Randomness in Tarot

JackofWands

Those of you who have seen my previous posts on this forum know that I tend to be extremely rationalistic (some might even say closed-minded) when it comes to understanding Tarot. I've always been of the opinion that the cards that come up in a Tarot reading are random, rather than specifically selected (by the universe, by the collective unconscious, by the cards themselves, etc.) to answer a querent's question.

But I also want to be open to changing my opinions in the face of contradictory evidence, so for the past hundred days I've been conducting an experiment where I recorded my daily draws and then performed a statistical analysis on them to look for overarching trends. (I posted about it on my blog; if you want more details, feel free to check it out.) I looked for any variation in the distribution of cards over 100 draws that would signify something other than mere randomness affecting which cards were drawn.

The thing is, I found nothing. Nada, zip zilch, zippo, and so on. The distribution of cards was perfectly in line with what would be expected of a completely random draw.

For me, this reinforces my previous opinions about Tarot, but I'm curious as to how more magickally minded individuals would interpret the results of my experiment. How would you reconcile a turnup that looks completely random with the view that there's something more to the cards? A few possibilities off the top of my head include:

-All 78 cards in Tarot are relevant at one point or another to human life, so of course they'll show up in relatively equal measure
-My analysis relied on the quantification of Tarot into variables like suit and number, which might ignore the deeper meanings of the cards
-One could argue that, if the cards respond to a person's energy, my rationalistic approach to the experiment contaminated my results

However, none of these responses is really satisfying to me. And furthermore, I think that other people who actually hold a more mystical view of Tarot will probably be able to argue their own views much more intelligently than I ever could. So I would be really interested to see what people have to say on the matter.

Thanks in advance!
 

LeFou

When reading for others, if they pull their own cards, and have a highly charged situation (e.g., crisis, anxiety, desperation, etc.), it seems to me that they pull oddly relevant cards. And then at times, there is a "small whispering voice" that says something as well, and our job is to be a channel to convey that.

However, knowing whether the "small whispering voice" is from the Universe vs. from our own heads is the essence of the art, at least to me.

Are you starting from the viewpoint that if your cards are "purely random," then Tarot is just a sort of Rorschach? I wouldn't argue otherwise, because I think that is true to a degree. It's just that maybe, at least at times, there's a bit more, in the form of a soft breezy whisper, so small it's barely there, and then it's gone.
 

Snaut

The point is not that the cards should be distributed nonrandomly. They provide an outlet for your emotions and you will interpret them in such a way as to be meaningful to you in that particular moment. Reading tarot cards is opening up the gates to your subconscious and allowing you to see your own feelings mirrored in the cards.
Reading tarot cards is like asking a good friend for advice and he answers "Have you considered xy?".

At least, that is how I think tarot works.
 

EyeAmEye

I personally believe tarot is misused and overused. Asking mundane questions, or no question at all from your test (unless you did ask and didn't specify it), in my opinion is not what tarot is for and will result in apparent randomness.

I speak from my own personal experience. Having tried daily draws and finding absolutely no relevance to the card drawn and that particular day, I don't bother doing it anymore. However, I have had much greater success in matters of great importance to me. Reading for others as little as I used to do, the reading was also more relevant the more specific and important the question was.

Can't support that with math, however. Reading your blog made me realize how much I hated it back in school :)
 

chevalierduchangemen

For me, Tarot is more a tool of self-exploration, of meditation, than a way to see our future, or even our past. In my practice, I find more efficient the readings where I focus on the present time, or where I go with the idea that the card I draw is the good one, even if it appears making little sense at this time.

I believe we get more from Tarot by seeing it as a way to ask ourselves questions instead of a way to get answers. Of course, there is randomness in the cards! It's like if we were flipping a big book (of 78 pages) and each morning we would read the page we get! Each "page" contains a great lesson about Life. And what is amazing with Tarot, it's that the text on the pages may vary every day. Each reading is a possibility to see a new sense, a new sentence in a card that we didn't see before. That's why we continue to use it today: because it's a continuous journey of learning and understanding life.

Personnally, the "randomness" of Tarot is not a thing that bothers me. It's a thing that I've learned to accept. But I still think that our imagination, our spirit, has a power in the way we look at cards, and how we interpret them. Maybe there is, in fact, something more than our imagination. I don't know. I'm not in the world to know. I prefer doubt to certitude. That's why I don't separate being rational from being strongly creative (making rituals, letting the intuition flow, "pathworking" with the cards and doing visualisations). I believe we can be rational and still use these tools to learn more about ourselves.
 

JackofWands

Thanks for the replies, everyone. A couple of follow-up remarks:

Snaut - I couldn't agree with you more. This is exactly how I use Tarot, and is why I still think Tarot can be valuable despite the randomness of the cards.

LeFou - I suppose that if you wanted, you could compare my use of Tarot to a Rorschach test. Another way I like to express it is that Tarot serves a similar function to fairy tales and other myths. A Tarot reading forms a narrative structure with abstract, symbolic content that people can then relate to their lives. I'm of the mind that a Tarot reading can still provide insight even if it isn't objectively "about" a querent--the same way the story of Little Red Riding Hood has something to teach me, even though it clearly wasn't written specifically for me.

EyeAmEye - So in your opinion, the random turnup of the cards is because the use of Tarot in a daily draw is actually a misuse of Tarot? Do you then believe that, if I had only done deeply spiritual readings and had recorded a hundred of those over an extended period of time, the distribution of the cards would somehow differ from a normal, random distribution? I just want to make sure I understand your perspective and am not misrepresenting.

I can understand why you find the practice of daily draws unhelpful, although I personally find it productive. Most days, although certainly not all, I can find at least some small way to connect my daily card to events in my life. Still, if you see Tarot as primarily a spiritual tool, I see how this might not be worth your time.

chevalierduchangement - What a beautiful way to express it! I like the analogy of Tarot to reading a random page out of a book; it may be random, but there's still something worth reading. I also agree with you that "our imagination ... has a power in the way we look at cards, and how we interpret them". Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
 

Gulliver

Hello JackofWands,

very interesting investigation. My question is, why you are (your profile says this) working with Kabbalistic, Numerology and Astrology, if you are a very rational thinking person? I'm really interested in the answer. Because I don't work with such "tools", it should not be an offence to someone, but I think it's humbug. I would not waste my time with things I don't acknowledge.

I see tarot as a very creative pool. And I believe in magic (and I think, that is rational attestable).
 

Tanga

The magic is in the reader. :) It is the reader that plumbs the "collective unconscious"/tunes into their spirit guides/connects to the "Akashic Records... or whatever else one might like to decide - from the random spread of cards.
As chevalierd.... ( :) ) says - each card has a life lesson and there are many ways of interpretation for each. It's left to the reader to intuit what meaning is most helpful in relation to the querents question (using their own belief system to do so).
And - as my Tarot tools give me access to such a creative and enjoyable way to assist people - I treat them like magical objects to be taken care of! Believing in magic or Universal providence helps to set the subconscious on a more trusting and "allowing" path. It's one way in which people can let go of constant worry and just "go with the flow".

I gave up years ago attempting to marry my rational/scientific side with my mystical side.
I love science. And I love magic. Is it the case that magic and the supernatural etc. is a load of stuff that we just haven't managed to find a way to explain yet scientifically? Maybe. But the fun is in the mystery. And isn't that all just beautiful?
If we knew it all it would be boring. And also - it destroys our humility to believe so, and hence leads to all kinds of destructive actions in righteous rampage or closed approaches with levels of blind ignorance.
 

Nemia

I'm with the Chevalier. It doesn't bother me and doesn't impact my reading tarot.

What happens in my life could be called random, too - but I find meaning in it. That's after all what our brains know best - to see patterns, to recognize meaning in randomness. It's our survival strategy.

So I don't think about the randomness of the card that appears but how its meaning applies to my question, my life, my context. I do so by using learned and stored knowledge, experience, intuition, meditation, reading visual clues, free association etc - strategies of extracting meaning that I could have applied also to other cards, to another deck, to tea leaves, to automatic writing or painting or patterns in the clouds. There are so many ways to access my pattern-making facility.

The cards are a great pathway to the knowledge within me, the knowledge I didn't know I have, but they're not the only path. I love them because they're loaded with associations to the cultural background I know; they grew from the Western culture since the Renaissance. I feel that because of the deep connection the cards have to my background and my personal history, they are the best tool for me to access the inner guide - or the hidden pool of knowledge within me.

The seeming randomness of the appearing cards makes them more meaningful because that's exactly the connection to the seeming chaotic randomness of the things that puzzle us.

Oh well, I guess I don't make too much sense here...
 

JackofWands

Hello JackofWands,

very interesting investigation. My question is, why you are (your profile says this) working with Kabbalistic, Numerology and Astrology, if you are a very rational thinking person? I'm really interested in the answer. Because I don't work with such "tools", it should not be an offence to someone, but I think it's humbug. I would not waste my time with things I don't acknowledge.

I see tarot as a very creative pool. And I believe in magic (and I think, that is rational attestable).

Hi Gulliver,

This is a great question! My response is that I don't believe in any of these things as independent systems (to say that events in my life are in any way influenced by the way that an arbitrarily selected number of celestial bodies in our solar system appear to be positioned from our subjective viewpoint is, as you say, humbug), but that I use them to add complexity to Tarot readings. If the Lovers turn up next to the Eight and Nine of Swords, I'm liable to start talking about the symbolism associated with Gemini and how that may manifest in the reading. I don't find things like astrology useful as objective tools, but rather as ways of adding to the range of potential interpretations in a Tarot reading. They are, to borrow language from Nemia, "ways to access my pattern-making facility".

Thanks to Nemia and Tanga for such thoughtful replies. But I'm curious. Up until this point, aside from EyeAmEye, everyone who has responded seems to accept the proposition that Tarot is random (but has value nevertheless). Is there anyone here who rejects this assertion? If so, I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.