AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m presently immersed in the study of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras as explained by parapsychologist Dean Radin in his book Supernormal, which I’m relating to my practice of divination in a series of essays.

One of the first things that impressed me was that – without resorting to complex magical rituals or metaphysical “props” such as cards, pendulums or horoscopes – the past masters of meditative (as distinct from modern athletic) yoga professed to acquire many psychic abilities known as siddhis. Those talents that are most relevant to my own work are gathered under the heading of clairvoyance, particularly the skill of precognition across time and space (or geographic distance) to determine if and when an event will occur, and what it might look like should it arrive.

In the realm of natal astrology, the goal is to leverage the beneficial aspects of our birth chart and subdue its more detrimental features so we can become better human beings than when we started out. In a much less profound and comprehensive way, the same is true of the roadmap presented by a tarot reading, via which we can strive to escape the trap that circumstances have set for us. Ideally, after freeing ourselves, we will be able to radiate the “wholeness” or state of redemption we have achieved, with a confidence equal to that of seekers who have mastered their natal horoscope but in a more limited situational sense.

I sometimes think that we pummel ourselves and our clients with “blunt-force trauma” in a tarot prediction by bringing insufficient finesse to the table. We may relate to only what we can grasp at face value and fail to penetrate the surface impressions that jump right out at us in order to get at the heart of the matter. In short, we apply the bludgeon and not the scalpel. So instead of presenting a surgical analysis of the situation or painting a skillful portrait of future conditions, we wind up with an obtuse synopsis or a cartoon caricature (the “blunt instrument” of the title).

It reminds me of what has happened to TV animation in the last twenty or thirty years. As someone who was weaned on Disney’s hand-drawn feature films and Warner Brothers Saturday-morning cartoons, I was completely unprepared for the crude atrocities that are (or were) Ren and Stimpy and, more recently, SpongeBob SquarePants. From what I’ve seen of my grandchildren’s animated shows, AI is making it even worse. (As a graphic artist myself, all I can say is “Ugh!”)

“Caricature” in both the unwitting and unapologetic forms of self-parody is exactly how I view much of the tarot commentary I’ve encountered online. Paradoxically, I see too much overthinking and not enough precision in its word-smithing. (C’mon, folks, you’re not getting paid by the word like Charles Dickens, who would never use ten words when one hundred words would do.) Forgiving the rudimentary efforts of unschooled beginners, I’ve zeroed in on the pale approximations of wisdom that emerge from the intuitive guesswork of moderately-experienced diviners who really should have been taught better. To state that some of the interpretations are puzzling is being too kind.

The deep well of established lore is being abandoned in favor of subjective bias and mystical freewheeling. The intuitive reader may interpret the images on a card in a much different way than the psychic practitioner, and lacking a common foundation in historical concepts they are both standing in quicksand along with the querent. I can only assume they’ve been coached by mentors who love cinematic fantasies more than documentaries.

I’ve seen all of the justifications, mostly of the “do whatever you want” variety, and I think the disavowal of a structured approach is symptomatic of weak knowledge acquisition-and-retention skills. If we choose not to study or memorize anything and just “wing it,” we can proceed with assurance that nobody will be able to second-guess what we’re saying (assuming they understood it in the first place). I personally would not want to pay for a reading from someone who operates on that basis.

Although I occasionally indulge in a bit of narrative “razzle-dazzle” myself, the main thrust of my readings is documentary; anything more visionary is “gilding the lily” and is offered mainly for entertainment value to lighten the mood. My professional attitude is primarily that of Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday when interviewing gabby witnesses on the (very) old TV crime drama Dragnet: “Just the facts. ma’am.”

If we subscribe (as I do, at least in principle) to Aleister Crowley’s maxim “The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion,” we must – in Dr. Radin’s words – “narrow our focus and define the boundaries of what we’re examining.” But to meet the second provision of Crowley’s formula, we must also introduce an appropriate measure of spontaneity in the form of inspiration, imagination and ingenuity, which means that mysticism will almost certainly “come along for the ride.”

In my personal approach to divination, the “half mad-scientist” (or analytical) part comes naturally, but the “half mystic” (or speculative) part is less prominent and like any proper vampire it must be invited into my space before I will bend to its will. There is a place for both in the art of tarot reading as long as one doesn’t preclude the other, and if we can integrate them effectively we may yet be able to “beat our bludgeons into scalpels.”