However, having said that… around 35 years ago I met someone who did Tarot divination and she read the cards for me. She made two definite predictions: (1) She saw me in a classroom — I protested that was easy, I was a teacher at the time — but she said she saw me as a student. I laughed. A few years earlier I had left a doctoral program, swearing that I was leaving the world of grad school forever. (2) She saw me in a serious relationship with a woman who was blond and a Leo. I was single at the time, having been divorced about a year after I left grad school, but was not in any serious relationship and had no particular interest in one.

As I said, I laughed at both predictions… but I was suddenly taken aback a year or so later when I remembered those predictions when I found myself in a serious relationship with a very blond woman (germanic/nordic ancestory) who had, indeed, been born under the sign of Leo. Not only that, but I had made a sudden career change and had gone back to school to work on a master’s degree in systems science.

So… I don’t know… I do know that I can’t explain many things in this world and those two Tarot-derived predictions are among them. I know that many so-called prognosticators throw out tons of predictions and gulable people only point out the few that come to pass and ignore the vast majority that fail to come true, but in this case I remember quite clearly those two predictions and how much I had scoffed at both of them. Maybe Carl Jung’s “synchronicity”?

There is written evidence of the use of cards, though not necessarily Tarot cards, for divination as early as 1507. If you’re interested, you might want to visit the Tarot history links I provided to learn more. However, I think that most people who use Tarot for divination and who know anything of its history would concede that its original use was most likely for playing card games. I don’t think I’ve indicated otherwise here, though obviously my preferred use of it, today, is for divination.

Eric — I think you’re in the stream now! Book number eight on the way … that’s some swimming.

Perhaps the I Ching meant the stream in a proverbial way. If you do not get in the stream, you will never get what you want?

Some of those Tarot decks really are gorgeous.

I have very little experience with Tarot. I had a deck back in the late sixties, of course. Not to mention a book of I Ching, a Ouija board, books on astrology and other things I’ve forgotten probably. My thought is that all these tools might be helpful in getting at what you actually, unconsciously, know or have decided, but for some reason can’t manage to bring to your consciousness. Maybe because you don’t want to.

We even had a Tarot deck as kids, but mainly, then we’d deal the cards and have a fit whenever a picture with a skeleton came up!

Only astrology did I delve into to any extent. I had a huge, fat how-to book from Llewellyn publishers and I actually drew up charts with a protractor, taking into account all the exact data of the birth and the positions of all the planets. Among other charts I made ones for myself and my then wife reaching decades into the future. Alas, they are long since lost, nor do I recall what I predicted. Couldn’t have been too exciting.

I do like to think we don’t yet understand how the universe works and so it is a poor idea to dismiss things out of hand just because we can’t find a ready explanation for them.

I also am willing to believe such tools benefit those who work diligently with them, as I usually did not. I would, for example, ask the I Ching whether I would have a book published within two years and it would tell me I was standing a stream, which wasn’t what I wanted to hear. (Was it saying I was all wet?)