Copperscene

It’s occurred to me I’ve been studying and reading Tarot for almost exactly 42 years now. A happy accident revealed the fascinating images, text and possibilities of Tarot to me and I set about acquiring a deck of my own about the time of my 14th birthday.

Over this four decades I’ve changed a lot (as one ought to over time) and so has my relationship with Tarot. Like many great long term friendships I’ve gotten close and sometimes distant over the years. I’ve had wonderful moments and magical discoveries, and also some pretty big disagreements with Tarot. Sometimes we’ve literally worked together, and sometimes gone through periods where we just didn’t understand each other at all.

A constant, though is that the practice of reading and being a reader has been an unmixed positive aspect in my life. For this reason I’m glad I embraced it early in my life because it’s been beneficial in many ways. And that’s what I wanted to talk about today.

A while ago I wrote a blog post about being a stand-up comedian, in which I explained that the nearly five years I’ve been doing comedy has improved my life in many ways and aspects beyond the realm of comedy and the scope of how people define “success” in the field.

I’ll never be a household name or have mansion-buying money but since doing stand-up I’ve become better at job interviews, responding to challenges, looking at problems in different ways, developing effective tools to manage my mental health, made some great friends and a whole lot more.

And yes, four decades in I reflect on what I’ve learned and gained from the practice of Tarot. Again it can’t be quantified as a simple dollar value, although the ability to make income is among the many benefits of developing my Tarot skills. That’s maybe the obvious point, but there are others I’d like to shine a spotlight on some of the other less appreciated ways in which Tarot or cartomancy in general can improve our lives.

Tarot was my introduction to philosophy, which I love and rely on in my life. The value of ideas, especially ideas that challenge or enhance the banal assumptions was make about our existence, was initially impressed on me by Tarot .

For some of you, religion might have been the force calling on you to develop questions and ideas about the universe and your role in it, and that’s great. For others it might have been science or art or learning philosophy in a formal environment. There are many paths to discovery and self-knowledge, but I found Tarot to be a particularly effective one.

Tarot’s structure and model is inclined to both outward searching and self-discovery with it’s use of Significators and the Fool’s Journey part of the Major Arcana. And because it integrates and references other disciplines and wisdom, Tarot is a particularly effective gateway to seeking knowledge from lots of sources.

I mentioned the financial aspects of reading, and there’s a bit to unpack about that. For the record I’ve been reading professionally, on and off (mostly off) since about 1983. I was 15 and reading from a space set up in a spare changing room of a second hand clothing store on the Gold Coast.

If that seems too young to read professionally I’ll mention for the record that Tarot reading or any type of card reading was illegal in Queensland at the time. It sounds crazy in 2024 but in the 1980’s lots of things were specifically illegal in Queensland and nowhere else.

Except actual literal corruption which was famously built-in to the Government and all of it’s infrastructure at the time. Anyway, Tarot Reading was strictly illegal in Queensland so my tender young age wasn’t a factor. You can only have a legal age for things that are legal, right?

Did this law successfully stop the Tarot readings? Nope. This picture below is from the Queensland State Library and it’s of an illegal teacup reading done in 1938. Yep, as far back as 1938 telling people you could see things in teacups and speculating about the future was highly illegal – so much so that the readers here are hiding their faces.

So yeah, this wasn’t a new rule. Brisbane had Tea Rooms going right back to the 1930’s where you would buy a pot of tea that also came with “entertainment” and that was how Tarot (and teacup) readings were made available to the public.

I worked a variety of these rooms back in the day, mainly at the Rainbow Tea Room in Fortitude Valley. It was a discreet darkened stairwell, a hole-in-the-wall on Brunswick Street that led up to an antiquated open space that was also dark and shabby but trying to look lux and kind of art-deco. I spent many evenings there plying my trade. I did a thousand readings and drank an equal number of pots of tea.

I’ve worked in lots of other venues since then. I don’t think any readers are buying luxury yachts with the revenue they make, but having a skill that you can earn with has staved off homelessness and hunger at times in my life. There’s a lot to be said for a skill you can use anywhere, take literally anywhere in the world that you can make money with.

Should we charge for readings? That’s a big discussion which merits it’s own future post, and there’s several opinions about it. My simple answer is Yes We Can. I’ve heard it argued that people only listen to advice they invest in, and there might be some truth to that. My position is, no matter whether we’re calling it insight or entertainment, if you want someone to spend some time with you and use their skills for your benefit they have a right to request remuneration for their services just as you likely do for yours.

But it’s not all about the money. Reading on a professional basis with all of it’s expectations and obligations will test and develop your skills much faster than occasional readings for yourself and your friends at home ever could.

These skills aren’t just Tarot based. You develop the “soft skills” of empathic conversation, having difficult conversations, responding to challenges and objections, active listening and speaking persuasively with authority. Developing these abilities has helped me immensely in both my personal and professional life.

For me, the primary benefit from reading and working with Tarot has always been to sharpen and strengthen that personal attribute we call “intuition.” People often refer to it in this context as ‘psychic ability’ or whatever, but of you know me you’ll be aware that I’m not one of those “woo woo” readers who believes in angels and fairies and magic powers.

Intuition can be described as reasoning by analogy. There are many documented cases of people making effective strategic decisions in situations that might look like divine inspiration from the outside but are really a product of the expert’s considerable experience.

A firefighter might not be able to tell you how they knew that a particular room in a burning building was unstable and about to blow, but they’ve been in so many similar situations that they unconsciously picked up on subtle clues that matched outcomes they’ve seen before. A nurse could be reacting to a tiny symptom that nobody even noticed, but their experience tips them off that there’s something significant going on and they save a life.

Intuition can almost always be attributed to experience and expertise, and intuition seems to come most easily to those who’ve logged a lot of hours flying in planes, counseling troubled people, being in a marriage or whatever. The more experience you have, the more intuition you seem to possess and the more you’re able to effectively diagnose with less visible evidence.

This is something that Tarot is excellent at, and I believe it’s the primary function and value. A Tarot reading is effectively a simulator that makes you actively examine and analyse the possibilities. Do a lot of readings with proper attention and analysis, even better if you can compare and contrast your impressions with what actually happens later, and you develop pretty extraordinary “intuition.”

Read often enough and you develop the ability to see and understand patterns in behavior and human relationships. You do become a bit of an expert in how things turn out, mostly because you’ve trained so much in the cause-and-effect simulator that you’ve gained some insights into how things work.

This is my grounded non-superstitious explanation for how Tarot develops intuition. This is my description for how Tarot can help you make solve problems and better choices without resorting to magical thinking.

I never claimed to be a good reader because of super mental powers or communication with angel guides. I claim to be a good reader because of experience. Because of thousands of hours spent doing readings for myself, for strangers, for people in all kinds of situations. That’s a lot of time in the cause-and-effect simulator and it makes for a heightened awareness to recognize patterns and likelihoods in life.

And yes, this kind of experienced intuition does help me very much in my own life.

Finally, I’d like to talk about creativity. Tarot is an interest and hobby that’s very affordable compared to playing golf, travel, cooking, playing poker, appreciating wine, jet-skiing, playing Dungeons & Dragons, being a musician, pretty much anything I can think of. And, most importantly, it’s an excellent creative outlet that doesn’t necessarily require you to be any kind of artistic talent.

Reading itself is a creative activity and satisfies the same kinds of creative drive that painters, poets and musicians experience. Even if you’re not gifted with Michelangelo’s virtuosity (and let’s face it, who of us actually is?) you can still express your creative drive and experience creative satisfaction.

And that’s just the practice of reading. You can meditate and visualize with the Trumps. You can develop and record the unique insights into the cards that you develop. You can design your own spreads for different purposes. You can arrange, randomly or otherwise, cards and see if they suggest a narrative to you.

You can modify and personalize your deck. There are tons of YouTube videos showing how people trim and edge their decks for their individual preferences.

Other creative things I’ve seen people into Tarot do are create music playlists that evoke the feelings and ideas in the cards, especially for meditation. . I know people who use tea with Tarot, drinking different blends to stimulate feelings, using lights and creating menus using candles and aromatic oils to create a Tarot inspired sensory experiences.

You can even design your own cards! They don’t have to be commercial quality: They can just be something that’s special to you. Do you have to be a professional illustrator? No! Collage decks are great. Primitive roughly drawn “stick man” cards can be incredibly powerful. Know how to use Photoshop? Do you have access to generative AI programs? There are ways you can express your unique vision. Whatever feels like sincere expression gets my seal of approval.

A source of ethical and spiritual wisdom that helps you make better decisions, develops your social skills, provides an endless creative outlet and even helps you make a few dollars if you need it? Yes, please! I don’t have anything bad to say about Tarot as an interest or hobby. I never even mentioned connecting with people and making friends. Tarot really does have a lot to offer.