Ideas & Opinions
THE SAN FRANCISCO JUNG INSTITUTE LIBRARY JOURNALVolume Twenty-One, Number One, 2002
Divination, Synchronicity, and Psychotherapy
Book Review:Arthur Rosengarten. Tarot and Psychology: Spectrums of Possibility. St. Paul, MN, Paragon House, 2000
Reviewed by Karin C. Ryding, Georgetown University
Divination is not a rival form of knowledge; it is a part of the main body of knowledge itself.
--Michel Foucault, The Order of Things
When divination is granted its proper status as a genuine epistemology, its terms need no longer be essentialized and ridiculed.
--Patricia Cox Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity
The irrational fullness of life has taught me never to discard anything, even when it goes against all our theories (so short lived at best) or otherwise admits of no immediate explanation.
Carl Gustav Jung, Foreword to Wilhelm’s I Ching
The association between divination and other fields of knowledge is not new. It reflects a premodern world outlook in which conscious reality was believed to mimic the divine in mysterious ways, decipherable only to those who approached within an epistemological configuration that gave equal weight to analyzing the known and deciphering the unknown. The book under review was written by Arthur Rosengarten, an experienced Jungian-trained psychotherapist who has had success in using Tarot as an adjunct therapeutic tool. This book is therefore an important link in the extension of practical methodologies that bridge ordinary and nonordinary reality.
Rosengarten’s Approach
Rosengarten states that, “Tarot makes accessible to awareness a full spectrum of psychological and spiritual possibility with little preference for its user’s qualifications or beliefs” (p. 5) and believes it is a “natural ally of analytical psychology.” (p. 71) If one views Tarot from the perspective of divination theory, one can see that the “spectrums of possibility” mentioned in the subtitle of this book refer to the interpretive potential contained in each card and activated by the intersection of time, divinator and querent. In his foreword to the book, James A. Hall notes that “this use of Tarot will seem more compatible to classic and imaginal therapists rather than those emphasizing a developmental paradigm.” (p. xx) Rosengarten himself states that “though the nature of the material under consideration lends itself quite naturally to the Jungian/analytical approach, I will be arguing essentially for an integrationist stance (ecelecticism.” (p. 20)
The author presents a sustained thesis that the interaction of analyst and analysand, powerful as it already is, can benefit in certain instances from resorting to divination through casting a Tarot spread and working through its meaning. The dynamics of the therapeutic situation can then shift from focus on the analysand/client to a situation in which analyst and analysand(s) focus together as a team on the Tarot configuration. “The therapist’s expertise and authority during a Tarot session must take a backseat (sic) to the ‘divined’ authority.” (p. 45) The Tarot itself, states Rosengarten, possesses a “natural therapeutic agency” (p. 22) that has “confirming and diaphanizing (clarifying) properties” (p, 25) In other words, what divination provides to the psychotherapeutic situation may be similar to what dreams offer, in that it “allows people to handle ordinary problems in an imaginal way” (Patricia Cox Miller. Dreams in Late Antiquity; Studies in the Imagination of a Culture. Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 10). However, because Tarot is a divination instrument, it is less likely to be used as a procedure in most therapeutic practices.
One reason that Rosengarten has found Tarot effective is that it is “less threatening, language, dependent, predictable, and hierarchical” than conventional therapy (p. 42) and that the analysand normally puts up fewer defenses against it. He states that certain clients with “higher degrees of sociopathy” (p. 43) may erect substantial defenses to the use of Tarot, but he asserts that on the whole the “normal neurotic” type of client “generally gains tremendous insight and motivation when exploring with Tarot.” (p. 44) Rosengarten also points out that in many cases, “reactive transferences” can be “directed at the [Tarot] message itself” rather than at the messenger; and that “confrontations stimulated by a nonpersonal authority figure such as the Hermit of the Tarot become less easily projected onto the person of the therapist, thereby fostering a cleaner encounter with a client’s wounded, past while freeing up the therapist to occupy a gentler and perhaps more helpful proximity to the pain.” (p. 27) Rosengarten appears to hold the view that the less “clean” engagement in transference-countertransference, with the intensity this may generate, is not of therapeutic value.
Organization And Structure Of The Book
The book is divided into three sections “The Tarot of Psychology,” “The Psychology of Tarot,” and “Empirical Studies.” In each section are four or five chapters, including both theoretical and applied topics, e.g. “The Tarot Method,” “The Laws of Opposition,” “Synchronicity” and two chapters on case studies. Two substantial appendices provide “phrases and proverbs” that can be associated with each card of the minor and major arcana. Within the chapters themselves, useful charts are included, such as the “Tarot Lexicon” on page 151 and the “Contrasting Pairs” list of psychotherapy constructs on page 127. Throughout the book, case study examples are effectively interwoven with discussion of aspects of theory and application (for example, in Chapter 11, “Healing Contexts: Three Vignettes”).
Tarot And Synchronicity
Rosengarten has devised frameworks for conceptualizing the function of divination in individual therapy, in couples therapy, and in group therapy. As he notes, “Tarot cards either clarify, interconnect or amplify what already exists in consciousness, or else they bring unconscious possibilities into conscious awareness.” (p. 66) He also believes that “an empirical explanation for the Tarot method can…be demonstrated in Jung’s theory of synchronicity.” (p. 180) To this reviewer, an “empirical” explanation based on synchronicity is a contradiction in terms, since synchronicity is, according to Jung, a connecting principle not based on cause and effect, but on “a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers.” (C. G. Jung, “Foreword,” in Richard Wilhelm, The I Ching, Book of Changes. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1950, 1967, p.xxiv). While I agree with Rosengarten that there is an important theoretical principle involved in the relationship of divination and synchronicity, I do not believe that it is explanatory in an empirical sense, or that it needs to be. Rather, it is more probable that divination and empirical knowledge are in complementary distribution with one another; that each is a piece of the unconscious construct that ultimately allows individuation, as well as comprehension of the structure and dynamics of the Self.
The synchronicity principle in divination catalyzes the divination matrix, the intersection of time, place, persons, and spirit in a qualitative way. Therefore, a Tarot spread, like an I Ching hexagram, is “the exponent of the moment in which it was cast,” and “an indicator of the essential situation prevailing in the moment of its origin. (Idem) This is explanatory adequacy of a different kind: classically empirical experiments “eliminate chance, the oracle makes chance the center; the experiment is based on repetition (repeatability], the oracle is based on one unique act.” (Marie-Louise von Franz. On Divination and Synchronicity. Toronto, Inner City Books, 1980, p. 50)
Divination Theory
It takes some daring to broach the topic of divination within the context of psychotherapy; it is courageous to take the Tarot seriously and to work within the framework of divination theory to analyze and interrogate the nature of human understanding. In a previous review (“Tarot as Text.” Review of Irene Gad, Tarot and Individuation; Correspondences with Cabala and Alchemy. San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, vol. 18, no. 2 1999, pp. 63-71), I have noted correspondences between reading theory as formulated in the field of literary criticism and the interpretation of a Tarot spread. The Tarot spread appears to construct a random text that comes from outside the diviner’s or querent’s own knowledge; and yet, in interpreting the spread, the reader brings his or her own background and imagination to bear in seeing patterns, making connections, interpreting symbols, and grasping what Wolfgang Iser refers to as the “gestalt” or “configurative meaning” of a text. (The Implied Reader; Patterns in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974, p. 284) Jung would probably say that the reader/querent projects his or her own unconscious thoughts and feelings into the text.
Divination theory upholds the idea that ordinary reality and nonordinary reality intersect, especially in ritual situations where there is a serious and sincere intent to connect with archetypal energies. This can be done through using tools to trigger intuition and clairvoyance; but divinatory systems always need interpretation. Tools such as the Tarot spread provide tangible and visual forms of discourse in response to questions posed. They may or may not provide an answer; interpretation is essential, and formulating an appropriate question to be posed is a discipline in itself. Rosengarten’s thesis is that the intersection of analyst and analysand can constellate a psychostrategic divinatory power that assists in the therapeutic encounter. He refers to this as “empowered randomness,” which he says “assumes with great confidence that personal meaning will be accessed from an intelligent nonpersonal source.” (p. 97)
This book adds to our knowledge of recent therapeutic practices that incorporate parapsychological resources, just as does Judth Orloff’s work on the application of intuition in psychotherapy (Second Sight. New York, Warner Books, 1996). It also adds to the professional body of work on analyzing the Tarot’s relationship to processes of individuation (see also Gad, op.cit.). Whether or not an explanatory hierarchy can be provided for these resources, it is important that they be discussed and evaluated objectively rather than dismissed, for they identify key considerations in the interdisciplinary framework of healing through talk. By surfacing their applications and subjecting them to rigorous and self-critical methodological analysis, one may be able to identify explicit non-overt as well as overt epistemological processes at work in the interactive discourse of therapy.
Jaques Lacan has stated: “How could a psychoanalyst of today not realize that his realm of truth is in fact the word, when his whole experience must find in the word alone its instrument, its framework, its material, and even the static of its uncertainties.” (“The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious,” in David Lodge, ed. Modern Criticism and Theory; a Reader. London and New York, Longman, 1988, p. 81) And literary theory as well as psychoanalytic theory have focused on the slipperiness of the relationship between natural language and its various levels of meaning. In a divinatory context the signifier (e.g., Tarot card or I Ching hexagram) is anything but arbitrary; it is hooked into levels of conscious and unconscious feeling and thought, carrying a complex psychic weight and direction. By accessing this level of meaning, it may be possible to tap what Taussig refers to as “a certain magic of the signifier” in order to galvanize a therapeutic situation. (Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity; A Particular History of the Senses. New York & London, Routledge, 1993, p. xviii)
Conclusion
Rosengarten’s overall presentation of Tarot integrated with psychotherapy is highly effective. He has engaged in years of research and grounded his theoretical stance in his own documented experiences and in carefully designed experimental applications. He has thoroughly researched and practiced Tarot methodology and presents those results in combination with therapeutic applications that clearly reveal the efficacy and potency of combing these two fields.
There are some questionable editorial decisions (capitalizing the word psychology throughout the text) and there are also areas of the text that seem to have escaped an editor’s critical eye. For example, on the first page of the introduction is the phrase: “crystal chandeliers lifted the large hall” instead of lighted or lit. Chapter VI, “The Laws of Opposition, “ is flawed by a mix-up in endnotes and references and some sources mentioned in the text are missing from the bibliography. These technical details could certainly be ironed out in a revised edition.
In conclusion, Rosengarten succeeds in bringing to light an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to psychotherapy through divination theory and its application. This work lays the foundation for exploratory practice of both these and similar concepts, and for a fertile interdisciplinary research agenda. As an explanatory construct, for example, principles of complexity theory suggest that an intricate web of inter-connected networks (physical or otherwise) may evolve a dynamic of their own which gives them an emergent power and identity unexplainable in terms of ordinary science alone. How might applications of complexity theory, then, impact the study of divination, or the intersection of divination with other forms of knowledge? Rosengarten’s book begins the difficult task of formulating a conceptual structure that interrogates current suppositions about psychotherapy and cuts across traditional boundaries to examine and illuminate the psychospiritual nature of the nexus formed by the therapeutic session and its participants.