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	The Art and Science of Tarot by Ruby Tuesday
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

The Art and Science of Tarot
by Ruby Tuesday

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Rachel Pollack's Tarot Wisdom: Spiritual Teachings and Deeper Meanings
By
Rachel Pollack The study of Tarot ... the use of Tarot as a tool for advice, reflection and self-examination ... is not so much science as art. Ok, even that statement needs more explanation to make it true. For a long time science and art were seen as separate. One dealt in logic, empirical proofs, experiments, hypotheses, hard data and firm conclusions. This was science; the analytical territory of the left brain. Science gained respect, standing, devotees ... and plenty of people willing to stake important valuables on its findings.

In science you could prove things and formulate laws -- on paper, in mathematical formulae and equations. You could construct models, replicate results. Someone else could follow your work -- copy your recipe -- and get the same outcome. You could often support the results of science with the experience of your physical senses. Often, indeed, seeing was believing. Science, with all its various disciplines, had a lot going for it.

On the other hand, there was art: fluid, subjective, open to interpretation, elusive ... confusing ... infuriating for those who wanted rules and standards ... who were far happier with science's hard data and firm conclusions. Art was the symbolic, interpretive territory of the right brain. With art, there was a blank canvas, a blank page, a block of stone or other creative medium ... and total freedom. The scientist might be bound by things like precedent and protocols ... but the artist could do whatever he liked.

There was no insistence that another artist be able to replicate results, copy technique, produce the same thing with the same formulae and materials. In fact, in art, the more original the better. The less someone else is able to do what you do, the more apt you are to be hailed as a genius.

The same things that make for good science can't be used at all to determine "good art." Indeed, "good art" seems to be itself a highly controversial notion. Often, it's in the eye of the beholder. Often, in fact, it's in the eye of a beholder who is either a critic or a connoisseur. (Andy Warhol fiddled around with a tomato soup can ... and for some reason the art world swooned at his creative flair. Go figure.)

In science, it's disturbing that "bad science" can somehow become "good science" ... and vice versa. (Science once taught that the Earth was the center of the universe, and the Catholic Church backed that error for centuries with ferocious and lethal force.) The art world far more readily accepts -- and always has -- that "bad art" can become "great art" ... and vice versa. (Van Gogh sold one painting in his lifetime. His canvases now change hands for amounts most of us can't even imagine.)

As both science and art have grown -- and become more sophisticated -- through time, the borders between them have blurred in some areas. Especially in the sciences that deal with living things ... such as psychology and medicine, we find there are both objective elements (i.e., germs cause disease, the heart's primary function in beating is to pump blood through the body) and subjective elements (i.e., why do some people fall victim to some certain and illnesses and others don't; what role do beliefs, feelings and attitudes play in the overall health and well-being of the individual, etc.)

Some of this, obviously, is firmly rooted in the realm of "hard facts." Other pieces of the overall puzzle open up areas rich with interpretive possibilities and very much dependent on the wisdom, bias and intuitive guidance of the one making judgments. Take a look at those last two sentences. They tell reams about the skill and science of reading the Tarot. It's a practice rooted partly in "fundamental facts." The card suits "mean something." Something specific. The cluster of Major Arcana cards "mean something." Each individual card has a widely accepted interpretation behind it.

And yet in the hands of a good reader, the unfolding story laid out, literally, in response to a query becomes a personal voyage of discovery and intuitive wisdom. Like a fine chef concocting a small masterpiece from a few simple ingredients, the reader divines a moment of insight that is more than the sum of its parts. The Tarot and its universal picture cards can show a prescience that has made it an object of mystery, wonder ... and, yes, suspicion ... for centuries. And it's not a fluke. It can happen over and over again.

Who knows where that knowledge comes from ... or why exactly the Tarot and an open, educated mind can build a bridge to channel it from the realms of imagination and possibility into the real world where real people can use it. But it happens. As I said, there's an art to it. The same kind of invisible magic that separates the 2nd grader's crayon scrawls from canvases and sculptures that sell for millions. Bad art from good art, in other words.

Sometimes virtually anyone can plug in the cookbook version of card meanings in a layout and come up with an answer that makes sense. And sometimes it takes that inimitable blend of science and art to walk out to the edge of reality and see the shapes forming on the horizon. And when that happens, in a reading you've built for yourself or in an instant of connection between you, a Tarot reader, the cards on the table and that je ne sais quoi whose presence makes chills ripple down your neck ... it's more than worth the effort. And as they say about art (and other things!) ... you know it when you see it.

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Ruby Tuesday is a staff writer for Enchanted Spirit.
Her specialty is discovering and teaching creative uses of Tarot.

Relationships based on obligation lack dignity.
~ Wayne Dyer ~
Born March 10, 1940

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Last updated November 26th, 2009

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