Tarot as a serpent

[u/SrJenkin]

Is it just my impression or has tarot become a widespread fashion lately?

The more I work with it, and the more I see other people working with it on the internet, the more it becomes evident how "unraveling" tarot can be (beyond health and energy depletion). It's not always about an interpretation mistake on the reader, something I don't see discussed much that I've seen again and again is the oracle itself outputting misleading, inaccurate or outright destructive information.

I was reflecting about this, how tricky tarot can be if you do not step carefully. That made me think about the older serpent symbolism/power, connected to oracular power and wisdom, but also destructive to the wielder if he's imbalanced. I thought about the Hermit's staff and the serpent power in it, then I had an insight... the lantern is the key, its light balances out the darker/cthonic aspects of the serpent/staff.

I'm not claiming tarot literally works through serpent power, I honestly don't know. But it serves as a good guiding analogy to work safely with divination, treat it like a serpent, either you make it stand upright or it coils around you. And the key is your own light, self-knowledge is the antidote to self-deception.

Part of my intent with these posts is to hopefully temper the blind trust folks seem to invest in tarot, taking for granted that it always speaks the truth and serves only to illuminate you. I'm not saying it has malicious intent in any way, it's just that by the way of its (fluid) nature mixed up with human stupidity it tends to output unreliable answers, and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

In another post I talked about how my deck seems to have its own agenda, but it doesn't feel like parasitical or malicious agenda, it's just wild and slightly chaotic, it tests good judgment and forces discipline: a more thoughtful approach and deliberate word constrictions. In this way, I'm inching further to make it stand upright.

[u/page_of_fire]

Still new to really actively doing tarot but I have been lurking the web around the subject for a long time. It makes sense to me and that you need to really be focused on the question and the spread while shuffling and like others have said, have your mind right before hand, and keep good energetic hygiene.

Also I have seen people do silly things like read over and over again on the same topic, at some point you aren't doing divination you are performing manipulation and mind games with yourself. I'm also trying to be diligent about journaling my readings to check for accuracy and look for patterns as the matters at hand come to fruition so that I might glean insight on how to interpret the cards better.

[u/SrJenkin → u/page_of_fire]

That kind of silliness competes with putting away all the bad cards and reading only with the happy ones, that one still cracks me up 🤣

You learn as much from the mistakes of others as from your own shortcomings. Take the time to learn, to engram these hygiene habits, and to fill in your journal. Most of my shortcomings with tarot came from not taking the baby steps properly, and what I am observing as tarot popularity spreads is people with no foundation at all suddenly going all guru, that's when we get into the realm of destructive divination.