You said that before, but I thought it was just a simple mistake, but now you have once again stated that you think that shamanism is an animalistic belief system I have to add that I don't think that is right.
Shamanism is an animistic belief system surely?
You are completely right. This is my spell-check which has, for some reason, simply changed what I wrote. It recognises animism but not animistic (well, it does now. Ive sorted that) and I hadnt noticed. Thanks for pointing it out.:o:)
Are we talking that each individual card of each deck that is printed has an individual spirit?
Everything has a spirit.
It's a spirit reading, but using tarot as a base.
Yes, Id agree, but I think it is still within the area that Mac was asking about.
I spent some time thinking about the animistic qualities of tarot cards...
If we agree that everything has a spirit surely it makes more sense to call on the spirit of what the card portrays, for instance The High Priestess, or The Magician, both really powerful archetypes and spiritual characters, rather than the spirit of a piece of cardboard that was once a tree and that has inks on it? I wonder what that spirit could offer that would be better or even useful compared to the true 'spirit' the cards represent?
Often I teach about walking into a card, visiting the essence or spirit it portrays, meditating on the character and seeing what comes, usually with the Major Arcana that is, but it works with any tarot card. Usually the student gathers more information about the cards meaning, it's powers, meanings and uses, but never have I ever thought of any value of an individual spirit of that particular piece of cardboard that has I suppose been lucky enough to have it's existence rewarded with having the image printed on it? I suppose a really lucky card too when one thinks how many never get to be owned lol?
The deck as a whole together has the power of tarot and the spirit of tarot stamped through it. Perhaps that is the 'spirit' that overpowers all the others or should be allowed to?
If we agree that everything has a spirit surely it makes more sense to call on the spirit of what the card portrays, for instance The High Priestess, or The Magician, both really powerful archetypes and spiritual characters, rather than the spirit of a piece of cardboard that was once a tree and that has inks on it? I wonder what that spirit could offer that would be better or even useful compared to the true 'spirit' the cards represent?
Since everything has a spirit, does it matter if I speak to individual cards and you speak to archetypes (which is not a shamanic concept but which, nevertheless, must have a spirit)? I’m not sure about your term ‘spiritual characters’. Do you mean that in some way they are more spiritual than other characters? Why does once being a tree and having ink on it make something less spiritual? And what is a ‘true spirit’?
What do the inverted commas around spirit mean?
Cascara said:
The deck as a whole together has the power of tarot and the spirit of tarot stamped through it. Perhaps that is the 'spirit' that overpowers all the others or should be allowed to?
Yes, that's the way I see it too, but shamanism doesn't seem to allow for the existence of an 'abstract' spirit.
Yes, that's the way I see it too, but shamanism doesn't seem to allow for the existence of an 'abstract' spirit.
What do you mean by an 'abstract spirit'? Do you mean a spirit of an abstraction? If everything has a spirit, then so do abstract things. After all, much of shamanic healing concerns the spirits of illness.