A Study of Randomness and Interpretation in Tarot Practices

Abstract: Tarot is a tool for inner exploration that can guide a seeker towards the inner realms of their personality. In this work, an experiment has been conducted with The Original Tarot Standard: The Rider-Waite tarot cards. The aim of this experiment is to verify the randomness in the drawing of cards made by one professional and amateur practitioners. A total of 600 draws were made, 300 by each practitioner, in the absence of the invocation. Chi-square testing has shown that the draw is random in both vertical and horizontal distributions. The probability of the distribution has been fixed at a .95 level of significance. Calculated values of chi-square for both vertical (Grouped as Major Arcana, Cup cards, Sword Cards, Wand cards, and Pentacle cards) and horizontal randomness (Grouped as number and court cards) are less than the critical values. Calculated values are less than the critical values in both cases. Hence, the Null hypothesis is accepted, which proves that the nature of the drawing of cards is random for both the readers.

Keywords: Tarot cards, Randomness, Chi-square testing.