Tarot, I-Ching and other ancient Oracles: Therapeutic Power

I. I-Ching, Synchronicity vs Causality?

When Carl Gustav Jung wrote the foreword(1) for the I-Ching (The book of Changes)(2), he opened a door for psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts around the world to understand the therapeutic power of oracles in anybody's life. In that beautiful text Jung will explain the concept of Synchronicity. Synchronicity is the occurrence of events that are meaningfully related but lack a causal connection. Even though the occurrences or events are perceived as coincidences, the emotional or intellectual elicited feelings, seems too significant to be mere chance!. “Acausal connecting principle” was the exact definition Jung gave to synchronicity(3) and with its description he gave us the chance to grab another tool to dig into our own unconscious mind.?

Because when an internal psychological state of an individual aligns with external events in a way that suggests a deeper, underlying order or meaning, it generates a reaction that is basically an insight moment, an “eureka” that can potentially move profound emotional charges.

Jung wrote about synchronicity in the forward of the I-Ching to underline the effect that the reading of such oracle or “divination book” generates in the readers. And aside from the faith or mysticism around I-Ching or other oracles and divination instruments such as the Tarot, the Celtic Runes, etc, it’s precisely the movement of emotional charges in the individual the clue to know that a channel to an unconscious element is being made. What starts with an intellectual understanding quickly becomes an anchor to elicit deep emotions or even new axes of discourse.?

“(...) my informant has sometimes admitted having consulted the oracle through a fortune teller, usually a Taoist priest. This could be "only nonsense" of course. But oddly enough, the answer received apparently coincided with the questioner's psychological blind spot remarkably well.” (I-Ching Foreword C.G.Jung)

The powerful effect of synchronicity lies in its opposition to causality. To put in simple words, it states that events don’t have to be related one after the other like in the cause and effect model to generate objective truths, but if those events are revealed in a unique form (like the question from a reader and and the anagram answered by the I-Ching at the throw of the coins) simultaneously in time, and no other answer could be given in the same way, they must be rendering meaning.

II. Tarot, The answer we don’t know we have

When I was studying drama, I had the fortune to briefly work with the dear theater director Enrique Vargas(4) who at the time was working in a sensorial theater play based on the Arcana of Tarot. This was one year after he directed the famous sensory theatre play: El Hilo de Ariadna. His understanding of mythology and oracles changed my perception forever; he would say “when you ask a question to the Tarot, you will receive the answer that you didn’t know you knew!”. He helped me close a circle that elicits the magic of oracles: They don’t predict the future, they don’t describe fate. Oracles and their fixed symbols push your consciousness to a different lane of meaning helping you articulate insights that seem revealing, and new, and many times powerful. That was how Vargas was always finding and polishing sensorial and archetypal hooks to elicit profound emotional responses in the participants of his sensorial plays.?

So when you make a reading of the I-Ching or when you pick a random card of the Tarot and read the fixed image or listen to the interpretation behind that symbolic figure, what occurs is that, out of synchronicity, you are abruptly connected with an unconscious element of your mind. Sometimes it is so revealing that you feel appalled by the accuracy of the reading or sometimes you just get a vague new idea that helps a brief moment of reflection. The fact of the matter is that our mind is wired to make that connection effortlessly ergo the oracles are still so popular.?

III. Catharsis at the Oracle and the Psychoanalytic “Cure”

But why do I believe this factual functionality of common divination oracles could be in any way therapeutic? Well, I’m so glad you asked!.?

A long time ago I was discussing this precise subject with Luis Fernando Orduz (5) who at the time was the director of my clinical practice. Our conversation started around the perceived effect of any given oracle reading: When I pick a random Tarot card to be the oracle's response to a personal question many times it seems like there is a magical effect and the message seemed tailor made for me, my question and the moment I’m living. Nevertheless he reminded me how the “cure” of the psychoanalytic process consists in making the unconscious conscious. In that sense If the interpretation of the card, or the short paragraph of the horoscope “feels like” is the precise response to my question, what we are witnessing is nothing more than the effect of elicitation of other unconscious elements derived from an external generic symbol. He went further to say, “Imagine how many times during a psychoanalytic session with a patient I’ve said, as an interpretation, the exact words ‘seems like you are talking about your mother’, only to find in the patient's profound but very diverse reactions”. He was implying that a single fixed phrase, with a very significant symbolic reference “mother” generates multiple and potent insights in different patients. For him, any element that finds synchronicity, could help elicit unconscious references and work towards what the psychoanalysis defines as “the cure” (bringing unconscious conflicts and repressed memories to conscious awareness)(6).

In other conversations with Orduz regarding the understanding of the Greek Oracles and some Freudian use of ancient human phenomenon concepts, he explained how, when someone in ancient Greece arrived at an Oracle (or faced one as Oracles could be personified entities or deities), probably didn’t find a magical voice-over coming from another world giving prophetic answers, but the space of the Oracle, was such that allowed the visitor to enter a state of “Katharismos” or a cleansing-release-state (in greek language). Just like Freud later would describe it as Catharsis or the act of emotional release through free association during therapy.? The Oracle and the reflective or even meditative state it favors, facilitates the Catharsis, and when there is Catharsis inevitably unconscious emotional content emerges and it much probably will bring emotional release and new conscious understandings.??

In conclusion I have to say that as a clinical psychologist I believe that today, when we still frequently use some of these “divination” tools and rituals, these Oracles, we might be missing the opportunity they could bring as actual self transformation tools. We approach a Tarot reading, or a horoscope text as magical revelations of our fate, our future, unshakable revealed truths, or superior voices we should follow. That approach, clearly childish, is for me not only limited but mildly dangerous. But more importantly erases the capacity of oracles to be used actively as self introspection or even interpersonal instruments and also as devices and gateways to elicit meaning and dialog.

If you want to discuss this subject further do comment and if you are wondering, yes! From time to time I indulge myself into a reading session of the Tarot or the I-Ching or the Celtic Runes, but I do it only as a starter of a more intimate conversation with my closest ones.???

Santiago Duran Mejia, Mexico, February 2025

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References:

1. ?I-Ching Foreword by Carl Gustav Jung. Zurich, 1949.
2. ?I-Ching or Yijing ("The Book of Changes"). An ancient (prior to 221 BC and the Qin dynasty) chinese book of divination and cleromancy.
3. Carl Gustav Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (Coll. Works of C. G. Jung, vol. 8). Princeton, 1960.
4. Enrique Vargas. Manizales, Colombia. 1940. Playwright & Anthropologist. Founder of the theater company: Teatro de los Sentidos and creator of El Hilo de Ariadna.
5. Luis Fernando Orduz , Psychologist & Psychoanalyst. Colombia. Ex-president of the Colombian Psychoanalytic Society
6. S.Freud, Studies on Hysteria, 1895.