Tarot & the Language of the Unconscious - 10

In this episode, we reframe tarot not as fortune-telling or superstition, but as a symbolic tool for accessing our inner wisdom. Drawing on Carl Jung’s ideas of the conscious, unconscious, and collective unconscious, we explore how tarot can serve as a mirror to our psyche—helping us see what we already know but may not yet recognize. We also unpack the history of tarot, how cultural and religious stigmas shaped misconceptions, and why intuition can be both empowering and disruptive to systems of control. This conversation invites you to reimagine tarot as a practice of reflection, clarity, and connection to the wisdom that already lives within you. 

Welcome to Lady(ish)—the podcast where real talk meets whole-self transformation. Hosted by coach, healer, and wellness guide Autumn Noble O’Hanlon, this unfiltered space is for women who want more out of life—but on their own terms.

Each week, we dive into the messy, beautiful, and often contradictory layers of wellness, covering everything from career shifts and body image to energy healing, intuitive living, fitness, burnout recovery, and creating change that actually sticks.

Whether you're chasing a new chapter, healing old wounds, or just trying to reconnect with yourself in a loud, overwhelming world—Lady(ish) is here to support your evolution. Expect honest conversations, coaching wisdom, holistic tools, spiritual insights, and permission to be a little bit of everything (and nothing you're not).

Because wellness isn’t one-size-fits-all—and neither are you.

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Transcript

Autumn Noble (00:00)

Welcome back to the podcast, my friends.

Today we're talking about tarot intuition and what it really means to access consciousness on a deeper level.

I was recently giving a tarot reading to a woman who is a pretty devout Christian and she was really struggling with the idea of a tarot reading, but she knew that she wanted some guidance and some clarity around the things that were happening in her life. And as we sat down for the session, I could tell that she was just really uncomfortable with the whole idea and sort of kind of going back and forth on her choice to show up and ask for a reading. And so,

We spent a lot of the first portion of our reading just talking about tarot and intuitive readings and what it is and what it isn't to help her get comfortable. And so it made me realize that I think there's a lot of misconceptions about tarot and intuitive reading. And so I wanted to devote an episode to that work because it is part of the work that I do. And it's something that I use on a daily basis to help kind of guide my.

own actions and energy and gain clarity. And so I wanted to share a little bit with you here about why I use tarot and intuitive reading as a tool and kind of dismantle some of those misconceptions about it.

A lot of people hear the word tarot and they immediately think of fortune telling and predicting the future or witchcraft or even something really dark that needs to be sort of closed off and to stay away from because we're opening a door to something dark and negative and inviting that energy in. But the truth is that tarot, it's really none of those things.

It's a symbolic tool and a mirror that helps us access parts of our own mind and our own collective human story. In other words, I look to tarot as a way to kind of access our own inner knowing that's already there that we don't often hear without the support of tools like tarot.

So today I wanna share a little bit of history. I don't wanna overload you with that kind of thing, but mostly I wanna focus on reframing tarot through the lens of Carl Jung's psychology in the idea of collective unconscious.

If what I'm sharing with you today resonates with you, I'd love to invite you to experience this work for yourself. You can book a private tarot reading with me

by emailing me, autumn at the uncomfortable dream.com. That information is also in the show notes. So let's go ahead and dive into what Tarot is

and what it isn't. Let's start with something that we all know intuitively, and that is that we're not fully conscious of everything that we think, feel, and know. Even just the way that our brains are wired to sort of operate automatically in a lot of scenarios sort of lends itself to this idea that sometimes we are just operating unconsciously and our lives have become so busy and so full.

that there's a lot happening inside ourselves spiritually and mentally, emotionally, physically that we're not often clocking. Modern psychology confirms this and Carl Jung, who was one of the pioneers of depth psychology, described the human mind as layered.

And I kind of think about it, the human mind, as that picture of the iceberg where there's a little bit above the water and there's a lot underneath it.

At the surface is the conscious mind, the me that you are aware of day in and day out. Just below that is the personal unconscious, and that is all of our forgotten memories, unnoticed patterns and suppressed material that still shapes how we move throughout the world and throughout our days.

Beneath all of that is the larger piece of the iceberg and what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious.

This is a vast shared reservoir of human experiences and archetypes or universal symbols that show up across myths and religions and dreams and cultures.

It's as if there's sort of this underground river that is connecting and running through all of us. You may not necessarily see it, but its currents really shape the land that you're walking on and everything that you are doing, even though we're not aware of it because there's so much going on beneath the surface of our conscious minds.

This is where tarot and intuitive tools come in. They're not crystal balls. They're sets of images and archetypes like the lovers or the tower card, the moon and the fool. And they mirror that deeper layer of consciousness or layers of consciousness.

So when we pull a tarot card, we're engaging with symbols and imagery that resonate with those deeper layers within ourselves.

That's why oftentimes when you get a tarot reading, your reader is going to ask you questions about like what speaks to you or you know, what came to mind when you first saw this card or what do you think that card is trying to tell you. It's not because they're trying to kind of shift the burden of the reading onto you. It's that they're trying to help you access your own unconsciousness and receive the messages that the imagery is sort of calling up.

within you. Now some readers may be accessing other intuitive tools that they have, know, clairvoyance, claircognizance, you know, whatever, and they may be receiving information for you. But traditionally, tarot on its own without the support of other sort of clair tools is really intended to help you utilize these images and utilize these symbols.

to hear the messages coming from that collective unconscious or even your own personal unconscious.

So that being said, the point isn't prediction, it's reflection and asking you to reflect on what is coming up for you when you see these images and symbols. It gives us an external language to surface what we're already sort of sensing, but we might not have the words.

In doing so, tarot allows us to bypass that conscious, logical, linear mind and speak directly to our own intuition and our own inner knowing. It bridges the gap between conscious awareness and the unconscious.

That's often why during a tarot reading, if it's done properly, you can have this feeling of, my gosh, that's exactly what I needed to hear. Because it's really you hearing yourself in a way that maybe you hadn't heard before, or maybe you had been ignoring. And the tarot reading and taking that time kind of clicks that all into place and it creates this amazing clarity kind of experience.

So it's not magic in any type of Hollywood sense. It's really just your own psyche recognizing itself in the mirror of archetypes and symbols.

So let's talk a little bit about how tarot started because this is not how it began. Historically, tarot in the 15th century was used as a card game in Italy for the nobles.

It took centuries later in the 18th century when scholars and mystics sort of reimagined the deck as a tool for divination and tying it to ancient wisdom and traditions.

But as many of you know, somewhere along the way, especially in Europe under the weight of the church and patriarchal controls, practices of intuition, visioning and divination became really stigmatized. Women healers and seers were branded as witches and symbolic tools like tarot became associated with the occult and often with fear kind of based connotations.

Some of those connotations and sort of discomforts around tarot, I think still really exists today. And I think a lot of it is tied to just misconceptions about the intentions of tarot reading. I really think that this was less about tarot and more about who held the power. Intuition and accessing collective unconscious is very threatening to any system built upon control and power because it decentralizes

authority and sort of empowers each individual to say you have this own innate wisdom within you and you can access that insight directly. It takes that power out of that hierarchical structure and places it within all of us. When you think about colonialism or patriarchy or know church expansion it really flies in the face of all of that because in order to do all of those things we needed a centralized authority

who had control to tell us how things worked, who was in control and what was right and what was wrong and sort of flew in the face of accessing that innate knowing and wisdom independently. And so, for those structures to thrive, institutions like Tarot and intuitive readings had to sort of go away and be characterized as something that was no longer permissible and potentially dark.

and evil.

So let's just clear the air. Taro is, it's not satanic and it's not dark. It actually...

helps us access the parts of our own consciousness that are hidden, that are sort of lying beneath the surface, wanting to be seen, needing to be seen, so that we can get clear on our own paths and our own journeys.

And by extension, Tarot supports us in accessing that collective wisdom of humanity that flows through and runs through all of us. If you look at most religious traditions, there is this belief of a connected energy or love or this idea that God is within all of us and whatever that God may be in your own understanding. But there is this sort of idea within most religions that we are

connected in some different and kind of higher way. And I think that tarot is a recognition of that and allows us to sort of tap into that interconnectedness amongst all of us and the traditions and cycles and patterns that humans have been experiencing for centuries.

When we sit with the cards in tarot, we're essentially holding a mirror to your own subconscious and holding space and quiet to listen and hear that subconscious and what it may be whispering to you. You're allowing time and energy to ask yourself, what am I not seeing? What patterns are running beneath the surface that I'm not aware of? Or what part of me or what archetype within me is wanting to be heard right now?

And in that sense, tarot can be profoundly empowering and insightful. It doesn't hand your power away. It gives it back to you and empowers you to take control and access your own inner wisdom and knowing.

So to put this really simply, tarot doesn't tell you what to do. It helps you see more clearly so that you can decide what to do. I don't believe that all of our paths are finite and laid out before us. I think that we have a wide variety of paths available to us. I do, however, believe that we are all here to fulfill our own certain soul contracts. And that kind of goes to that unconscious

connection of all humans. We're all here to learn and grow in certain types and certain ways. And I think Tarot can help us really plug into that, find that authenticity, find that calling or that discomfort that is part of that soul contract that we are here to fulfill.

So ultimately it's about awareness and not finding fixed answers for the right way. I always tell my clients it's never about finding the path, the only path. It's about simply accessing the next right step and trusting that after that, we will find the next next right step and create our own path from there. It's not some secret journey that we have to find that's hidden from us.

It's about just focusing on the now and figuring out what to do in this moment and trusting that the journey will unfold. tarot can be a tremendous tool in helping us gain that clarity and insight.

So a simple way to get started with your own tarot practice is just to pull a single card and ask yourself, what energy is moving through me today? If you're someone that believes in guides or a higher power or a God of your own understanding, pulling a card and asking, what message do you have for me today? What do I need to know to live my highest and greatest purpose today? And see what comes up for you in that moment of prayer.

reflection and letting that card be that conduit between you and that higher power and that higher knowing. From there after asking the question just notice how the symbols of that card might show up in your day. That simple act of reflection is a way of training that intuition and

strengthening the muscle that connects conscious thought to unconscious knowing. So we pull the card, we ask the question, we pray for guidance and insight to see what's trying to come through and the purpose of that card in your life. And then we bring that with us in thoughtfulness and prayer throughout the day.

and allow space for those connections to be seen and heard, strengthening that muscle of intuition and connecting that higher part of the iceberg to that lower part of ourselves that we're not often aware of.

So in closing, I just wanna emphasize that when I talk about tarot and intuitive readings, I am talking about consciousness, the hidden layers of your mind and the shared symbolic language of all humanity and the power of reflection and giving space for that guidance for accessing your higher power, the God of your understanding or your own innate knowing.

Tarot is not something to fear, it's not something dark, it's something to explore, to practice with curiosity and use as a tool of self-awareness.

You know, I often hear, you know, it's an invitation, you know, you're opening a door to darker energies. And I say, if you are a person who engages in prayer and meditative work, that is a way of accessing higher power and higher guidance and higher knowing. And tarot is just another way of doing that. And whenever we do any of those practices, prayer, meditation, or tarot, we do it with an intention of inviting guidance.

from our God, from our guides, whatever energy you believe in, but we do it with the intention of inviting only in positive energy for our greatest and highest good. We're not throwing open a door and inviting in dark and negative energies. I truly believe that those are out there and that it happens absolutely. But I think that whatever intention you bring to any kind of an intuitive practice, and even if it is just simple prayer, showing up with that intention,

of accessing positive energy and guidance for your highest and greatest good and inviting protection from God of your understanding or the saints or whatever you believe, but inviting that protection with you as you access those parts of yourself is an indication to yourself and to energies in the universe that this is not us throwing open a door or inviting in darkness. We are here in a protected space.

seeking guidance and positive energy only and closing the door on any negative energy that may be trying to come through.

I really hope that this episode provided some clarity around tarot and intuition. I know it can be an area of tremendous discomfort for a lot of people, especially those engaging in, know, particular religious traditions that may really have clear rules around tarot. And so my message to you is that if this is something that speaks to you, if there's a part of you that says, you know what, this makes sense, like I feel like there's something more.

this calling to me that I need to know like there's a part of myself that I'm not accessing. I think this message is really meant for you. And if this conversation resonated with you in that way and you want to expand your own intuitive work or learn about tarot or sign up for a reading, I would love to explore that with you and I would really invite you to take that deeper. You can book your own tarot reading with me for personalized and thoughtful.

and intuitive guidance.

And you can do that by simply sending an email to me to autumn at theuncomfortabledream.com. Again, it's in the show notes. Or if you want to engage in some type of spiritual coaching to hone your own intuitive tools, that's also available to you. Just shoot me a note at my email and we can schedule some time to chat about what might be most supportive to you. Until next time, my friends, remember that the wisdom that you're looking for, the clarity that you're looking for, it's already in you.

And tarot is just one of the many ways to listen. There are so many tools that are available to us,

including meditation and yoga and breath work and Reiki. But tarot is just one of the many tools that I use to access that knowing. So if you're feeling lost or confused or stuck, there may be a reason that you're listening to this episode and it may be a calling to find tools that resonate with you to access that own that wisdom and clarity that's already inside of you. All right, my friends, thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I hope

This information was helpful to you in your own journeys.