The book (or some of its chapters, anyway) is almost ready for the dreaded “who-will-publish-my-book” rounds. The sceptic’s Tarot: Using the cards for problem solving and creative thinking (working title) is about using the cards to stimulate the imagination, create ideas, solve problems, make decisions, and explore alternatives. It describes a different way to approach the cards: a practical application that does not involve fortunetelling or divination; no occult forces, spirit beings, or psychic powers.
Combining creative thinking and Tarot cards is not a new idea. Mark McElroy wrote two excellent books on using the cards for brainstorming (Putting the Tarot to work and Taking the Tarot to heart). His Bright Idea Deck, with its accompanying book Creative brainstorming with the Bright Idea Deck (Llewellyn, 2005), is a lovely tool for both brainstorming and Tarot readings. Corrine Kenner’s Tarot for writers uses the cards to brainstorm ideas for short stories and novels. These books are all highly recommended. Why then another book on using the cards for creative thinking?
The idea of a sceptic’s Tarot came about because I love the cards, and I love playing with them, but I am sceptic about their use for fortunetelling or divination. While I was studying the cards and the techniques for reading the cards, it struck me that Tarot reading is a very creative process. It takes ingenuity to find connections between the card and its possible interpretations on the one hand, and the particular position the card occupies in a spread on the other. For example, how does the Lovers card relate to a position named “Obstacle,” or the Wheel of Fortune to “Outcome?” Add to this the need to interpret the cards in the light of the question or the querent’s circumstances, and a reader’s skill becomes even more impressive.
I also noticed that Tarot reading incorporates several creative thinking principles. And like creative thinking, Tarot reading is often about solving problems. Most of the time, before you can start thinking up ideas to solve a problem, you need a deeper understanding of the problem, which means you need to gather as much information about it as you can. There are various ways to gather the pertinent information, but Tarot reading seemed to me an effective way of doing it. Tarot reading is an exploratory process in which a problem is investigated from various angles, including its root causes and its possible consequences or outcome. Its most important gains are understanding and insight into the situation.
Exploring a situation might be all you need to resolve it. Not all problems can or need to be solved this way, however. Sometimes all you need is a few ideas, such as ways to keep the children busy during school holidays. More complex problems, on the other hand, might need a combination of exploration, information gathering, and generating ideas. Generating ideas require creative thinking, and creativity experts have come up with numerous ways of making idea generation not only effective, but also enjoyable.
Brainstorming, developed by Alex Osborn in the 1940s and 1950s, is perhaps the best-known idea-generation technique, but it is not the only one. Books that describe other techniques include Arthur VanGundy’s Brain boosters for business advantage: Ticklers, grab bags, blue skies, and other bionic ideas (Pfeiffer, 1995), 101 activities for teaching creativity and problem solving (Pfeiffer, 2005) and Techniques of structured problem solving (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1988); Michael Michalko’s Cracking creativity: The secrets of creative genius (Ten Speed Press, 1998) and Thinkertoys: A handbook of business creativity for the ‘90s (Ten Speed Press, 1991); James Adams’ The care and feeding of ideas: A guide to encouraging creativity (Penguin, 1986) and Conceptual blockbusting: A guide to better ideas (Perseus, 2001); Edward de Bono’s Lateral thinking: A textbook of creativity (Penguin, 1970), Serious creativity: Using the power of lateral thinking to create new ideas (HarperBusiness, 1992), and How to have creative ideas: 62 exercises to develop the mind (Vermilion, 2007); and Koberg and Bagnall’s The revised all new universal traveler: A soft-systems guide to creativity, problem-solving, and the process of reaching goals (William Kaufman, 1974).
Several of these techniques can be adapted for use with Tarot cards, in particular those techniques that use a stimulus to evoke ideas. VanGundy calls the various forms of stimuli “ticklers.” A tickler is anything that “tickles” your brain to have a thought or an idea. Tarot cards make excellent “ticklers.”
One type of tickler is random words, first described by Edward de Bono in Lateral thinking. In this technique, a random word (perhaps picked by opening a book or dictionary at random) is applied to the problem. This random word jogs the thinking from its conventional paths into the realms of imagination. Because each Tarot card has several keywords and phrases associated with it, you can use the cards to generate random words. When you select a card at random, you also pick the words associated with it. Tarot cards also easily evoke metaphors, clichés and phrases, any of which can serve as ticklers.
Ticklers do not have to be words or phrases, they can also be images. The most effective type of image to stimulate the imagination is an ambiguous image—that is, an image that does not have one fixed or obvious meaning. Think of inkblots or, for that matter, the images on Tarot cards. Tarot images can be interpreted in various ways, because they do not have an obvious context. Does the Two of Cups, for example, portray a wedding or some other kind of contract? Or perhaps a meeting of friends, or a religious ceremony? The Six of Swords is about a journey, but who are the travellers? Refugees, pilgrims, survivors of some trauma, spies, a kidnapper and her or his victim, souls on their way to the underworld? Are they travelling away from, or toward?
The interpretation of a card can be used in various ways to evoke ideas for solutions. Each interpretation that you come up with can be used to stimulate ideas. Each “story” that you invent to fit the image could be applied to the problem at hand, with surprising results.
Apart from established creative-thinking techniques, there is also creative-thinking potential in techniques that are specific to Tarot cards and Tarot reading.
When you are confronted with a problem, one way to generate solutions is to approach the problem from various perspectives. Tarot cards are tailor-made for this. Each major arcana and court card can give you a perspective on the problem that is unique to its character. Imagine approaching a situation from the perspective of the Empress, then from the perspective of the Emperor. You will get very different views, and more ways of looking at the problem than if you were using only your own—limited—perspective. The Queen of Pentacles will tackle a problem differently from the Knight of Swords. Place yourself in the “shoes” of each, and you will gain a completely different perspective from which to generate possible solutions. You could also use the four suits to remind you that a problem is best approached with a holistic view—spiritual or creative (Wands), emotional and relationship-focused (Cups), practical and physical (Pentacles), analytical and logically (Swords).
One creative-thinking technique to jolt the thinking from the conventional is to “reverse” the problem or an aspect of a problem. There are various ways to “reverse” a problem using Tarot cards, from swopping spread positions to using reversed cards.
With Tarot cards, you can explore a process by focusing on the sequence of numbers in a deck. You can use corresponding cards from different suits or modes, for example the Three of Wands and the Empress (Trump 3), or the Three from the Pentacles or Cups suits, to change perspective or generate alternatives. You can apply a random card to a problem, select a card to represent your ideal solution, or draw cards to represent the beginning, middle and end of your short story. You can divide a problem into its various facets, each represented by a card (basically create a spread to reflect each aspect), or you can track the position of significant cards through several spreads.
Tarot cards are versatile problem-solving tools. They are ambiguous, evocative, rich in meaning and tradition, calming, and playful. Cards can be used purely for reading and exploring a situation, for idea generation, or a combination of the two. There are so many decks to choose from—from the heavily occult to the childlike and cute—that you are sure to find at least one that “speaks” to you. These properties of Tarot cards prompted me to devote a book to Tarot and creative thinking. Now all I need is the interest a publisher in this work-in-progress!
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