The cards aren’t always right and neither am I.

To hear me read this post, click here: audio for August 5 post

Kamala Harris has picked Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate and I think that’s great. That said, my cards were wrong. Or at least, my reading of them was. I’ve been working on learning divination with playing cards, as an addition to my tarot work, and last Thursday, I drew playing cards on each of the six contenders. Based purely on my cards (because I don’t know very much about most of these people), I concluded she would pick Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky. I was wrong. I didn’t post my prediction publicly, but I did tell my family. (In case you’re wondering: Didn’t you pull any cards on Mark Kelly or Josh Shapiro or Pete Buttigieg? Yes, of course I did. I’ll post them at the bottom of this post for those who are curious. I don’t think I drew any cards on J.B. Pritzker–I forgot about him, and there’s more of my bias for you, I didn’t take Pritzker seriously.)

In hindsight, you could argue that the cards were right, and my interpretation was wrong. For Beshear I drew (and all of these images are at the bottom of this post): Seven of Diamonds, Ace of Clubs, Six of Hearts. For Walz, later when I thought to include him (because at first I forgot he was in the running at all!), I drew: Joker, the card on the Elements playing cards that I forgot to pull out of the deck, and Nine of Diamonds. I thought the Ace was a good sign for Beshear (of a new inspirational opportunity) and I thought the Six of Hearts looked like him walking onto a stage. The Joker for Walz tricked me into not taking him too seriously. I thought, come on, he told one joke. But guess what? Words matter, and if anyone can waltz (pun intended!) onto the world stage with one word, it’s the Joker. I should have realized that, and it did give me pause, but in the end I thought, “what is this card that’s not even in the deck doing here?”
So, let’s talk about being WRONG. People often say to me, “if only I knew how to read tarot so I could know things.” But that’s NOT how it works. And if you think about it, you should realize how obvious it is that card readers are not always correct. The proof should be in the fact that if you put ten card readers in a room, and ask them what will happen with regard to any given situation, you may not get ten different answers, but you will get SOME different answers.
If you’re talking to a reputable reader, someone who is honest, they will always tell you that readers can and do make mistakes. That even the best readers are wrong sometimes. That you should never use cards as your only source of information to make decisions about something that is vitally important (but you could, to get some perspective on your situation). For example, you shouldn’t use cards to diagnose your health conditions. You shouldn’t use cards to choose investments (or lottery numbers!). And you shouldn’t use cards to decide whether or not to stay in a relationship (even though I am often asked that very question).
When I concluded that Beshear would be the pick, I did so using ONLY cards, not using my brain. And then I also didn’t take my Walz draw seriously, because two of those cards didn’t even come from regular playing card suits. I was trying to filter out my own bias (which lives in my brain). My bias comes from my own experience and education in the world, from my own values and politics, from my reading of the news, etc. But if you are making a decision, as opposed to doing a little experiment with the cards, you should ALWAYS include the input of your own brain. I hope this is obvious but I’m saying it just in case. It’s still true even though my brain is part of what tricked me here!

ALWAYS include the input of your own brain.

That doesn’t mean the cards aren’t helpful, but it does mean that a lot of us have a lot to unpack about how and why the cards are helpful, and when and where they are helpful.
As I see it, the cards potentially operate in two ways. One of these ways is to stimulate the creative side of your brain. And that’s the way in which even a person who believes the world is purely material might use cards. But your creativity isn’t always going to be right. What your creativity will usually do, though, is give you a different perspective to consider.
The other way in which I see the cards potentially operating is that they might be a way of communicating with a being who is not physically present with us. At this point, if you’re sitting there with a deck of cards and you’re asking a question, you might need to consider the precursor to your question: Who are you talking to? Are you talking to an infallible being of some kind?
So, personally, I don’t necessarily believe in the infallibility of spirit. I know a lot of you do. I’m not trying to convince you otherwise. But that’s not what I believe, because I’m an argumentative Scorpio who loves a fight and I don’t believe in any being with whom I cannot argue. Plainly, to my mind, all beings are fallible, including whoever I’m talking to in prayer or using cards or any other form of divination. Plainly, to my mind, I’m talking to a being with a perspective. To a being with positionality. If you have a position, then you don’t have all the other positions—that’s what I’m trying to make clear to you here.
Because that’s what the word position means. If you stand on one side of the room, or of the world for that matter, you simply don’t have access to all the information you would have access to if you stood somewhere else. (By the way, though this is a digression, that’s why diversity enriches us—it gives us access to more people with more positions, which means more information. That’s why it’s inherently strategically foolish that Republicans want to turn the United States into a bubble that no one can go in or out of. Okay. End of political digression.)
For those of you who see the cards as a way to communicate with your ancestors, which I often but not always do, it should be obvious (or at least it’s obvious to me) that your ancestors are not infallible. They have opinions and perspectives. I can easily see this by talking to my ancestors who are still alive. They have opinions and perspectives. Often they disagree with me. Often they are wrong. Just like me. I’m often wrong.
Anyone you talk to, including beings of spirit, is going to be wrong sometimes. At some point, we all have to learn to align ourselves with ourselves and take some responsibility for our own opinions. We have to learn to assess situations for ourselves and admit when we are wrong. And we have to accept that there is no magic “always right” resource to which we can turn. That doesn’t mean we don’t use every resource at our disposal to assess situations and draw the best conclusions we can. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use divinatory methods—I obviously think divination is absolutely helpful.
But, it was foolish for me to set aside my two degrees in political science, my own thoughtfulness about the topic, and the array of perspectives available to me from the many other people opining on this topic to form my prediction just based on playing cards. But that was my little “one data point” experiment and my one data point is that my conclusion was incorrect. Learn from my mistake and include context when you interpret cards!
I really want you to think carefully about these issues when you do divination on your own. I am thinking about teaching a class on tarot soon. When and if I do, this is my note to myself to remember to always say to students: Cards are not infallible and neither are you.
Let’s keep it humble here.
To quote S.J. Tucker (which is always a good idea): “Darling, you know better than to trust a pack of cards. What have we learned? The world is never as mad as it could be….” (from her song, “Chesire Kitten”)
Thank you for reading.

For those of you who want to see my full gallery of card draws related to these VP picks, here are a few more: