My Brief Tarot Experience

Several years ago I became interested in the Tarot. I wasn't interested in it as a way of telling the future, (IMO, that doesn't exist), but as a system of universal symbols that might occur in dreams and myths. (Kind of hard to explain here). So I took a "Leisure Learning" class on the Tarot taught by a lady who did her best to explain the cards as she knew them.

It was interesting, but I must say I was disappointed. The Tarot deck dates back to the 14th century, and many of its symbols and images are meaningless to 21st century Americans. And we have certain dreams and myths for which there are no Tarot equivalents.

When I have experiences like that I remember the story of Thomas Edison's assistant, who after testing 5,000 substances from which they might make light bulb filaments said "We've failed."

"On the contrary," Thomas Edison said. "We've succeeded. Now we know 5,000 things that don't work."