Is Tarot for Real?
Why the cards work (maybe)
Why should Tarot work at all?
As both a student of Tarot’s history and a reader of the cards this question matters to me on more than metaphysical terms. It is also ethically important. Whenever I read the cards for someone — my method is a three-card spread — I want to be sure that I’m doing more than shaking a Magic-8 Ball or flipping a coin.
But am I?
In terms of long experience, I believe that something more than chance or a Rorschach interpretation is occurring. One July 4th weekend I offered free readings to social media followers. The response was more than I expected. I ended up doing hundreds of readings over a 72-hour period.
Anecdotal though it is, the responses that came back were remarkable. A woman who asked about her career path got cards symbolizing justice; she had already enrolled in a police academy. Another who wanted to know where to move got cards with two rivers; she had been considering Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Lots of replies were less specific but no less psychologically penetrating — including a reading I did for myself that forecast multiple benefits from a project I was unsure of taking on, but which has since brought me a wide array of opportunities. If there were lots of unremarkable “bad” readings — a charge often leveled by woo critics…
