The Culture of Tarot with Mary K. Greer

Oct 10, 2025

In a captivating discussion, Mary K. Greer, a renowned tarot scholar with over five decades of experience, delves into the rich culture of tarot. She explores tarot's role as a tool for personal transformation, linking its imagery to archetypes and intuition. Greer shares insights into challenging cards like The Tower, illustrating their potential for transformation. Fascinatingly, she discusses the integration of AI in tarot practice for pattern recognition, while cautioning about its limitations. Finally, she highlights how tarot serves as a holistic practice, bridging cultural traditions.

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INSIGHT

Tarot As Archetypal Pattern Map

Mary Greer sees tarot as an archetypal map matching Campbell's Hero's Journey and everyday life through major and minor arcana.
She argues tarot reveals psychological patterns via instant pattern-recognition rather than only mystical channeling.

INSIGHT

Intuition Is Pattern Recognition

Greer defines intuition in readings as rapid pattern recognition built from experience and brain pathways.
She contrasts intuitive flashes with slower rational sorting when meanings need clarification.

ADVICE

Use AI As A Collaborative Research Tool

Use AI collaboratively: follow speculative threads then switch to logical checks and verify facts yourself.
Set prompts and limits so the AI provides useful fragments without inventing sources or overpraising.

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The Culture of Tarot with Mary K. Greer

Mary K. Greer has been studying and teaching tarot for the last half century. She is author of eleven books on tarot and on magic. They include Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for Personal Transformation, Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses, Essence of Tarot: Using Essential Oils, Magic, and Rituals to Empower Your Readings, and Mary K. Greer’s 21 Ways to Read a Tarot card. She has taught tarot for 11 years at the New College of California. She has a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Central Florida, where she first taught tarot in 1974.

In this conversation, Mary K. Greer explores the culture of tarot and its rich historical, symbolic, and experiential dimensions. She discusses tarot as a tool of archetypal insight, intuition, ritual practice, and even as a bridge to AI-assisted pattern recognition. Additionally, she considers tarot’s cross-cultural resonance and its role as a holistic path of personal transformation.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director (with Callum Cooper) of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science.

(Recorded on **** 00, 20**)

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