Rebaroadcast: Simon Kenny, author of a 'Critical Introduction to Tarot Reading"

Rebroadcast: Simon Kenny, author of a " Critical Introduction to Tarot Reading" . where discusses a different insight to tarot reading .

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
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Speaker 2 (00:26):
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Speaker 1 (00:27):
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Speaker 2 (00:33):
In the cornfield.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
In fact, if you come across the group of children
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as you run away screaming in terror. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Ordless to Rip Paranormal and Friends with your hosts, Cam
Parvis and Alison Robinson. Make sure to check us out

(01:37):
on our Facebook pages Rip Paranormal and Friends and Rip
Paranormal Busters for up to date show information and events.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Hey everyone, welcome to Rip Paranormal and Friends. I have
a special guest for you, Simon Kinney. He's an author,
technologist and educator who work combines promium questions with technical thinking.
Now Simon has worked as a software developer Obviously he's

(02:25):
a writer. He has a book out and with his writings,
he uses those to help better understand the contemporary world
when he's not writing in code. So please give a war.
Welcome to Simon, Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to
be here.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes, absolutely. Now you do have a book out called
A Critical Introduction to Taro. Now, how did you How
did you go about coming up with this book? What
got you interested in Taro?

Speaker 4 (02:59):
Well, I'm wanted to understand it. It was something that
I didn't have a very good understanding of, but I had,
you know, I'd seen it around when I was growing up.
It was something that was not available to me growing
up as a kind of evangelical Christian. So there's that
aspect of it, just as something unknown. But then later

(03:22):
in life, whenever people I started to get to know
people who are into Tarror, I had initially thought, you know, okay,
there's nothing really to this. But you know, I dismissed
it prematurely, I suppose, just as as some people do.
And whenever I am started reading more philosophy and anthropology,

(03:45):
more about the various religions of the world, especially the
philosophy aspect. I thought, you know, there's dismissing the views
of others and beliefs out of hand without you know,
really any effort is first of all, just not a
very good way to be, not a good practice. And
whenever I bought a friend of mine a Taro deck

(04:09):
for their birthday, I thought I'd buy myself one, and
I got intrigued about it, and I started the question
came to me, well, what kind of beliefs are needed
to support a belief in taro? So what other beliefs
are part of the kind of the context in which
taro practices can be seen to work. And so I

(04:33):
read widely, and I was pretty surprised that all the
different areas of our culture then incorporate taro that way
or else that taro incorporates within itself. So just as
a really interesting topic that I think has a lot
for everyone depend on, you know, no matter what their

(04:53):
beliefs are, and probably would surprise people, I think. So
that's what motivated the the book A critical Introduction to Tara.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Okay, perfect, So for our listeners who don't know what
tarot is, can you kind of explain what it is?
To them.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
Sure. So taro is a card deck like the more
maybe more familiar poker card deck. It has more cards
seventy eight, and they're split up into two different sections,
the minor arcane or like the poker card deck, they
also have four suits, and they have the court cards

(05:31):
and the numbered cards which are called pick cards, although
they have four court cards instead of the three that
we have in the poker deck. So they have the
page Night, Queen and King instead of the Jack Queen King,
and so there's a relationship there between the between tarot
deck and the playing card deck. But then there's this

(05:53):
other section of the deck called the major Arcano or
the trumps, which are twenty two cards that are not related.
You know, they're not they wouldn't be familiar to poker
card deck, and they have sort of unique imagery that
is usually described as archetypical. You know, we see Strength,

(06:17):
for example, and you know the Magician that even the Devil,
and that's one of the you know, there's some cards
there that maybe freak people out, and then there's there's
other ones that are kind of intriguing, and there's yeah,
so there's there's several different decks it's quite old. It
was created in around the fifteenth century, and you know,

(06:40):
there's been a lot of scholarship over the last I
don't know, maybe sixty eighty years that have, you know,
longer than that, but but the scholarship in this recent
period has tried to see where does the where does
the relationship lie between the playing card deck and the
tarot deck, which one is first and so on, And
you know, there's a few views out there on that,

(07:02):
but it's it is widely. It was created initially as
like the playing card deck to play a game with,
but it has been since about the eighteenth century, starting
with French occultists, it's been used in divinatory practice. So
probably if anyone of your listeners is only a little

(07:22):
bit familiar with tar they'll probably be familiar with it
in that context as a fortune telling device, or if
they know a bit more, maybe as a psychological reflection too.
And if you have any listeners in Europe, Central Europe,
they may you do, they'll probably know it as as

(07:42):
the card game that it originally was created to be,
because it's still played there, but less so in the anglosphere.
So you know, I'm from Ireland, so you know, it
was surprised to me to hear that it was initially
any to hear that it was a game was still
played with it, and I think people in America and
the UK also are less familiar with that.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Oh yeah, Now, what are the two pillars that Taroll
is based on.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
That's one of the ideas, Yes, that's proposed in the book,
that there's there's a kind of a way to the
way to think about the mystical aspect of Taro. And
also I think modern mysticism in general. The basis for
for that is, yes, two pillars quantum mysticism and young
in psychology. So you know, in the past, let's say

(08:38):
more than one hundred years ago, and and further, there
was I think less of a a need to justify
the kind of belief in divination, and some more people
were religious and would you know accept more readily accept
I think explanations in that domain. But since you know,

(09:01):
scientific materialism and just the proliferation of scientific knowledge has
made it, you know, less of an attractive causal explanation
for you know, how how do mystical practices actually work?
There is, Yeah, there are those two two aspects that
seem to be used by authors on the occult and

(09:26):
mysticism to to try to support their practices. So quantum
mysticism is an idea developed by Deepak Chopra with quantum healing,
and it links the the field of physics with quantum
physics and to a kind of the mental realm. So

(09:49):
we have before quantum physics was that that theory was developed.
The accepted theory was Newtonian physics, which I mean, we
don't need to get too into the details, but the
but the basic idea is that you know reality as
we as we see it whenever something obvious happens, like

(10:09):
you know, a ball hits another ball, that we can
explain that very very easily by by just things collecting
against each oldren and so on. And there are forces
that that this is based on, and it's it's it's
pretty straightforward. But the quantum physics undermined that by by
saying that if we go even to smaller particles then

(10:30):
than atoms, then we see probabilistic causality, which is uh,
this kind of opens the door for alternative interpretations. So
you know, this is an area of contention some some
people such as Richard Dawkins, for example, think that it's
kind of pseudoscience, and then Deepac Schopra, you know, is

(10:51):
happy to go along with the ambiguity of it, and yeah,
it's just something that's a very interesting way to It
really blends sort of philosophy really with with with kind
of physics there. So there's that aspect. And then in
terms of Young in psychology and carlgo Staff Young, the

(11:14):
famous with psychologist the people of Sigmund Freud, was really
influential on how we with Freud on how we think
of the mind or psychology, but also like what is consciousness?
And Young was was actually quite mystical himself, and so

(11:37):
he lends the credibility to a mystical interpretation because of
the massive respect that that people from all backgrounds and
all fields have for him. It kind of we we
as a society we really do accept, like the Freuding
and Youngian theory in general of the construction of the mind,

(11:58):
that there's a conscious aspect that we know we can
easily apprehend, and then there's the unconscious aspect to ourselves,
which is kind of like a dark underbelly that you know,
we're not really we don't have direct access to so
you know, strange feelings, weird dreams, all of that stuff.
But yeah, Young proposed that actually our own personal unconscious

(12:23):
was connected with in a larger collective unconscious he called it.
And he also challenged some of the ideas of causality,
like that would have been based on the older Newtonian
idea that I mentioned with his really popular idea of synchronicity.
So I suppose my book, A Critical Introduction to tara

(12:45):
is really like a literature review for someone to kind
of be situated in what are the Taro authors and
scholars saying. And so those two aspects quantumisticism when Young
in psychology, come up a lot in both Tarot literature
and also the wider sort of magic and occult literature

(13:05):
that's related. You know, it will be in our areas
of witchcraft and so on.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Now, what is the spirituality portion of like tarrort reading?

Speaker 4 (13:20):
You mean, like, how does it connect to people's spirituality?
I mean, it's very personal, I suppose, and it's not
something maybe I can you know, I'm not a practitioner myself,
So what I'm more interested in is the you know,
what kind of belief system do terror practitioners have and
what are the sort of philosophical roots of that or

(13:42):
or what are the spiritual roots of that? So you know,
I would say that it really depends on our metaphysics.
At least that's the argument of the book. You know,
do we see how do we see ultimate reality? How
do we see causality? And you know that that really
constrains like what things can be possible for us. So
for example, I was just revealing that the chapter that

(14:06):
I have written on randomness for example, So one example
might be if someone says that everything happens for a reason,
and they really believe that, and also that that's a
strictly true sentence, so everything literally everything happens for a reason,
then that means that there really can be no random events.
So you know, it's there, it's excluded by almost by definition.

(14:29):
So how Taro, How a tarot card reading works is
that the reader, either the person who they're if it's
one person reading for themselves or if it's a person
going to a tyro reader, they'll shuffle the cards and
that is to introduce randomness into the into the into
the deck, to reorder them in a way that we

(14:50):
don't know what card is where? And that's common for
you know, many, if not all, divinatory practices, you know,
whether it's throw and die or interpreting entrails or tea
leaves or or the interpretation of dreams, that there's an
aspect that's random or uncontrolled, and through that randomness it's

(15:13):
proposed that that there's a connection to something and it's
what that something is is. That's what the belief system
of the of the practitioners. You know, people I say today,
you know the universe, but some kind of divine you know,
aspect or even ancestors or or else. If we think

(15:34):
that we're all part of the same consciousness, then other
parts of the consciousness of which we are all apart
so many ways. If we're if we're introduced randomness into
the deck. If we don't believe then anything can be random,
then you know what we're doing is something is something else.
So you know, I explore that kind of those kinds
of aspects. And I think that what is perhaps different

(15:55):
about a critical introduction to Tara and other books is
that I'm not interested in saying that this is the
truth or this is the way it is. I want
to see that what are the all of the explanations,
and let's walk through a few of them and see
how reasonable they are. So that's just an example maybe
of one way and also the approach that I use.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Have you ever had anybody do a terror reading for you?

Speaker 4 (16:23):
Yes, of course I have.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (16:26):
One of the things that prompted me to write the
book was being provoked by a tower reading, you know,
as in you know, so when I was younger, I
had I had one that I remember quite well, and
I would have been pretty confident as a scientific materialist
that well, it's all psychological projection, and that's certainly one

(16:48):
aspect of it. But there was a very closed, down
down approach. But I've had terror reading since then and
it is very it's it's just very striking. And I've
also given terror readings with with the disclaimer to people
that I'm not a practitioner, and that that for me
this you know, I'm not making a prayer, I'm not
I don't think that I'm connecting to to a divine

(17:10):
because you know, I don't believe in that. But but
even then it's still meaningful, you know. I think that
one of the things that's that's that's so compelling about
Taro is that, you know, it's it's really a narrative
making device. It's it's it's you know, it's been used
by some to to even write books at Tallo Calvino
is A is a famous example. He it's kind of

(17:33):
postmodern in his book where where people in it read Tarot,
but he also read Taro to write the book, and
it's self wrapped in it self referential and so on.
But but because the images on the cards are archetypical
and the show lots of different situations and big themes
in life that are relevant to our culture. And I

(17:54):
think that's an important thing that that I think that
the pictures matter in how they relate to you know,
cultural ideas and so on, that whenever we see them
put down in a sequence we we do we find
it compelling. And then it's just about how far does
that go? I think there is the question that has

(18:15):
to be answered by the personal beliefs of the first one.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, I've never I've I mean, I know people who
do Tarot readings and things. I've never personally had it done.
I don't know a ton about it. I know, you know,
there's different cards and then but that's something that each
person that probably is reading these cards maybe interprets it differently.
I mean I think so and so, Like if they're

(18:42):
laying down all these cards, then whoever they're reading for
may interpret maybe they find something different out of those
cards than what the reader. I don't know how any
of this works. I honestly I've never like I said,
I've never done it or anything. I know people that
do it, but it's just intriguing to me to figure out. Like, now,

(19:03):
don't some of these cards come with like or you
can get a book that kind of tells you what
these cards mean, and then you can just basically just
kind of tell somebody, oh, well, you know, I'm going
to look up this card and this was what it
means is that?

Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yeah, that's correct. So I think there are two main approaches,
but it's always going to be a blend. Yeah, as
you said, there are traditional meanings, and traditional in this
sense really just means meanings that are widely used or
maybe that that have kind of crystallized over time. And
it would depend somewhat on the decks, especially as some

(19:42):
of the newer decks very much depart from the traditional
way of doing terror of illustrating terror. But there are
those traditional decks, are traditional meanings for the cards in
the deck. And so the taro that people mostly think
of whenever they think of tara is the right Way

(20:04):
Smith Tarot Deck, which was created by Pamela Coleman Smith
and A. E.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Waite.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
They were based in well they're not farming and actually
both have American roots as well, but they were in
the English and Magical Society, the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn and around the early nineteen hundreds, and they
a weight really imbued a lot of symbolism in it,

(20:32):
and a lot of layers to the symbolism. So there's
there's stuff in there that's got a Christian focus. There's numerology,
there's astrology, there's Jewish mystic cabal and you know a
lot of of and you know, colors, shapes, symbols, like
it's very very multi dimensional in that sense, and so

(20:53):
there's a lot of like in the traditional meanings, there's
a lot of those different dimensions. You know, they can
be linked together and a competent tarwer reader will be
able to kind of see the links. Oh we you know,
it could be something as simple as all the numbers
that came out were fours or something, you know, and

(21:14):
then that's okay, well, that is something I'm going to
look into, where maybe the relationship between the numbers, the
relationship between the suits, between you know, all kinds of things.
So it's there will be individual card meanings that even
if the person uses traditional meetings, which not all people do,
the relationship then between the cards will always need to

(21:37):
be interpreted. So imagine we do even a small number
of cards we pulled, like let's say three, we put
them down on the table. That's the usual way for
your listeners to know that taro has done well. It's
called the taro spread. And the layout of the cards
on the table will be meaningful usually. So let's say

(21:59):
we have a three cards spread. The leftmost card will
be the past, the center card will be the present,
the right card will be the future. So then we
shuffle the deck, we draw out the cards, put them
down in those spots. Then we have a kind of
we have something suggesting meaning to us already. But then
the relationship between the cards will need to be interpreted.

(22:20):
So it does require a lot of interpretation, and I
think the meanings are less fixed than in other similar
practices such as astrology as well in inter I know
astrology also requires a lot of interpretation, but it is
the meanings are I think less fixed on celest you know,

(22:43):
the celestial events are really sort of facts, you know,
that are interpreted, whereas the cards that come down are
always going to be different, always randomized. So yeah, I
think it's both both intuitive practice and also then traditional interpretation.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
That's kind of what I get from it also. But
like I said, I've never really have done it. I
have friends that do it, but you know a lot
of them have their their beliefs where they may be
speaking to a higher you know, spirit guide or something
to help kind of interpret the cards as well. And
you see that a lot here like we do like

(23:25):
metaphysical expos and things like that. They do a lot
of tarot readings. But I've never I've never had it done.
I don't I didn't know exactly what it was. And
all the different parts and the breakdowns and everything that
you discussed in your in your book was very very interesting. Now,
thank you. Yeah, absolutely So, where can people purchase your

(23:50):
book Critical Introduction to Tarot? Where where can they find that.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
They can connect with me and also find the book
on my website, which is I'm in Kenny dot co.
That's s I M l n k e n n
Y dot co O. And but otherwise you can find
a book on Amazon dot com as well as Barnes
and Noble.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Perfect awesome. And now I know you just gave your website.
Do you have any social media or anything like that
that people can follow you on to see if you
have anything else that you're working on?

Speaker 4 (24:28):
Pretty much only on Twitter now known as x SO.
It's s K s k E N rights So s
K E n w R I T E s is
my Twitter handle and I'm every every time I do
an interview or I have an essay that I've published
or something. It's it's always up there, so it's the

(24:49):
best place to follow perfect.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yes, absolutely, okay, that's that's awesome. I will post your
information as well. Excuse me, sorry AnyWho, it's cool weather
here season, so you know. Anyways, I would like to
thank you for being on our show. Like I said,

(25:11):
your book, A Critical Introduction to Taroll was very informational
and I did thoroughly enjoy it, and I hope our
listeners enjoy it. As well, so make sure everyone you
check it out on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. I'll post
the website and everything on our social media as well.
And thank you once again for joining me from Everyone's

(25:36):
taking time out of your day here, so it was
a pleasure.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
Thanks so much for having me on. It's really great
talking to you. I hope you feel better soon as well.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, thank you, absolutely, I will. I will, all right, everybody,
peace out.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
Thank you.