There is no 'chance' in the layout of tarot cards; even though it appears that statistical elements of chance movements define the order in which a run of cards appear. Insight is the result of higher functions of Tarot. These functions interact with human consciousness through the disciplined arts of meditation, visualisation and contemplation. The descriptions of the individual Tarot trumps deal mainly with the insights into the symbols & their relationship with one another, and with deeper insights into their function as a model of the universe.
Insight comes from working with the Tarot over periods of time, yet the actual moments of insight are timeless.
It is typical of Tarot work that a highly energies sequence of insights will arise in the earliest stages, and that effort & discipline will be required to fix and relate these insights; bringing them through into regular awareness. The converse, that unrewarding effort and discipline must be undertaken before any results occur, is rare indeed in work with Tarot; but discipline must be part of any use of Tarot, otherwise the results return, as it were, to inner or unconscious dimensions.
Insight plays a major role in divination and requires a fine degree of application and control. It might be in a situation that a trump appears in the context of a question and its answering pattern, but it is not possible to grasp the relationship of this particular trump to the overview or pattern which arises -- it appears out of keeping & cannot give a satisfactory divinatory answer. Reshuffling the cards, to thus create a new pattern, is often equivalent to forcing an answer. It may well be that we would be at a loss to read a symbol, so would try to dispose of it ... more often than not the same symbol would reappear. If the trump is then meditated on briefly to a defined depth or degree, it will often reveal its meaning within the apparent context or placement in the pattern of the cards.
The matter of a defined depth or degree of meditation is important; Tarot have clear worlds or realms of definition, not because there was a true belief that the universe comprised three sections, but because the organic triple division was employed to aid human consciousness in its development and expansion without risk of loss of focus, or in extreme cases, imbalance. The threefold pattern does have clear analogies and correspondence with a physical reality (Moon, Sun & Star worlds). However it is of more valuable as a model of deliberate control and balance. If the mediator is able to break through into higher contemplative levels of a trump ... then it is possible to reach beyond the temporal situation in which a question or answer may be employed. The Trump is encountered in its own archetypal state of the world, rather than in relationship to a human expression or situation.
Tarot works through relationship and not through random collective of images in juxtaposition as it is frequently assumed. There is no 'chance' in the layout of tarot cards; even though it appears that statistical elements of chance movements define the order in which a run of cards appear.
Some Tarot card sequences are totally clear as soon as they are laid out while others require lengthy meditation. The art is greatly enhanced and made more rapid by a total familiarity of the tarot trumps themselves. The more familiar the mediator is with the personality of each trump the greater the accuracy of the insight. A skilled mediator with experience of Tarot is able to generate accurate patterns of divination with a very small number of cards. (R J Stewart)
