Image via WikipediaIf you read any beginner's book on Tarot cards, you'll quickly run into three concepts. One, that cards can foretell the future. Two, that the future they foretell is only the most likely one at the time, can be influenced by the people involved, and is not written in stone. Three, that cards are good decision making tools much like thought-ballooning, brainstorming, and similar concepts.

I have to admit, right out, I don't think there is any reliable way of foretelling the future. Period. At best, I believe that our subconscious mind can extrapolate data better than we think it can and projects that onto whatever fortune-telling method we've chosen for ourselves which makes any method of divination just a quirkier way of getting in touch with that part of us that observes and sees more than our conscious everyday minds.

That said, I think Tarot is a great decision making tool. There's alot of Jungian symboloism involved in them, things that speak to our subconscious in language it can understand and interpret. What's even more important about them, and other methods, is that it opens a relatively painless way for our subconscious to speak back. There are alot of ways one can open the door to the subconscious mind, whole books have been written on the subject, but I find Tarot readings by far the fastest, easiest, most reliable method.

So no, when my local pastor or Elder says they're occult and evil, I'm not giving them up. Instead I tend to look at them like they've suddenly grown two heads and ask, "Where do you get this stuff??" Reacting to that point of view as if it were fringe science is unfair to them (I know very well where this attitude comes from after all, and it's really a method of lying) but it makes them pause and think. And, sadly, they wouldn't if I just reasonably explained my own point of view. It would go in one ear and out the other with no impact made and no brick laid in my bridge of thought between different religions.

All of that said, I have two decks. One is laughably enough one of the most occult of the decks available, the Crowley Thoth deck. This deck can be outright scary and intimidating to a beginner and it's certainly confusing even to me, who's used it for eight years now. My second deck is more humorous and a gift from a friend, the Silicon Valley Tarot from Steve Jackson Games. I love this Tarot deck, it's hilarious and fun and a great stress reliever. I use it when I need reminding on a gut level that life is just not that serious and I should relax and have a little fun.

Hmmmmm.... guess I need to break it out pretty soon... :P