Tarot and Psychoanalysis

by | Nov 21, 2008 | Methodologies, Blog, Creating Transformation, Spiritual Counseling, Spirituality

By Jess Austin Michalik, MA

I first became interested in the Tarot deck after reading the graphic novel, Promethea, by Alan Moore while studying religion and mysticism at Harvard Divinity School.                                                    Tarot The Fool Card

Where before, I had had the idea that the primary purpose of Tarot was divination (or      foretelling the future), I now came to understand that the deck could be used as a spiritual tool and was loaded with powerful symbolism borrowed from the Jewish Kabbalah and alchemical medicine.

When the cards are laid out on the table, one engages in an act that can be described in psychoanalytic terms as “projection.” A client will take one look at the Emperor and say “that is my ex-husband” or one look at the nine of coins and say “that is the life that I want to live.”

The cards become, as it were, a mirror of the psyche that can reveal connections between parts of ourselves that we do not wish to see. Reading tarot accurately is not so much a supernatural science as one that involves opening up a space in which projection can occur and aiding the client in understanding what he or she has projected, why he or she have projected it, and how one’s projections will govern, shape, and control one’s life if one is unaware of them.