It's not bad for things to be mysterious
Mar. 20th, 2019 02:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wyld_dandelyonI wrote a bit for patreon, released first to my patrons, but set to become public after a while. Now I'm putting it here because I'd love some conversation about the things I was musing about.
If you want to see things like this or excerpts from works in progress, you could follow (or even properly join) my patreon.
:)
I’ve been reading Tarot cards for a very long time, but the Tarot is still mysterious to me. It seems to work—but how? I’ve done readings for so many people who say the reading was spot-on, people I know, people I don’t, people online and far away. But it’s more than that. I’ve done readings in LARPs and role-playing games too, in character, and the reading proved accurate for the character (and not the player).
A character has no physical presence in the world, except insofar as it is embodied by the player or writer. If one follows the theory that someone’s aura, their physical or mystical presence, somehow interacts with the world, that would imply that characters, even casually created characters that have only been imagined for hours or days, still have a mystical presence that is strong enough to interact with the cards’ mystical presence.
It seems even more mysterious to me when I’m drawing cards for a story, where all the characters are only in my head (or some other writer's head) until words flow through fingertips onto the screen or page. I mean, if even their creator doesn’t know what the plot is or who these imaginary people are, how can the cards possibly interact with their mystical presence?
Yet I get good readings when I use the cards as prompts for stories, or for plot points in a story that’s stuck, and I've also had other people tell me they found readings I gave them were helpful
Doing readings over the internet also means the people I’m interacting with aren’t there to physically interact with the cards. How does this mystical presence thing work when there are hundreds or thousands of miles between the cards and the querant? If it’s a mystical presence thing at all.
Another theory, of course, is that the cards are truly random, and any meaning is created by the human mind. With that theory, it’s easy to explain why the cards work for writing: I’m using the cards to get me thinking, like any other set of prompts. Which doesn’t explain why the cards work better for me than a random plot or random character generator. I suppose that could just be that I’m more inspired by pretty pictures, or that the symbolism on the cards I use works for me.
That theory might explain how I can do accurate (or at least accurate-seeming) readings in person for people I know. My mind can, in theory, create meaning because I know the querant or because I can read their reactions as I talk.
It’s not a convincing explanation for how I personally do readings in person for strangers, especially since I’m not particularly good at picking up on body language, and when I started doing readings (and having them pronounced accurate) I was pretty abysmal at it. Not the cards, I was abysmal at reading people. That theory also doesn’t explain how I can do accurate readings for strangers over the internet.
Like I said, it’s mysterious.
The scientist in me is frustrated by the lack of explanations. The mystic in me, however, finds the lack of explanation, the fundamental mystery of it, quite satisfying. It says to the rest of me that we are finite beings in an infinite world. There should be things we don’t understand.
My approach to fantasy is like that too. The scientist in me wants to understand how magic works, and why, and for it to be predictable. But still, when reading or writing, I’m more drawn to the mysterious, the unexplained, sometimes even the unexplainable. Maybe especially the unexplainable. I find magic in stories most satisfying when there’s a lot of wonder, and very little “game mechanics.” Or to put it another way, when it feels magical.
And never mind that that other side of me never stops trying to find the explanations. Or maybe that’s a part of the attraction? Here’s a thing I don’t know yet. How can I not want to get to know it better, to find it in the wild (even if just in the wilds of my own imagination) and try to tame it?
Is it a kitten or a lion cub or something totally unexpected? With time, persistence, and patience, perhaps I’ll find out.
If you want to see things like this or excerpts from works in progress, you could follow (or even properly join) my patreon.
:)
I’ve been reading Tarot cards for a very long time, but the Tarot is still mysterious to me. It seems to work—but how? I’ve done readings for so many people who say the reading was spot-on, people I know, people I don’t, people online and far away. But it’s more than that. I’ve done readings in LARPs and role-playing games too, in character, and the reading proved accurate for the character (and not the player).
A character has no physical presence in the world, except insofar as it is embodied by the player or writer. If one follows the theory that someone’s aura, their physical or mystical presence, somehow interacts with the world, that would imply that characters, even casually created characters that have only been imagined for hours or days, still have a mystical presence that is strong enough to interact with the cards’ mystical presence.
It seems even more mysterious to me when I’m drawing cards for a story, where all the characters are only in my head (or some other writer's head) until words flow through fingertips onto the screen or page. I mean, if even their creator doesn’t know what the plot is or who these imaginary people are, how can the cards possibly interact with their mystical presence?
Yet I get good readings when I use the cards as prompts for stories, or for plot points in a story that’s stuck, and I've also had other people tell me they found readings I gave them were helpful
Doing readings over the internet also means the people I’m interacting with aren’t there to physically interact with the cards. How does this mystical presence thing work when there are hundreds or thousands of miles between the cards and the querant? If it’s a mystical presence thing at all.
Another theory, of course, is that the cards are truly random, and any meaning is created by the human mind. With that theory, it’s easy to explain why the cards work for writing: I’m using the cards to get me thinking, like any other set of prompts. Which doesn’t explain why the cards work better for me than a random plot or random character generator. I suppose that could just be that I’m more inspired by pretty pictures, or that the symbolism on the cards I use works for me.
That theory might explain how I can do accurate (or at least accurate-seeming) readings in person for people I know. My mind can, in theory, create meaning because I know the querant or because I can read their reactions as I talk.
It’s not a convincing explanation for how I personally do readings in person for strangers, especially since I’m not particularly good at picking up on body language, and when I started doing readings (and having them pronounced accurate) I was pretty abysmal at it. Not the cards, I was abysmal at reading people. That theory also doesn’t explain how I can do accurate readings for strangers over the internet.
Like I said, it’s mysterious.
The scientist in me is frustrated by the lack of explanations. The mystic in me, however, finds the lack of explanation, the fundamental mystery of it, quite satisfying. It says to the rest of me that we are finite beings in an infinite world. There should be things we don’t understand.
My approach to fantasy is like that too. The scientist in me wants to understand how magic works, and why, and for it to be predictable. But still, when reading or writing, I’m more drawn to the mysterious, the unexplained, sometimes even the unexplainable. Maybe especially the unexplainable. I find magic in stories most satisfying when there’s a lot of wonder, and very little “game mechanics.” Or to put it another way, when it feels magical.
And never mind that that other side of me never stops trying to find the explanations. Or maybe that’s a part of the attraction? Here’s a thing I don’t know yet. How can I not want to get to know it better, to find it in the wild (even if just in the wilds of my own imagination) and try to tame it?
Is it a kitten or a lion cub or something totally unexpected? With time, persistence, and patience, perhaps I’ll find out.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-20 05:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-20 06:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-20 07:31 pm (UTC)i tend to come at tarot and similar archetype driven card readings from a very little researched jungian perspective. that is, a class in college i only recall bits and pieces of, and no longer have the textbook for (i did get the red book gifted to me one giftmas, and once gloomhaven is properly put away and the table has space again, i should set it up for me to properly study a page of each day as i had meant to)...(altho i doubt the red book addresses his views on tarot...)
my memory's impression of it is that he considered tarot et al to be a helpful medium through which to interact or communicate with ones unconscious or the collective unconscious.
i do wonder if through that lens, things dont make more sense? tarot has been designed to really jive deeply with our archetypes, and also thus with unconciousness[s]. i would say that's much more powerful than just a random prompt, ne? at least how i view it, i think this interpretation would address all of the questions at least somehow...
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-21 02:41 am (UTC)Ysabet, over on LJ, mentioned string theory too.
I don't know how I'd go about trying to prove or disprove any of the theories--and even if I did, I'd rather be writing and arting and musicing and doing readings than trying to design and implement a serious experiment. It being mysterious is not a flaw--it might even be a feature.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-21 02:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-20 07:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-21 12:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-21 02:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-21 02:27 am (UTC)The way I think of it is, our minds try to create meaning. So it's not just YOU reading the cards; the person you're reading for is too! It's like a two-way alethiometer, with both people involved in the making! The cards end up being a sort of medium between two people, even if they're very far away, not visible, or not even necessarily real! It's people building meaning together, their own personal meanings, using cards as a framework!
And I think that's just super neat, really. ^_^
--Sneak
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-21 02:50 am (UTC)Hmmm...that sentence got away from me. I think I'll just leave it there rather than fixing it, since I have work to do on my cozy mystery still, and I'm getting tired.
Anywaym I do think it's super-neat that the cards work with me whether I'm doing a formal reading or a religious meditation or inspiration for stories, or in-character readings in gaming sessions. They're a good tool for me, and let me collect art prints that won't just sit there ignored in a folder somewhere.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-24 03:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-24 10:55 am (UTC)Thank you for thinking of me!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-24 04:41 pm (UTC)