Imaginal Research for Unlearning Mastery: Divination with Tarot as Decolonizing Methodology
Originally published in Anthropology of Consciousness vol. 34 issue 2
My first piece of published writing appeared this fall in a special issue of the journal Anthropology of Consciousness titled Dream Alliance: Art, Anthropology, and Consciousness, guest edited by Christopher Santiago and Melinda Kiefer.
Given that the article is not only about the tarot, but was written (in part) by performing tarot readings, it was fun to see divinatory acts make their way into the pages of a peer-reviewed academic journal—which, to borrow Chris and Melinda’s words, “extends the bounds of scholarship into unexplored territory.”
I’m including the article’s abstract below, and you can read and download the full article for free here.
Abstract
Tarot use has become increasingly popular in contemporary society. However, unlike the position afforded divination in some cultures, it is not culturally consecrated as a legitimate way of knowing in the so-called Modern West—in large part, due to the attempted disenchantment of the world by the colonial project of modernity. This paper posits that engagement with tarot divination can be a decolonizing methodology. I explore how divination's dependence on chance, the imagination, and engagement with spirits can heal the Cartesian mental models that underlie modernity's hold on our society. Academic writing on divination has, until recently, largely been authored by people who are not also practitioners of divination themselves. Writing as both a scholar and practitioner of tarot, I use the cards as a form of “imaginal research” to directly assist in the creation of this paper—allowing the tarot itself to speak (as much as me speak about it).
Greenberg, Yvan. 2023. “Imaginal Research For Unlearning Mastery: Divination With Tarot As Decolonizing Methodology.” Anthropology of Consciousness 34 (2): 527–549. https://doi.org/10.1111/anoc.12198.