Randomness in Tarot

Ah, but what if the cards you "needed" simply happened to be distributed equally throught the deck?

Jokes aside, I think there's room for both positions, and I don't mean that as in "I don't agree, but I respect your opinion", but as the possibility that both are valid, functioning ways.

I'm still in the process of nailing down how exactly I think tarot works, so I'll use spiritual stances I've seen here and there.

Say that a reader invokes a higher conscience, a spirit guide maybe, and that that conscience influences which cards are drawn in some way- that's not an assertion that can be proven, but let's just accept it for now.
I assume you do no such thing- I'm guessing you shuffle the cards until you feel they're randomised enough and then draw. Lacking the non-randomising factor- the higher consciousness- the cards you draw will be random.

What I'm trying to say here is that I see it as perfectly possible that the cards drawn are random for one person, but not for another. Of course, nobody is obligated to believe in the non-randomising factor. It's currently not possibly to prove or disprove it, rendering it a matter of belief. But as someone who does believe in matters like this, for various reasons, it's not difficult to reconcile different ways of readings, nor to accept them all as equally valid. People find the reading style that works best for them and that's a good thing.


Rambling aside, my own daily draws strongly gravitate towards certain groups of card. Maybe I should do a chi square test too. It would be interesting to see for sure.

Being a mathematician I have to say that Randomness is actually a very modern phenomenon. To the ancient folks there was no such thing as randomness. They had their gods which made the things happening. And this was why they could find meaning in oracles. Those coffee stains were not simply "random", but predetermined by the norns or whomever.

Actually it was not until the beginning of the 20th century, that Kolmogorov stated his famous axioms, thereby for the first time defining what probability is. To make things worse, they are not accepted everywhere. One of the axiom says that probabilities cannot be negative. This makes sense to our intuitive understanding, but could be just plain wrong. The same type of wrong that real numbers are not intuitive, but only fractional numbers. In fact, in some physics quantum stuff, they compute with negative probabilities and also in finance. The negative probabilities in finance only occurred recently when negative interest rates where introduced by some of the central banks.
To really grasp what a random variable is one has to know about sigma algebras and measure theory.

Although it does not really add to the discussion, my point is that randomness is a human concept. The universe does not know "randomness". The universe is beyond the random/nonrandom dualistic viewpoint.
Only on our plane of human understanding does it look "random", because we cannot distinguish it from a random variable.

The cards don't respond to your energy; rather, they respond to your mind - your mind determines how you shuffle, when you stop, how/if you cut the cards, how/what cards you pick.

How does your mind decide what it does? Your thoughts... Where do your thoughts come from? They come unbidden, in the flash of a second, to tell you, ok, now is the time to stop shuffling, etc etc. If your thoughts are unbidden, how can they be yours?

& then suddenly 4 court cards and 1 ace show up in a 5-card future love reading, all cups and wands, for a very cups and wands question. & then you question how can this be random?

The mind is a fascinating thing...

JackofWands said:

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.

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Yes, you understood perfectly.

Your second paragraph is exactly why I think daily draws are a misuse. If we are able to find some relevance to ANY of the 78 cards and their potential combinations to ANY given ordinary day, then that to me, shows the cards should not be used in that way. In essence, the reader is finding the relevance in any mundane event/s that took place over the course of 24 hours.

As an example, say I draw the 6 of Swords for my day. So, I go about the usual, shower, eat breakfast, commute to work, spend 8 miserable hours at work, commute home, eat dinner, relax a few hours, go to bed. Right before I go to bed, I reflect on the daily draw. After a bit of reflection, I see that MAYBE the 6 of Swords was relevant to my commute home, leaving a miserable environment (work) to get to a better place (home). Even IF that were exactly what the card was trying to indicate, how really does that help me in any way?

Regardless of what people believe tarot is, bottom line is that it is not considered "divination" for nothing. To me, divining isn't for "should I eat pizza for lunch today". And that's the problem with the modern use of tarot. Trying to use a system that has significant power to address the mundane. It's like asking Plato who he thought should have won last week's Dancing With The Stars. (I dunno, maybe Plato would have become engrossed by such, but you get the point )

That's my take at any rate.

EyeAmEye said:

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.

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*thunderous applause*

Jack, this is a rather interesting subject and deserves a lot more time than I can devote to it right now. Just one thing: You are a very good Tarot reader, a fact I can attest to because I recently had an exchange with you in the reading circles. Do you honestly believe you came into those insights randomly?

This is great!

I think tarot can work in many ways depending on the reader. Personally, I have the experience of being guided when I read: certain details of the cards will be brought to my attention for example in a manner where it sometimes is only about the detail and not the card as a whole, and when I chose the cards, they are 'singling themselves out'.

There is one thing I need to know, that I think is VERY important. What question did you ask the cards before you did the mini-reading?

Snaut said:

Being a mathematician I have to say that Randomness is actually a very modern phenomenon. To the ancient folks there was no such thing as randomness. They had their gods which made the things happening. And this was why they could find meaning in oracles. Those coffee stains were not simply "random", but predetermined by the norns or whomever.

Actually it was not until the beginning of the 20th century, that Kolmogorov stated his famous axioms, thereby for the first time defining what probability is. To make things worse, they are not accepted everywhere. One of the axiom says that probabilities cannot be negative. This makes sense to our intuitive understanding, but could be just plain wrong. The same type of wrong that real numbers are not intuitive, but only fractional numbers. In fact, in some physics quantum stuff, they compute with negative probabilities and also in finance. The negative probabilities in finance only occurred recently when negative interest rates where introduced by some of the central banks.
To really grasp what a random variable is one has to know about sigma algebras and measure theory.

Although it does not really add to the discussion, my point is that randomness is a human concept. The universe does not know "randomness". The universe is beyond the random/nonrandom dualistic viewpoint.
Only on our plane of human understanding does it look "random", because we cannot distinguish it from a random variable.

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I dare to disagree. Even randomness in terms of human perception is much older than the first attempt to find a precise mathematical definition for it. The title of the 13th century poem

fortuna imperatrix mundi

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has it all. By 'fortuna' people here didn't mean destiny, but arbitrary (and mainly bad) things happening that don't make any sense because they are not connected to other stuff happening. That means no causality can be seen, that means what happens is random. Not as a refined mathematical or physical concept but as an emotional perception of the world while quarreling with your fate.

As for quantum phyiscs, negative probabilities only occur when you bang the math of relativity together with the math of quantum physics without any furher modelling. This is usually being taken as proof that it doesn't work that way and that a 'theroy for everything' has not been found yet. In the meantime quantum physics alone works fine in the micro world and relativity alone works fine in he macro world. Just like a financial model that works fine as long as interest rates are positive but produces nonsense when they are not. It's obviously an incomple model, no big deal. Probability is defined to be non-negative. Therefore everything that yields negative probabilites is a plain logical contractiction and straight evidence that your model or theory is wrong. No more no less than that. So there is nothing wrong logically with the concept of probabilities and randomness.

BTW, while talking about quantum physics, one of the major features of quantum physics is randomness. It's in the very core of everything that happens. It's not only that we can't measure things, but randomness is for real in the quantum world.

FLizarraga said:

Jack, this is a rather interesting subject and deserves a lot more time than I can devote to it right now. Just one thing: You are a very good Tarot reader, a fact I can attest to because I recently had an exchange with you in the reading circles. Do you honestly believe you came into those insights randomly?

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Luckily not everything in the world is random. JackOfWand's mind probably isn't. It's only the cards he claimed to come up randomly.

J

JackofWands said:

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!

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IVe not read any replies to this thread, I agree the pick of cards is random, there are threads about how to shuffle and how to pick, I just chose, willy nilly (though respecting and expecting an answer /guidance more from the universe as I do believe there is higher whole / God / designer/ etc whatever you want to call it) but it's all about the interpretation of them...if the interpretations are correct or really help what's the problem? tHe Popes state thngs are immoral and you will burn in hell forever more if you use a condom even if you have AIDS and every deluded believer of that crap (hopefully not many) believes them, surely tarot is better to deal with life

Ps I like the latest pope

Ignored post if already answered

JackofWands said:

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.

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Me.

JackofWands said:

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?

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I'm not EyeAmEye, but I think it is a misuse of tarot for me because I think daily draws without any thought are exactly that - random - and it's because of their randomness that they're not helpful to me. My entire life I have looked for meaning in everything, random and not, so I'm pretty good at it by now and don't need any more practice. For some people it helps them and I'm all for that. For me it just doesn't anymore.

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?

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Yes. I think if you do those deeply spiritual readings, or at least deeper than a daily draw without thought, you would find a lot less randomness. Certainly in short spans of readings when you're in the thick of a certain intense situation.

You've heard the stories from people about certain cards "haunting" them, showing up repeatedly in readings? Surely you've had it happen to you as well. I know I have. Just a couple of months ago, I did four readings within two weeks, average of four cards each reading, and the Knight of Pentacles showed up three times (both upright and reversed). I only did those four readings during that time, no more, and used two different decks. This doesn't seem attributable to pure randomness.

To further the argument against randomness, the issue was with someone who I was debating on hiring. Because of that Knight of Pents haunting me (as well as the other cards, but mostly it was the Knight), I didn't trust them as much as I would have normally, and that kept me from being taken for a chunk of money. Turns out they were a slow worker because of their perfectionism and expected me to pay them a LOT more than they are worth. ("But I worked six hours yesterday! I deserve to be paid for six hours!" "You spent six hours potting twelve plants and raking the front yard. Yeah, it's perfectly done with not a blade of grass out of place, but I'm not paying you a hundred bucks for that when anyone could have done it well enough in less than an hour.")

Why does it happen? I don't know. Observer effect? One of those alternate uncertainty principles that don't relate to measurement effects (and that I still can't quite wrap my brain around so may be using it incorrectly here)? And if so, are those effects just the beginnings of proof of the spiritual world? Like someone else said (Tanga?), I don't know and I don't want to know because it's much more fun not knowing.

Tanga said:

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.

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Yep, it was Tanga. And I completely agree.