This is the second part to the interview with my friend and philosopher Andrew Clark.
Douglas: Andy you said in your introduction, “However, deconstruction is not a method in either the classical or the contemporary sense: i.e., of adhering to rules that lie outside of the phenomena that one is analysing”.
Tarot readings involve a dialogue between Tarot Reader, Tarot Cards, and Client- moving back towards the Tarot Reader. Sometimes a reader may even involve the Client in exploring the cards directly with them (this can only be done face-to-face and does not work so well with phone readings).
1. What I’d like to know is how we could explore this point further to assist people when engaging with a client during a Tarot Reading.
Let me get started by making a couple of comments about your first question. You’ve quoted my point that deconstruction does not take place outside of the text that is being read, but within it; and your question is how this might relate to Tarot reading. Let me start by alluding to the last part of my introduction where I was referring to a reading that emphasises the ‘individual circumstances’ of whomever the reading is for.
Douglas: In your introduction you said, “It is not fortune-telling according to the classical image of a fortune-teller as someone who ‘knows the future’, with the cards holding the key to this knowledge. Rather, it is someone who is trained in the imagery of the cards, of the meaning of each individual card, and of the way in which the meaning of an individual card can tell a story when it comes in relation to the different meanings of the other cards, in such a way that the story that is told can be related to the individual circumstances for whomever the reading is done”.
2. Is this what you are meaning?
Yes. I would want to relate this point regarding the deconstruction of the opposition outside/inside to these ‘individual circumstances’. A reading that does not take place ‘inside’, as it were, the circumstances of the individual for whom the reading is done is, I would argue, an ineffective reading. It must relate to these circumstances. However, according to the more conventional image of what a Tarot reader does, to ‘relate’ in this way is also what appears as most impossible – and it appears this way because of the conventional image of the Tarot reader as ‘fortune-teller’ or ‘mind-reader’. That is, according to the image that they are given in contemporary society, a Tarot reader is supposed to know in advance of talking to their client who their client is and what will happen to them in the future. Hence, where in your question you refer to the ‘dialogue’ that takes place between the Tarot ‘reader’, the ‘cards’ themselves, and the ‘client’ – to emphasise this ‘dialogue’ as ‘dialogue’ is to emphasise the impossibility of the Tarot reader within this image as a ‘mind-reader’.
The Tarot reader who attempts to be a ‘mind-reader’ in this classical mystical image is the Tarot reader who assimilates the life-circumstances of their client to what I referred to as the ‘pre-given mystical version of the world’. For me to say this I was implicitly posing the problematic question: how can one even begin to foretell the future when one does not know the specifics of the past? To emphasise, as you do, the ‘dialogue’ between the Tarot reader and their client, is to suggest that there is a process in which the Tarot reader must get to know their client. In the more classical image of the ‘mind-reader’ it is thought that the Tarot reader already knows their client; or perhaps knows their client not through their dialogue with the client themselves but in their reading of the cards. Here, in this latter instance, it would be the cards themselves that hold the key to the future. But as you say, the cards themselves form a part of this ‘dialogue’ (along with the ‘reader’ and the ‘client’); or to put it in deconstructive terms, the meaning of the cards does not lie ‘outside’ of the meaning of the words that articulate them. Rather, the meaning of the cards lies ‘within’ the dialogue, or indeed dialogues (plural), that are taking place between reader and client. In other words, where human ideals would like to purify the meaning of the cards, the human language that we use in order to communicate the card’s meaning, the different and contradictory meanings of the words in language itself, work instead to spoil this purity; and do so at the very moment that this purity is articulated.
What I’ve said so far links into your penultimate question regarding whether Tarot reading is about the communication between Tarot reader and client, or about the meaning or the ‘message’ of the cards themselves.
Douglas: Yes, when I was asking you that question I was referring to an earlier part of your introduction when you said, “We are left, then, with the conflict between the deconstructive idea of the future as essentially unpredictable, and the ‘divinatory’ side of Tarot reading as an impossible attempt to predict the unpredictable”.
I was reflecting on the comments you made when you described how the Tarot’s role is an aid in understanding the Psyche, and therefore my question was:
3. Would you then say that Tarot readings are more about the communication that takes place between reader and client than about a client asking to see the ‘message’ of the cards?
That’s right! I have been emphasising the life-circumstances of the client themselves. Ultimately, this is what matters. In my introduction I alluded to the fact that the dialogue between reader and client is ‘much like a therapy session’. Now, some clients can resist therapy – think of all of the derogatory words we have for therapists (quacks, etc). Similarly, it is possible that a Tarot reader does a reading for someone who is sceptical about the point of Tarot cards. Already such a situation puts the Tarot reader on the back foot, with an uphill struggle. Another situation can be where the client of the therapist has the same knowledge of therapy that the therapist themselves possesses: how does the therapist do their job in this situation? Similarly with Tarot cards; a Tarot reader might read for a client who possesses the same knowledge of Tarot cards as the Tarot reader themselves. Let us imagine that this is the case. Here, even though both reader and client both adhere to value of what is being done, if the reader and the client were to have different perspectives about how the job ought to be done, there would be some inevitable tension within the dialogue. In other words, there are a lot of contingencies to take into account that transcend the meaning of the cards themselves.
Nevertheless, despite these practical difficulties, the cards themselves are, in principle, the focus of attention. In short, the communication between reader and client is where the meaning of the cards takes effect. That is, it is not that the cards do not have meaning; rather, it is that this meaning does not become effective until the point of being read. A Tarot reader will do many readings, and so the cards must take on specific meanings such that the reader can refer back to them with some sense of consistency over a period of time. So it is not that the cards do not have meaning; rather, it is that this meaning is not endowed with mystical properties in the classical religious sense of the word. Do the cards have meaning? Sure. Are these meanings important in the giving of a Tarot reading? Of course. Do these meanings foretell the future? Ah! No. This latter question is a completely different ballgame. In a Tarot reading the important thing about the meaning of the cards is that they become meaningful to the client themselves (the ‘individual circumstances’) in the story that these meanings tell. It is this that I referred to as the ‘divinatory’ aspect of Tarot reading: i.e., not foretelling the future as such, but rather some relation of meaningfulness. If a Tarot reading impinges upon the client in some way, makes them think differently or perhaps more clearly about themselves, their life and their problems, then it has been ‘divinatory’.
As such, if the client asks for the meaning or the ‘message’ of the cards then the client themselves is getting a Tarot reading with a pre-given idea of what to expect from a Tarot reading. This ‘pre-given idea’ is, then, more than likely the more conventional idea that the cards themselves will hold the key to their future. Here, the client would be viewing the Tarot reader as a neutral mediator between themselves and the mystical meaning of the cards. In other words, the client themselves would at this point be inattentive to the ‘dialogical’ process between themselves and the Tarot reader, considering the word of the reader as the neutral word of truth. Now of course, in principle the reader ought to have more knowledge of the card’s meanings than their client – so although they might not be articulating the ‘word of truth’ in quite the sense that this particular type of client would expect; one would hope that they nonetheless present an informed and knowledgeable account of the card’s meanings.
I think where you say in your second question that the role of the reader in the relation to their client is ‘to present them with options’ also links up with these problems.
Douglas: I wanted to explore the concept of free will. In your introduction you said, “Can one be said, in one’s younger years, to possess this freedom of one’s own will? And indeed, if one does not completely possess it as a child and an adolescent, then when one finally makes it to adulthood, what is the relation between one’s adult present and one’s non-adult past? Does the irrationality of the past simply disappear, or does it still impinge upon one’s ability to make ‘rational’ decisions later on in life”?
I really like what you’ve written here. There is a school of thought within the Tarot that is heavily focused on empowering the individual to make informed decisions. In other words, to present them with options.
However, as you know, our own psychology does in many respects keep us on a familiar path. Maybe this is in part due to the history of our individual experiences; perhaps they never truly leave us? Our options then become filtered through what our expectations say will happen based on what’s gone before leaving us with an ability to no longer see what’s truly possible; only what we expect is possible. From this point of view, it’s easy to see why (apart from the fact that circumstances are stronger than the individual) humans, in general, never fully realize this concept of free will and also why a fortune teller can appear to predict the future.
As I’ve already mentioned, circumstances are more powerful.
4. With this in mind, how then does a Tarot reader, in your opinion, best approach a reading? I know you already mentioned the deconstruction and Heidegarian approach, but would you mind exploring that further?
Options are possibilities. Philosophy itself works at the level of possibilities more so than at the level of actuality. That is, philosophy tries not only to figure out what ‘is’ the case, but also what ‘ought’ to be the case, and whether or not this ‘ought’ is possible within the confines of what ‘is’. Where deconstruction both works with and against philosophy is that it emphasises the idea of impossibility over the idea of possibility. Another way of thinking about impossibility is through the idea of limitation: i.e., there is an emphasis in deconstructive thinking about being savvy regarding one’s own limitations. So as you say, a Tarot reader presents their client with options as a way of helping their client work out their problems. These options that the Tarot reader presents to their client must therefore not be absolute options (e.g., ‘think positive’), but rather must take into account the actualities of their client’s life and state of mind. What is possible for one person might be impossible for another; what is an option for one person might not be an option for another; etc. The point is to get to know the client, within a dialogue, in order to get to know the limitations that are unique to that client.
This idea of limitation links up with your question about the limitations of what a Tarot reading can achieve.
Douglas: Yes, I wanted to look at what you’d said earlier when you described how, “First, it buys into the very old idea of ‘free will’ by suggesting that one can simply ‘think positive thoughts’. However, thinking positive thoughts is much easier to do if one has had positive living circumstances within one’s own life. As such, the suggestion to ‘think positive thoughts’ does nothing to aid one to think outside one’s own little bubble of a life that one lives, while simultaneously prescribing it as a message for others.” I felt your comments suggested that there are limits to what a Tarot reading can achieve.
5. What would you say those limits are?
The generic limitations of the human being, which call into question the ideal version of the human being as one that possesses free will, impinge upon what human beings can themselves achieve as such. I think that the ‘deconstruction’ of the Tarot, if I can put it like that, would indeed place limits upon what Tarot readings can achieve. Some of these limitations are those that I have already alluded to. Those working in the Tarot world might not like these limitations – particularly if they adhere to the more New Age version of Tarot cards. However, I also think that it is much more diplomatic to show up something’s limitations rather than violently dismissing it as rubbish, which is what many people do when it comes to Tarot cards. And of course, the reason they are so violent is precisely because of the dominance of the New Agey image that I myself have attempted to distance myself from in my introduction.
The difference between deconstruction and this violent dismissal is that, where this violent dismissal sees the New Age version of Tarot as the ‘whole’ of Tarot, the more deconstructive perspective would be to see it as a ‘part’ of Tarot rather than a ‘whole’. One strategy of deconstruction is to internally multiply something: so there is more than one way of reading Tarot cards, just as there is more than one deck of Tarot cards to read from. Paradoxically, however, this ‘internal multiplication’ would also, in principle, demonstrate the potentially unlimited amount of ways in which Tarot cards could be read. It is not simply a matter of saying that ‘everything is limited’ because the one thing that is therefore unlimited is limitation itself (which in this case regards the lack or the absence of the point of reference of the ‘everything’).
Let me conclude my response to your questions regarding the point of history – which, in your questions, takes two forms: first, the history of the individual; and second, the history of the Tarot itself.
Douglas: I asked that question in relation to a statement you had made earlier, “…assimilating the circumstances of the individual to a pre-given mystical version of the world; rather, the reverse is the case. That is, it is a point of saying that the ‘world’ that is at stake is the world according to the way in which it is perceived within the specificity of these ‘individual circumstances’”.
The Tradition of the Tarot is long, and much of it ignored. Its origins are as a game, hundred of years later a mythical history was invented linking it back to ancient Egypt and strange initiations.
6. Do you also think that by ignoring the Tarots past we are in danger of not understanding its role in any meaningful or relevant way?
You asked earlier whether our experiences ever truly leave us. Because of the overpowering force of time, human beings are endowed with memory. So the traces of an individual’s past, which is also the traces of their desires for the future, remain with them. However, if you think of the case of an alcoholic overcoming their addiction; it suggest that, on the one hand, it is possible to change, while on the other hand, there is always a possibility of falling off the wagon, as it were. The threat of this latter possibility counteracts the promise of the former possibility. In deconstructive thinking, there is no promise without the possibility of the threat.
This is partly why I wanted to dispel the naive optimism of the New Age thinking associated with the Tarot. To some (e.g., the naive optimist), I will perhaps have been too pessimistic here. But with Nietzsche, I think we must distinguish tragedy from pessimism: dispelling optimism is not about being pessimistic; rather it is a point of being savvy about the possible tragedies of life. For if there is one thing we do know about the future, it is that, in its singular instances, it will come to an end. Life comes to an end in death; and this is a fact of life; that is, it is a fact of life before one oneself was even born. So we come to the question of whether there is life after death. Actually, yes, there is – if you want to put it in general terms, that is. In other words, there is life after death; only, it will not be ‘my life’. It will be someone else’s. Perhaps this paradoxically leaves tragedy itself open to a certain comedy (for tragedy and comedy are, classically speaking, conceptually opposed to one another), for where the tragedy of one life ends, the comedy of another begins.
Coming to the point of the history of the Tarot itself; I believe this is important. And I find your reference to the historical origins of Tarot as a ‘game’ intriguing! There is something nowadays called ‘game theory’ which I myself have only recently come across. I suppose the guiding principle of game theory would have it that not only are games important for living life, they can also be important for understanding life. For instance, chess is about war and strategy; poker is about bluffing and raising the stakes; and so on. What would the ‘game’ of Tarot be about, I wonder? It would be interesting to look into it in more detail and see how it evolved from a ‘game’ (which in principle is non-serious) to supposedly holding the (serious) secrets to the future, and therefore of time itself. Perhaps these so-called ‘secrets’ would themselves not be taken so seriously – i.e., with such piety – by those working within the Tarot world if they realised that the historical origins of their craft were indeed as a game. But as I say, it is also the case that something like game theory would say that games can have a stake in how we understand life, and death, and their meaning; and so we should take them more seriously than we have a tendency to. Indeed, imagine a ‘game’ as one that is in the middle of being played, and is a close call. Someone asks you: ‘who will win?’ Of course, the truest answer is: ‘I don’t know’. But, we make predictions nevertheless. And we make predictions based on who is playing at the time. That is, we take into account character and characteristics, and make judgments accordingly. I think that is issue of judgment of character is quite important at this point of divination, as is the issue of accounting for the various possibilities. I said earlier that divination is simply that which is meaningful to the client. This involves, as you said in your question, weighing up different options for the client. True divination would be able to say which option out of the multiple options that are available is actually going to occur. True divination is impossible, then. However, what the Tarot reader can do is make it clear to their client precisely what the options are, and then, taking into account their client’s character, suggest which option or options would be the most plausible or desirable for them.
I thought I’d finish with reference to your ‘old saying’: ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference’. I copied and pasted this into Google and the first webpage that comes up is to Wikipedia (the online encyclopaedia), which identifies it as the ‘serenity prayer’. You ask me if I agree with it. I do. I also think that it show how something can be ‘deconstructed’ from within itself (theology, for example). Because what deconstruction primarily works against is the ideal of absolute purification of theological and philosophical thinking, which in relation to human beings is the purification of their soul from everything that is worldly and embodied. This is therefore what has allowed the ideal of ‘free will’ to become dominant. But in this serenity prayer, it is precisely free will that is put into question with reference to ‘the things I cannot change’. The prayer asks God for ‘the serenity to accept’ these things. In other words, the things we cannot change are the very same things that we worry about the most. The things that seem most impossible to us in our lives are also the things we desire. This desire for the impossible is part of a theological thinking called ‘negative theology’.
Indeed, it might be the case that, in ‘game’ of Tarot described above, the client desires an option that is impossible for them – which is not beyond the realm of possibility if what seems most impossible is what we worry about the most, or what we desire after the most, and so on. But anyway, perhaps if you find this interesting we can talk about this a bit more, but I’m probably running away with our debate now! So I will call it a day there for today.
That is the end to the second part of this interview. Great work Andy! Thanks for taking the time to muse over some of these issues. This interview is ongoing and I will be adding to this interview as time goes on. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, let me know through the comment section below.
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