I write a lot of random stuff on various sites. It pays. A little. One of those sites is HubPages; it’s a nice place to write, good community spirit and, now it’s recovering from a Google slap, pays out quite reasonably. My most popular article on HP at the moment is one I wrote while participating in their Apprenticeship program last year – “How to read tarot with playing cards“.
If only it were this easy!
Creative Commons License erin leigh mcconnell via Compfight
Now, I don’t regularly pick up a pack of playing cards to read tarot with… not when I have a great number of normal tarot decks to choose from, however, it seems that a great many people do. I wonder if these are tarot readers or maybe people who decide to have a bit of fortune-telling fun at a party. I’ve never met anyone who reads with playing cards in preference to tarot cards.
It’s fairly simple to transfer the structure of the minor arcana — because, of course, there are no Majors in regular cards, except the Joker (Fool) — using a simple suits+numerology system. And there is no reason why someone couldn’t give a powerful reading with a deck of playing cards.
I’d love to know if anyone regularly uses playing cards to read tarot, and if you agree that they can be just or almost as useful as ‘proper’ tarot.
I am a computer programming major in the US, and one of my absolute favorite topics is random number generators. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but any current computer is 100% incapable of generating a truly random number. Skynet will never be able to take us while we still are able to use chaos! HAH! The closest that they can get is by (small machines) using the timedate stamp to multiply by to generate one or (large, REALLY MASSIVE machines) that are attached to three different longwave radios that use the sine and cosine of the wavelengths to multiply the random number by tuning to different white noise sources, mostly in deep space.
Anyways! I wanted to ask what you thought of the concept of online tarot readings that use random number generators for seeding. I have used them quite frequently with various success rates but It’s just something I really enjoy toying around with. I am also trying to create my own in python.
Hello Laurie,
LOL! I have (mostly) no idea what you are talking about!
Online computer-generated readings? Well, they’re okay for a bit of fun but I would never rely on them for advice. I believe that the human interaction is everything. The magic happens in the synergy between seeker, reader and the cards. But, of course, if you find the concept fascinating, then it’s going to work for you. Go for it!