Анна Шиман
Draft translation. This text was translated automatically and has not been proofread yet — if something reads oddly, it does.
Tarot psychology, astropsychology, rune psychology, numerology, metaphorical associative cards and other systems all begin with a basic knowledge of psychology!
Psychology is the foundation for studying and using any mantic system effectively. It makes no difference whether you intend to work on yourself or with another person. Either way, psychology will be the key to awareness in your practice!
A common cause of mistakes in consultations of every kind lies in psychological processes such as transference and countertransference.
If a client sees in front of them a consultant, a Tarot reader or a master of another system, but what they feel is directed at some significant inner figure from their past, they will unconsciously provoke the consultant into the reaction they are used to. In other words, they will carry the contents of their inner world outside, sink into that role completely and draw the consultant into a role-playing “game”.
If the consultant lacks awareness and carries a lot of unprocessed material inside, they will show countertransference reactions, and then mistakes in interpretation are inevitable. After a while we risk seeing a parent and a child in this pair: one directs, while the other, projecting an authority figure onto the consultant, gives up all responsibility for choosing a decision on their own.
These are the cases where the consultant begins to live through, in their own life, the events they described to the client in the consultation, begins to feel unwell, quarrels with loved ones, and may even fall ill.
Psychological health is the ability to keep your thoughts, feelings and emotions clean. The ability to regulate your reactions. This takes awareness, the skills of self-reflection and self-observation, and the ability to shape and track your inner dialogue. In the language of Tarot we would say that it takes a strong connection with the Strength Arcanum.
We invite you to develop consciousness and self-awareness and to practise self-observation and reflection on the basic “Practical Psychology” course
If you pick up, say, Tarot cards or MAC cards and lay out a spread, what is the first phrase you will say when you interpret it?
Often it is: “you need to do this and that..”.
That is, slipping into unconscious countertransference, you automatically take the position of the “parent”, give the client advice and tell them what needs to be done.
Sometimes we talk about the mechanisms of projective identification.
For example: the consultant is a woman who reminds the client of her mother. The inner processes during the consultation are not recognised. If the client is used to her mother constantly criticising her, lecturing her about life and dismissing her in many matters, the client will behave in a way that provokes the consultant into a similar reaction, one that is very familiar to her.
If the consultant is not aware of these processes, they really will join this “game” and use the words of criticism, moralising and dismissal the client is used to.
And then what we get is not an objective translation of the cards’ symbolism, but a replay of some emotional, unfinished script from the client’s life. Or from the life of the consultant who picked up a tool but forgot that the very first tool in any practice is, above all, themselves and their own personality. This is where a huge number of serious mistakes can be made.
We could say that reading the information correctly depends on several factors:
• the consultant’s experience and knowledge of their own personal, ancestral, gender and archetypal unconscious, their complexes, drives and values; of the whole palette of meanings of the cards or another tool;
• active feedback from the client and dialogue during the consultation;
• the consultant’s psychological awareness.
For example, many people are afraid of the Tarot system, mostly because of the difficulties that come up when they try to build links between real events and knowledge gained intuitively. There are phenomena and events that science has not proved, which people simply call “esotericism”.
Does that mean they do not work, or that you cannot rely on them when choosing your future? Of course not!
However, if you know that the future does not exist and learn to stay in the position of “here and now”, then the predictions of any system, not only Tarot, will begin to reveal quite clear messages that are useful in real life.
Where can we learn to exist “here and now”?
In psychology, of course, which reveals the secrets of psychic reality and makes us open our eyes wide to what is happening.
It is psychology that helps turn the information in scattered symbolic pictures into awareness, understanding and the ability to make a decision and set a realistic goal!
Although this is much harder than inventing mystical causes for what is happening and dreaming of magic wands and magical helpers. Here, too, the choice is yours. Psychological and energetic safety and health will not go amiss, you will agree. So it is worth taking care of yourself first, and only then of others.
Often a person dazzled by discoveries and insights, inspired by the experience of meeting a system — of cards, numbers, runes and so on — and charmed by how easily it seems to give answers, wants to make prediction their profession. Yet this fascination is often nothing other than a projection, from the personal unconscious, of one’s own fairy-tale omnipotence, the kind that belongs to an immature child. Everyone knows about so-called “magical” thinking, which is typical of the fragile psyche of a child. But its consequences are known only to those who have come face to face with its negative results: broken relationships, severed ties with society, losing one’s way, health problems, psychoses or even physical death.
Working effectively with images, which looks like real “magic” to the uninitiated and which brings results, requires first of all a knowledge of the human psyche!
One way or another, a grounding in psychology is needed by everyone who wants to help themselves and consult others!
The Tarot system, astrology, runes and numerology are only a tool, and the accuracy of its interpretations depends on the person holding it!
Many people, eager to start predicting and consulting as soon as possible, move too hastily. By skipping psychology, such consultants deprive themselves of the stable foundation of any consultation. Namely, the ability to create safety, both their own and the client’s. A safety that rests on psychological resilience to all kinds of role and script interactions, builds trust and helps involve the client in the consultation at every level of being. And that makes the forecast more detailed and accurate.
Want not just to try, but to be able to do it?
“Psychology for everyday life. Basic literacy” is an online course you cannot do without if you want to consult other people later on or attend our in-depth programmes.
“Tarot Without Fortune-Telling. A Journey to the Self” is an online course on the Major Arcana of the Tarot that will help you connect the psychological with the spiritual, build links with the arcana in your inner world, bring them to the level of consciousness, and create inner supports and a clear structure that will help you read the symbolism of the cards.
See you on the courses!
