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Andreas 4 months, 3 weeks ago.
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There have been a couple of posts on the facebook site from people talking about using tarot cards etc, and it disturbs me, but not completely for the reasons that you may assume. Or rather, I am looking for the reasons that certain of these things were challenged in the bible.
The reason I have a problem is not a simple “the bible says you shouldn’t do that”, because I know how well that would go down here. There is a reason why I have started this in the Spiritual Abuse section, because this is the essence of the problems I have with it – I think these are as much about abuse as anything.
Fortune telling – of any sort, be it palmistry, tarot, crystal ball gazing – there seems to be an expectation that something can define your future, something else can control your life. I think this is dangerous. It seems to me to be the same as expecting the church to define what we can do, what we expect.
It is wrong, in my mind, to trust your future, your life, to the church and to let the church – or, more specifically, certain people in the the church – tell you what to do, how to control your life. But it is as dangerous to reject this, and let something else control your life, whatever the source and origin.
To my mind, I have got away from the church because it was no longer helpful to me. I have found that outside the church, outside the control, I can grow far better. I can explore my relationship with God and get closer to him without any intervention.
So I would have to ask why I would want to give anything else that type of power over me. This is not about criticising anyone else, just trying to think out loud, and seek some answers.
Not everyone who uses Tarot cards uses them for fortune telling. I use them as a way of better understanding my own intuitive sense of a situation (something I find very hard to consciously process in any other way), but I do not see them as having any power over me or offering answers from an outside source or as having any ability to predict the future. I’ve known other people who use them for meditation purposes to gain insight into themselves as they respond to the images on them, and those people would also not be using them in a way that gave power to something else.
I share your concern about giving our power away to occult sources as a replacement for giving our power to the church, but I did want to point out that not all uses of these tools fall into that category.
@Kenetha – thank you for your clarification. I cannot claim to be an expert on this, which is one reason I wanted to explore this here.
I absolutely think this is an important discussion and hope others chime in! Thanks @Steve Clough! Thanks @Kenetha.
I stumbled across this and I will admit that I have chastised those who ask for futures. There still needs to be more discussion on why there is such a reaction towards the “unorthodox” or “heretical” practice – though my own thread does have some things to say.
Tarot cards are readily misunderstood by people, especially Christians, largely because they don’t understand (or don’t want to understand) their history nor how people use them nowadays.
One of the key steps in a Tarot reading is that the person the read is for should do the shuffling. The reason for this is that a reading is as much about what their subconscious wants to tell them as what the future might have in store. In a way, a reading is a way of tapping into an alternate description of what is happening Right Now, along with theories about how it could pan out.
Wade.
Anonymousi wouldnt be toO spo..OK…ed by it
the future needs a big KISS …..bono
This calls to mind “everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial”. I think these sorts of ‘esoterica’ fall under the latter.
I believe this because, a) I’m an SRA survivor, and b) Because I used to read tarot/ playing cards, studied astrology/ numerolgy etc, and see those things to be full of half truths that reel people in.
All that’s required, usually, is an adept ability to read people. The power is in the person, not the medium.
The reason for most warnings about occult practices is because of the reality of demonic powers and how quickly one may become oppressed if you accidentally give them permission to take possession of your life. For those who have been careless and stepped out of protection the results are definitely not pretty.
How would you define “demonic powers” and what do you consider protection?
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