May 3, 2025 • 16 mins
George Noory and psychotherapist Dr. Art Rosengarten explore the benefits he has gotten from using tarot cards in his therapy sessions, compare the tarot to numerology and astrology in predicting future events, and uncover the importance of finding your own meaning in the images on the cards you pull.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And welcome back George Norie with clinical psychologists Art Wilson Garden.
As we talk about Tarot cards. Art, you were talking
about psychologist James Hillman who passed away about eleven years ago.
But he was a Youngian, wasn't he?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Yes, he was. He was archetypal psychologist.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Now, one of the things that Hillman said is if
we should think about essential psychology, and what that would
be is a focus on our innate talents, the structure
of character, and what he called the unalterable psychopathologies, which
(00:45):
really means life, kind of the kind of experiences that
we all have.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
In everyday life. Now, if we apply that to a
deck of Tarot cards, the major Arcona, the twenty two
agre arcana, the trump cards, if you pardon the expression,
those would be essentially the talents. Those would be our
deep innate talents. The Court cards, the sixteen court cards,
(01:16):
they represent really the structure of character. They're broken down
into student, quester, nurturer, and master in each of the
four suits. And then the remaining fifty six cards, the
minor arcana. Those are kind.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Of the everyday situations psychological situations that we all experience from.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Time to time.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
So that's one way of thinking about the Tarot deck
from a psychologist's point of view. Now, the other is
the mechanism behind how this thing works.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And the mechanism is another Jungian concept.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
It's all works on synchronicity, and which is a rather
magical concept. Synchronicity means meaningful coincidence, and as Carl Jung said,
synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have
(02:24):
eyes to see it. When you work with taro you
begin to start seeing everything a little bit different. You
start seeing it through a lens of symbolism. So you know,
you may look at a lamp in front of you,
but you'll start seeing that lamp from it with a
(02:47):
lot of different levels of meaning. You know, you know,
a symbol of light, you know, for instance, and other associations.
So as we work with the Tarot cards, other world
shines through. As they say, when you work with symbols,
it kind of opens up another way of perceiving things.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
It's very interesting. Art.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Are the Tarot cards mystical?
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Yes, you know, some people like to think of the
Tarot cards as magical, others mystical.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Some would call them metaphysical.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Now the difference is as I see it as the
magical tarot readers they're into achievements. They want to change something,
they want to manifest something using the cards. Now the
mystical readers I consider myself more associated with that. They
want to experience some kind of change of consciousness, and
(03:54):
they use taro for experience. Then thet a physical They're
interested in correspondences, how these correspond to other systems, say
astrology or you know, Kabbalah or other things, and they
see how everything is interconnected, which is also quite interesting.
(04:16):
Now the approach I use in my word is what
I would call therapeutic taro. And this is more like
free like dream work. You know, in a way, a
tarot reading is like a big dream that but it's
not coming out of the deep unconscious. It's coming out
of synchronicity, and it can be interpreted like one might
(04:41):
interpret it a dream. And so that's kind of my
interest at this time.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
With the taro.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
In the deck of cards, there's one called the death card.
If you pull the If you pull it, it doesn't
necessarily mean you're going to die.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
It means what we know, George, this is your favorite
question and I always tell you the same. You know,
what does it mean if you get the death card?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Well, what I always tell you, George, is it means
you're going to die.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
But it doesn't say when, for how.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
We're all or how we're all going to die.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
And like every other Tarot card, it points to one
of the universal existential realities.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And when the death card.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Comes up, you need to now associate with death on
many levels. It maybe literal death, it may be the
you know, transformation or the death of the end of
a cycle, for instance, and it opens up a very
wide spectrum of sations around the archetype of death. So
(06:00):
it's useful because it opens up our kind of intuition
in our ways of thinking on many levels.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
How would you compare Tarot cards to numerology, astrology and
aspects like that.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
So now the tarot actually has is rich in numerology
and astrology all embedded in the tarot. Each tarot card
has a number that's understood qualitatively, which means numerologically in
other words, as meaning we don't think of it as
(06:40):
quantitative numbers. But like the number two, say, means relationship,
you know. So that's that's a basic idea in numerology. Also,
you know, many trilogical tarot readers can find correspondences with
(07:00):
actually the entire deck, with various zodiacal states. It works
perfectly with you know, astrology as well, also the Kabbalah,
which is another metaphysical system. So, but the difference is
(07:21):
the tarot is much more open. It's visual, it opens up.
It doesn't have fixed meanings the way these other systems do.
There's correspondences, but it invites a person to kind of
free associate with the cards and find the meaning in
(07:42):
their own natural selves, not from a book.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
The the images actually constellator or you could say, trigger
certain realities that we all have deep within us, and
they come up and we be in to explore things.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Do the tarot cards tell you things that will be
or could be?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Well, you know, it depends on that the reader's approach.
I don't so much. I do that.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I see the tarot as a deep dive into the
present moment. I don't make future predictions.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
More.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
It's a deep dive in looking at deeper layers of
what's going on right in the moment. Now that goes
into my own philosophical sense because I think that, you know,
both the past and the future are concept and all
that really is happening right here and right now, So
(08:51):
I focus more on that.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Have the Tarot cards changed your life hard?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I say so?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I would say so definitely. It one thing, you know.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
I've read tens of thousands of people's Tarot cards over
my long career with them, and I would say that
they blow me away because there's there's so accurate, they're
so interesting, you know. It's it's it's a rare exception
(09:26):
after reading when a person doesn't have this kind of
kind of wow moment, you could say. Because and so
for me personally, it's it's given me a sense that
there's a whole nother level going on outside of our normal, normative.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Level of perception and and the.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Tarot taps into that, and so it's it's I would say,
it opens up for me kind of a spiritual dimension
that's meaningful to me.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You started with me about twenty nine years ago when
I was by Saint Louis Nighthawk. Remember that.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Like it was yesterday, George, My gosh.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Where does the time go?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Art?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Where does it go?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
My gosh, it's crazy, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Well?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
With clinical psychologist Art Wilson Carden, who's also a Tarot
card reader, we're going to take readings next hour. Now,
what do you need from the caller when they called in? Anything?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
No, I just.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Need a question, and I'm going to give them a
very fast three card answer. They can take it and
you know, if it helps, if it fits, if it clicks,
use it. And if it doesn't say anything to you, just.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Let it go.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Now, when you pull three cards, are you commenting on
each one or do you do okay?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
The first card I'll show is the way it appears.
They'll ask a question. I'll say, well, it appears like this,
but you know appearances can be deceiving George. Then the
second card will represent.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
What's really going on and.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
We're just gonna we're I'm just gonna interpret it and
they can take that in and see if it fits.
And then the third cards will represent what needs to
come out now or what where you need to pay
attention now? One, two, three, very quick and to the point.
And that's that's that's the k t RS Nighthawk spread
(11:31):
that I created for your for your radio show back
in Saint Louis of twenty seven years ago.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
A long time ago, my friend, when events occur like
Russia Ukraine, do you pull do you pull the cards
for your own purpose to see what's going on?
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Well, you might remember I was on your show, uh
the I think it was three weeks after the invasion
Ukraine by Russia. I pulled a card about uh A
three cards what the result would be? And I got
the I recall it. I got the seven of Wands
(12:14):
reversed and what I said was stalemate. It was like,
where is this going to go? I said, it's going
to be a stalemate.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
And that's what we've seen for the last three years.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It has been very uncomfortable, hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
It's been terrible, George. I have a lot of a
lot of friends in Ukraine and very much care about
the people in Ukraine, and it's been just awful.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Do you see war between Israel, the United States and Iran?
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Oh, you mean together the US and Israel against Iran.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
I haven't looked at that through Taro, but I wouldn't
rule it out right now.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I wouldn't rule it out either. Yeah, yeah, Carl Jung
Tell us a little bit about him. I mean, he
comes up all the time. He must have been one
of the best.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Carl Jung.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
You know, many would say Carl Jung was the one
of the great minds of the last five hundred years.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
He was, you know, he was the number one.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Student of Sigmund Freud, who eventually went on his own
and created his own depth psychology. Because unlike Freud, who
was very focused on early childhood sexuality, Jung believed that
the deeper or part of the human mind was really
(13:52):
about spirituality, and that the mind, that the archetypes, the deep,
deepest parts of the human psyche were about fulfilling and
transforming the highest potential of consciousness that we're all born with.
And so Jung was very interested in all kinds of philosophical, religious,
(14:20):
and spiritual systems from a psychological point of view, among
many other things. So he studied, you know, he studied
Indian philosophy and Chinese philosophy, and you know, more esoteric
Christianity and things like that, but was primarily a psychologist
(14:41):
and saw all of these teachings as how what they
said about the human mind and the human psyche and
what could be taken from them for expanding consciousness and
awareness of who we really are and growing to reach
(15:04):
our potentials.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Freud was also big into dreams, wasn't he.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, well, Freud was, you know, the father of psychoanalysis,
and his first major book was Interpretation of Dreams in
nineteen hundred published came out in nineteen hundred and so
both Jung and Freud, of course believed that dreams were
(15:34):
extremely important reflections of the unconscious part of us, and
so absolutely I mean Freud also had a metaphysical side
that's not well known, but it was understood that while
Freud was the thing is early theories, he used to
(15:57):
play around with tarot cards.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And welcome back George Norie with clinical psychologists Art Wilson Garden.
As we talk about Tarot cards. Art, you were talking
about psychologist James Hillman who passed away about eleven years ago.
But he was a Youngian, wasn't he?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Yes, he was. He was archetypal psychologist.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Now, one of the things that Hillman said is if
we should think about essential psychology, and what that would
be is a focus on our innate talents, the structure
of character, and what he called the unalterable psychopathologies, which
(00:45):
really means life, kind of the kind of experiences that
we all have.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
In everyday life. Now, if we apply that to a
deck of Tarot cards, the major Arcona, the twenty two
agre arcana, the trump cards, if you pardon the expression,
those would be essentially the talents. Those would be our
deep innate talents. The Court cards, the sixteen court cards,
(01:16):
they represent really the structure of character. They're broken down
into student, quester, nurturer, and master in each of the
four suits. And then the remaining fifty six cards, the
minor arcana. Those are kind.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Of the everyday situations psychological situations that we all experience from.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Time to time.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
So that's one way of thinking about the Tarot deck
from a psychologist's point of view. Now, the other is
the mechanism behind how this thing works.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And the mechanism is another Jungian concept.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
It's all works on synchronicity, and which is a rather
magical concept. Synchronicity means meaningful coincidence, and as Carl Jung said,
synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have
(02:24):
eyes to see it. When you work with taro you
begin to start seeing everything a little bit different. You
start seeing it through a lens of symbolism. So you know,
you may look at a lamp in front of you,
but you'll start seeing that lamp from it with a
(02:47):
lot of different levels of meaning. You know, you know,
a symbol of light, you know, for instance, and other associations.
So as we work with the Tarot cards, other world
shines through. As they say, when you work with symbols,
it kind of opens up another way of perceiving things.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
It's very interesting. Art.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Are the Tarot cards mystical?
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Yes, you know, some people like to think of the
Tarot cards as magical, others mystical.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Some would call them metaphysical.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Now the difference is as I see it as the
magical tarot readers they're into achievements. They want to change something,
they want to manifest something using the cards. Now the
mystical readers I consider myself more associated with that. They
want to experience some kind of change of consciousness, and
(03:54):
they use taro for experience. Then thet a physical They're
interested in correspondences, how these correspond to other systems, say
astrology or you know, Kabbalah or other things, and they
see how everything is interconnected, which is also quite interesting.
(04:16):
Now the approach I use in my word is what
I would call therapeutic taro. And this is more like
free like dream work. You know, in a way, a
tarot reading is like a big dream that but it's
not coming out of the deep unconscious. It's coming out
of synchronicity, and it can be interpreted like one might
(04:41):
interpret it a dream. And so that's kind of my
interest at this time.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
With the taro.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
In the deck of cards, there's one called the death card.
If you pull the If you pull it, it doesn't
necessarily mean you're going to die.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
It means what we know, George, this is your favorite
question and I always tell you the same. You know,
what does it mean if you get the death card?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Well, what I always tell you, George, is it means
you're going to die.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
But it doesn't say when, for how.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
We're all or how we're all going to die.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
And like every other Tarot card, it points to one
of the universal existential realities.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And when the death card.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Comes up, you need to now associate with death on
many levels. It maybe literal death, it may be the
you know, transformation or the death of the end of
a cycle, for instance, and it opens up a very
wide spectrum of sations around the archetype of death. So
(06:00):
it's useful because it opens up our kind of intuition
in our ways of thinking on many levels.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
How would you compare Tarot cards to numerology, astrology and
aspects like that.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
So now the tarot actually has is rich in numerology
and astrology all embedded in the tarot. Each tarot card
has a number that's understood qualitatively, which means numerologically in
other words, as meaning we don't think of it as
(06:40):
quantitative numbers. But like the number two, say, means relationship,
you know. So that's that's a basic idea in numerology. Also,
you know, many trilogical tarot readers can find correspondences with
(07:00):
actually the entire deck, with various zodiacal states. It works
perfectly with you know, astrology as well, also the Kabbalah,
which is another metaphysical system. So, but the difference is
(07:21):
the tarot is much more open. It's visual, it opens up.
It doesn't have fixed meanings the way these other systems do.
There's correspondences, but it invites a person to kind of
free associate with the cards and find the meaning in
(07:42):
their own natural selves, not from a book.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
The the images actually constellator or you could say, trigger
certain realities that we all have deep within us, and
they come up and we be in to explore things.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Do the tarot cards tell you things that will be
or could be?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Well, you know, it depends on that the reader's approach.
I don't so much. I do that.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I see the tarot as a deep dive into the
present moment. I don't make future predictions.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
More.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
It's a deep dive in looking at deeper layers of
what's going on right in the moment. Now that goes
into my own philosophical sense because I think that, you know,
both the past and the future are concept and all
that really is happening right here and right now, So
(08:51):
I focus more on that.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Have the Tarot cards changed your life hard?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I say so?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I would say so definitely. It one thing, you know.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
I've read tens of thousands of people's Tarot cards over
my long career with them, and I would say that
they blow me away because there's there's so accurate, they're
so interesting, you know. It's it's it's a rare exception
(09:26):
after reading when a person doesn't have this kind of
kind of wow moment, you could say. Because and so
for me personally, it's it's given me a sense that
there's a whole nother level going on outside of our normal, normative.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Level of perception and and the.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Tarot taps into that, and so it's it's I would say,
it opens up for me kind of a spiritual dimension
that's meaningful to me.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You started with me about twenty nine years ago when
I was by Saint Louis Nighthawk. Remember that.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Like it was yesterday, George, My gosh.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Where does the time go?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Art?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Where does it go?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
My gosh, it's crazy, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Well?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
With clinical psychologist Art Wilson Carden, who's also a Tarot
card reader, we're going to take readings next hour. Now,
what do you need from the caller when they called in? Anything?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
No, I just.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Need a question, and I'm going to give them a
very fast three card answer. They can take it and
you know, if it helps, if it fits, if it clicks,
use it. And if it doesn't say anything to you, just.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Let it go.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Now, when you pull three cards, are you commenting on
each one or do you do okay?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
The first card I'll show is the way it appears.
They'll ask a question. I'll say, well, it appears like this,
but you know appearances can be deceiving George. Then the
second card will represent.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
What's really going on and.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
We're just gonna we're I'm just gonna interpret it and
they can take that in and see if it fits.
And then the third cards will represent what needs to
come out now or what where you need to pay
attention now? One, two, three, very quick and to the point.
And that's that's that's the k t RS Nighthawk spread
(11:31):
that I created for your for your radio show back
in Saint Louis of twenty seven years ago.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
A long time ago, my friend, when events occur like
Russia Ukraine, do you pull do you pull the cards
for your own purpose to see what's going on?
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Well, you might remember I was on your show, uh
the I think it was three weeks after the invasion
Ukraine by Russia. I pulled a card about uh A
three cards what the result would be? And I got
the I recall it. I got the seven of Wands
(12:14):
reversed and what I said was stalemate. It was like,
where is this going to go? I said, it's going
to be a stalemate.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
And that's what we've seen for the last three years.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It has been very uncomfortable, hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
It's been terrible, George. I have a lot of a
lot of friends in Ukraine and very much care about
the people in Ukraine, and it's been just awful.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Do you see war between Israel, the United States and Iran?
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Oh, you mean together the US and Israel against Iran.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
I haven't looked at that through Taro, but I wouldn't
rule it out right now.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I wouldn't rule it out either. Yeah, yeah, Carl Jung
Tell us a little bit about him. I mean, he
comes up all the time. He must have been one
of the best.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Carl Jung.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
You know, many would say Carl Jung was the one
of the great minds of the last five hundred years.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
He was, you know, he was the number one.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Student of Sigmund Freud, who eventually went on his own
and created his own depth psychology. Because unlike Freud, who
was very focused on early childhood sexuality, Jung believed that
the deeper or part of the human mind was really
(13:52):
about spirituality, and that the mind, that the archetypes, the deep,
deepest parts of the human psyche were about fulfilling and
transforming the highest potential of consciousness that we're all born with.
And so Jung was very interested in all kinds of philosophical, religious,
(14:20):
and spiritual systems from a psychological point of view, among
many other things. So he studied, you know, he studied
Indian philosophy and Chinese philosophy, and you know, more esoteric
Christianity and things like that, but was primarily a psychologist
(14:41):
and saw all of these teachings as how what they
said about the human mind and the human psyche and
what could be taken from them for expanding consciousness and
awareness of who we really are and growing to reach
(15:04):
our potentials.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Freud was also big into dreams, wasn't he.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, well, Freud was, you know, the father of psychoanalysis,
and his first major book was Interpretation of Dreams in
nineteen hundred published came out in nineteen hundred and so
both Jung and Freud, of course believed that dreams were
(15:34):
extremely important reflections of the unconscious part of us, and
so absolutely I mean Freud also had a metaphysical side
that's not well known, but it was understood that while
Freud was the thing is early theories, he used to
(15:57):
play around with tarot cards.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more
The Best of Coast to Coast AM News
Host
George Noory
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