Tarot Cards, the Placebo Effect, and Human Brain Function
Tarot cards have always interested me.
I'm agnostic and have made science my life, but for some reason I can't escape the allure of the deck. With so many beautiful patterns and artist renditions to chose from, as well as the complexity of the deck itself (78 cards!?) its a social art piece, a collaborative experiment to see how many fun and unique versions we can make.
But, obviously, most people interested in tarot cards are interested for the occult side of them.
We humans seek out what scares us. Fear actually releases dopamine in our bodies. Some people are more sensitive to dopamine than others, which is why some people like being spooked more than others. Those who like being spooked (like me) might gravitate to something like tarot cards. Why? Because they're mysterious, taboo, and honestly sometimes spooky.
I've been working with tarot cards for quite a few years now. And, while I don't know yet if there's anything truly otherworldly going on, I do know how they seem to guide you through situations and how they can offer up advice.
Our brains will make patterns out of anything. That's why two dots and a line end up looking like a face. :) As one of my favorite podcasts like to point out, "Apophenia". The way our brain processes information and makes sense of it doesn't mean there's really an underlying connection. When we, as humans, don't know the reason behind a phenomena, we make one up with what we have available. Think of folk tales or creation stories.
Tarot is no exception. If I shuffle my cards and ask "What should I focus on more in my life?" (A fairly common question asked of tarot decks) any card I pull is going to give me multiple stimuli to jump-start my brain into problem-solving and pattern-finding overdrive. Symbols, numbers, emotions, images, colors, they're all packed into each and every card. So naturally, my mind is going to find a pattern and spit out an answer that seems relevant to me.
Some find this super spooky. How does the card "know" what we're thinking? It doesn't. You are simply using the card as an abstract mirror of your thoughts, and in doing so, giving yourself apophenia.
Is this a bad thing? Well, it could be. I always take the "answers" the cards give me with a large pinch of salt. I can't let myself get upset or paranoid over anything I come up with.
I use the cards like some people use brain-webs, those bubble charts we were taught in public school, connecting spontaneous thoughts together until you can see something, some sort of usefulness or pattern, emerge.
I hope this dry explanation doesn't ruin any of the appeal of tarot cards for you. In fact, I hope it makes you even more interested in giving yourself and your friends a bit of spook.
As someone who is also interested in tarot, I like this apophenic approach because I see an engagement with tarot (or astrology, kabbalah, i-ching and so on) as essentially a work of imagination; imagination for me is the most powerful and essential attributes of our humanity. I believe that engaging with tarot should be an expansive and enriching experience - your "pinch of salt" actually helps to enhance the flavour. I actually came to tarot after reading T. S. Eliot 's The Wasteland, and poets are apt to employ apophenia, as does Eliot in that poem. Indeed, a casual google search for poetry and apophenia just yielded this rather interesting looking article: https://kenyonreview.org/2013/11/coincidences-language-apophenia/
Thanks for providing some good food for thought.