Cross-posting from TarotL and the Hypnosis Technique Exchange as this may be of interest to folks here as well . . .
I’m a big fan of Tarot cards as a tool for introspective meditation rather than divinaroty readings . . . the cards are just so rich in archetyes and other fodder for meaningful unconscious self-discovery . . . and as such I use a number of Tarot Trance processes with some clients . . . those with an interest.
At the last Workshop, I showed one of my processes and will be hosting a fullblown workshop on Tarot Trance processes in August . . . speaking of workshops, as I’ve been asked recently . . . yes, I would like to host our webinars again but will need to wait until after all my grading is finished (we’re hitting final exams soon and then we’ll take about a week holiday before I start teaching my graduate course for the summer . . . so if you’ve asked about any of the various pans I have in the fire, please be patient) and then we’ll pursue some other options (Yahoo Chat, Paltalk, and Skype all have downs and plusses).
In any case . . . read on . . . here’s the experiential Tarot trance post . . .
In response to a post about how one person noticed he had never drawn a certain card in his daily reading for a number of years even though it was his significator card and then the day he posted that he had never drawn it, that is the card that popped up in his reading.
Synchronicity can be . . . fun.
Here’s another . . . as part of my Experiential Hypnosis practice, for those with an interest, I do a few Tarot Trance processes that involve shuffling a Tarot deck and then imagining an energetic connection flowing through oneself and drawing forth a random Tarot card with which I then guide the trance partner into an experiential trance experience (say that three times fast) . . . for those unfamiliar with the term, Experiential Hypnosis is not just daydream visualization but it’s a form of deep trance in which the experiences feels AS IF it were real so what you imagine you see is as if you really see it, what you imagine you feel, taste, hear, smell, are all imagined and EXPERIENCED as if they were real, hypervivid if you will . . .
I then guide the trance partner through the process as she/he holds up the card and imagines an energetic system and visualizes the border around the card becoming solid like a window into another world so that the figures in the card seem to transform further back from the window into three dimensions as if they are real and the window then becomes a gateway . . . which draws the person into it so that at a five down count they then close their eyes and vividly imagine entering the gateway and walking through into the World of Tarot where the Guides of the card will then lead them on an adventure or experience that is "perfectly appropriate for you at this time" with a lesson from the unconscious and the higher self "just for you" and then they do off into the experience and learn whatever meanings or lessons or learnings they need at that moment for their current context.
It’s an introspective meditation process with a twist of synchronicy, just how I like my Tarot cocktail . . .
In the past two weeks . . . four hypnosis trance partners, four different young women, all ran the same process . . . each with a different shuffled deck . . . every single one of them drew the Lovers card . . . one ran the process with a three-card variation where you place three cards touching side by side and imagine them as a single image with a single gateway creating a combined multifaceted experiential trance experience and she drew – using the Universal Waite-Rider Tarot Deck – in order, Lovers, Wheel of Fortune, and Devil . . . all in fair shuffles . . .
All four young women reported very profound and positive results (albeit, I have no way of knowing if they had similar imaginary experiences as I run the process as a private process so that my function is to deepen the trance experience so while I can clearly see which card is drawn in the process, I don’t know what the actual imagined experience is other than it is a "positive" learning experience appropriate to the person, so whatever the unconscious throws into the mix, I’ve set the positive rider suggestions but am unaware of specific content so as to allow it to be unfettered and private).
These four were the only folks I ran that particular process with so in the past two weeks every time I ran it, the Lovers card came up – for each young woman. The decks used were chosen by the trance partners and were Universal Waite-Rider Tarot (pocket size edition, my personal carry around deck), Lunatic Tarot (Evan Show‘s extremely beautiful very oversized deck, I just love the artwork, although the cards are not designed well for reading), Art Nouveau Tarot (the Matt Myers variation which is one of my favorites), and Tarot of Ages. Because of the concept of Tarot Guides and imagined experience, I prefer to use Tarot decks with figures on the Minor Arcana pip cards but have indeed used it with emblematic decks as well as the Thoth Tarot (Aleister Crowley) deck.
By the way, see the Tarot galleries here for the fuller-size images.
All the best,
Brian
Tarot and Hypnosis . . . http://tinyurl.com/aq2m7
STAGE, PERFORMANCE, ENTERTAINMENT HYPNOSIS – June 5-9, 2006
See "training" at http://www.briandavidphillips.com for details!
Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]Certified Hypnotherapist
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.briandavidphillips.com
