Randomizing and Shuffling: “Generating White Noise” and “Creating Order Out of Chaos”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In previous posts I’ve mentioned in passing that the purpose of the shuffle is not to randomize the cards but rather to subconsciously arrange them in the proper order to tell the story. Judging from the responses I received (or more tellingly, didn’t receive) nobody really “got” what I was trying to say. So I will attempt to explain it a little more thoroughly by describing my own practice.
When I arrive at a reading session, I bring a deck (or maybe two) that I have diligently randomized for both sequence and orientation. I do this in a couple of ways, the most common of which is shuffling and dealing the cards into several random piles (and then turning roughly half of them upside down if I’m allowing for reversal), after which I reassemble the deck without altering the orientation and perform a few overhand shuffles (I’m lousy at riffling and tend to damage the cards). Alternately, I might spread out the whole deck on a flat surface and swirl the cards around (the “casino wash”) until they are completely scrambled, then proceed as above. Think of it as “deprogramming;” my goal is to hand the sitter an unbiased deck that has been reduced as much as possible to “white noise” (by which I mean there is no residual carryover from a previous reading and no “clumping” of the cards into unnatural groups.) From what I’ve seen of my client’s shuffling skills, I wouldn’t trust them to “kick out the jams” in any deck that isn’t already well-dispersed.
The seeker’s task is to concentrate silently on the question or topic while shuffling the randomized deck until they feel the urge to stop; I then direct them in performing the cut. By these actions, the cards will ideally “answer the call” of the querent’s subconscious understanding of the matter and its likely denouement, and sort themselves into a coherent narrative that creates a convincing sense of order out of chaos. I call this phenomenon “subconscious induction” in that “just the right” cards for the reading will have been induced to the top of the deck when the querent is finished with the preliminary steps.
The above is my private opinion about “how tarot works” in its most literal sense, and there is no scientific proof that this is any more valid than anyone else’s take on the subject; to me it just seems reasonable that, in Buddha’s “What we think, we become” universe, the operative principles are more likely to be psychological than mystical or Divine. Of course, I can’t confirm that the insights don’t originate in some more exalted realm of existence and then filter down to us through devious channels, impinging upon our “psychic receptors;” there are lots of names for this numinous source: the Collective Unconscious; the Akashic Record; the Astral Plane; the Mind of God; Plato’s “Soul of the World;” etc. Take your pick.
These considerations obviously apply only when observing the traditional practice of populating a spread by taking the cards from the top of the deck. They are largely irrelevant when using any other method of distribution. For example, pulling cards from a “fan” that has been presented for selection (or far worse, choosing to read only “jumpers” that fall out of the deck) negates the purpose of both randomizing and shuffling by introducing a totally arbitrary element into the draw. I’ve tried working with a “fan” and found the experience to be too disconnected from the immersive, tactile act of concentrating and shuffling, and jumpers were never a “thing” when I started out; believing that they are somehow “mystically charged” and not merely symptomatic of sloppy shuffling seems fanciful at best and delusional at worst.
As I see it, we might as well not bother with mastering either randomizing or shuffling in such haphazard circumstances since there is really no point other than what I call the “theater of tarot” that we employ mostly to impress our sitters. Beyond the feeble act of aimlessly (excuse me, intuitively) picking cards or intentionally encouraging them to “jump” out, these alternate methods don’t facilitate integration of the querent’s inner awareness of the matter in the same way that engaging the cards in a silent “communion” while shuffling will do. They seem more like chasing a phantom; there is really no there there or, to quote the old Wendy’s commercial, “no beef.”
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on June 19, 2024.
