Later, it began to show up for gambling addiction.

The casinos changed our local culture, and tarot found a way to reflect and communicate that change.

I recently acquired Modern Witch Tarot. The Five of Wands in this deck struck me as being an amazingly clear commentary for 2020 and beyond. Yet, the deck was published in 2019.

At first glance of the Modern Witch Five of Wands we see a very typical image; five people fighting each other with big sticks. What is interesting is that two of them are wearing masks which cover the nose and mouth.

The Modern Witch Five of Wands clearly describes the contentious social discourse regarding mask-wearing during the pandemic. Yet, the timeline tells us that there is no way this card could have been consciously designed to do so.

In the accompanying book, the fighters in this image are described as a “girl gang”. When we look at the image, we can see they have Asian features. Their stances suggest they are practice bojutsu, a martial art using Japanese staff technique.

We know that in some Asian cultures the covering of the nose and mouth to prevent the spread of disease is common, and, beyond that, is considered a simple common courtesy.

The designer of Modern Witch Tarot, Lisa Sterle, could not have possibly known that mask-wearing, mask-hating, and mask-making would be front-and-center activities worldwide in the years that followed her deck’s publication.

Had the masks appeared in a different card it might not be so noteworthy. The Five of Wands traditionally is about conflict. There has been a remarkable amount of loud and contentious conflict around mask-wearing in many places around the world.

That Sterle was inspired to illustrate this card in this way a year before the pandemic is the best example of how tarot expands and evolves to represent current culture and circumstance that I have ever seen.

There are many ways that tarot is magical. Sometimes it feels hard to show clear evidence of that, since so many of our tarot experiences are deeply personal and private.

I believe the clear relevance of the Modern Witch Five of Wands to our current culture and circumstances is evidence of tarot’s power to evolve to fit a changing world.

Tarot: When the Answer is a Question

We usually think about using tarot cards to answers questions, right?

Sometimes, the most useful thing a card can do is ask a question.

This often confuses newer readers, who are surprised by the idea that the answer provided by the tarot reading isn’t an answer at all; it’s a question!

Of course, it is always possible to pull a few cards to answer the question posed by the cards. However, sometimes a great reading offers the client thought homework for their own contemplation.

“The thing you need to contemplate, or meditate on, is this” can be a helpful directive for focus. Empowering clients to look within for their answers may seem counterintuitive to building a good tarot business. The truth is, helping our clients to know their questions and seek their answers is exactly what great tarot readers do.

If you are not used to finding the questions within the cards, try going through your deck and looking at each card. Ask yourself what question that card might be asking.

Of course, in divination, very specific and unique interpretations can come up for any of the cards. Being open to the idea that a question can be a legitimate interpretation gives you another dimension with which to work.

Two cards that very often show up to ask questions in my professional readings are the Four of Cups and the Five of Wands.

The question the Four of Cups asks is this.

Is it better to take the least undesirable option now, or is it better to wait for a more desirable option?

Sometimes further fortune-telling divination can help answer this question. You might want to know the likelihood of new options appearing, for instance, or what would happen if an option were immediately chosen. You might even need to look at the individual options to discover which is the lesser evil.

The Five of Wands poses an inherent question for me. What are those people doing? Are they fighting, are they building, or are they playing?

When I am conduct a reading where the client can see the cards (so, like, not a phone reading) I will often ask the client to look at the (Waite Smith) Five of Wands. Without any other introduction, I will simply ask the client, “What are the people in this picture doing?”

So far, clients have always chosen either building, playing or fighting, even though I do not give those possible choices. Whichever a client sees is the energy they are currently dealing with, or the energy they are advised to bring to the situation the reading is discussing.

Should they be playful, collaborative, or prepared for a fight? That’s the question the Five of Wands asks. Often, the answer is provided organically by the way the card impacts the client in the moment.

In the process of divination, tarot cards give us valuable answers. They also ask us important questions. Sometimes those questions beg more divination. Other times, those questions provide the springboard for the exploration that leads to growth.

If you are a pro reader, or want to be, check out my book, Fortune Stellar!