What is the rationale or non-rationale of the use of tarot cards?

After all it's all a matter of chance which card you take, isn't it? How the cards are arranged are a matter of coincidence if true?

What is the rationale or non-rationale of the use of tarot cards?
Well, this largely depends upon what you are doing with the Tarot Keys. Keep in mind that Tarot is used both as a reflective tool (as in meditation) and a predictive tool (as in a fortunetelling). Let's look at its reflective qualities for moment.





It is believed by some that Tarot is like mandala meditation. That is to say, when you lay out the keys and gaze upon them, they reflect to you some fundamental truth about your interior life. In this view, each Tarot Key depicts some mode of consciousness, some inner state. Here, the randomness of the selection of the Keys is really not relevant; after all, the Keys aren't being used to tell the future, but rather to explore what is in you. Tarot used in this way may be helpful in exploring options you may have not considered in your current situation, or in gaining insight into your own personality.





The reflective nature of Tarot is explored in Jan Woudhuysen's book, _Tarot Therapy: A New Approach to Self Exploration_, and in Arthur Rosengarten's _Tarot and Psychology: Spectrums of Possibility_. Woudhuysen is a therapist, and Rosengarten is a trained clinical psychologist.





So, Tarot may have value as a therepeutic tool. Whether you believe it has predictive aspects or not -- whether you believe it can provide insight into the future-- is altogether another kettle o' fish.





Finally, your question is incorrect on one point: HOW the Keys are arranged is generally pre-determined. What is unknown is WHAT Keys will be drawn. The randomness of the selection of the Keys is no more or less random than any event in your life. The number of possible permutations of the Keys is almost infinite. So, in this sense, Tarot can be said to imitate life -- as all good art does.





Of course, my discussion would be uninteresting if one comes to Tarot with the belief that the Keys are merely a tool of the devil.





;-)
Reply:After being a reader for pver 20 years, I have developed a theory as to HOW tarot cards work.





The person getting the reading shuffles the cards, creating a short-term quantum connection between themselves and the cards. The selection process becomes at that point a process of determining which cards have the strongest connection with the questioner.





This is one reason that I do NOT do readings on-line and will almost never do a reading by phone as the quantum connections between the questioner and cards is not able to be reliably established.





My usual process in a face-to-face reading actually involves minimal contact with the cards after the beginning of the reading as I have the questioner first shuffle the cards and then THEY pick the cards for the reading. I am the interpretor of the cards meanings in this process.





In a 10-card reading that does not use reversals the odds of getting the same reading twice are very low, and I do realize that this is something that critics use to "debunk" frauds and to attempt to discredit readers, BUT that low probablity does increase the impact of repeated patterns when they do occur. I have seen that happen with persons who have come to me for multiple readings over a period of 6-12 months so that is one reason that I have developed the theory I put forth....
Reply:its messing with the occult...its not recommended...
Reply:I personally don't see them as "future prediction" or true divination. Rather I use them as meditation or introspection tools - "What should I be paying attention to in my life right now?" (instead of "What's going to happen tomorrow?")
Reply:tarot cards and other future-telling things go against gods law, so it doesnt even matter how they work just dont mess with them

Nanny Source