Yes I agree. I don't believe tarot is in any way real or powerful or magic or anything supernatural, metaphysical etc. But I DO think that it serves as essentially a randomized nudge generator to your subconscious, and it's particularly good at it because the imagery and symbolism is so rich and exciting that it drags up a lot of things from your mind. It's a good way to prompt yourself to look at things a little differently. Not magic, just psychology. But very fun
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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Unpopular Opinion
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Yeah I've always seen it as a form of self-reflection. A simplistic example would be: "flip a coin to choose, but instead of choosing based on the coin outcome, choose based on how you felt when the coin was in the air". Did you really hope it would be heads? Tails? Or did you not care about the outcome at all?
No matter your response, you now have more information about your feelings. You can then dig into the "why" of your feelings after acknowledging them.
Using magical terminology to explain psychology or technology to people is surprisingly effective. =S
Tarot is only a little less modern than comic books. While there are superstitions prognostication techniques from antiquity, tarot isn't one of them. Playing cards were invented first, then a parlor game of making predictions based on playing cards appeared, and only then was the tarot deck authored.
It is a neat artistic form, however. And a fairly rich public-domain mythos whose use in games or literature will offend virtually nobody.
At its worst, it's the moral equivalent of a magic 8 ball.
An eco friendly Human-curated prediction model!
It's like looking at clouds. If it sparks an idea, the idea was already there.
Like when House, MD sees a one legged Dutch tuba player and that makes him realize what's killing the patient.
Have you looked into solo TTRPGs at all? A lot of them use tarot cards to guide you. Could be a fun way to interact with them and do that thought stuff without feeling guilty or whatever you're feeling for enjoying the process.
That sounds interesting, can you recommend some solo TTRPGs?
I've not personally played any. I just know they're a thing. The two that have caught my eye in the past though:
It's very much ok to dabble into stuff like this and astrology (numerology, minerology, etc), weather or not if you truely believe it.
Hell I don't really care if your really belive in stuff like this. as long as you don't bother other people with it.
I would find it a bit silly if you built your entire pesonality around a particular fad, and I probably would shun you over it, but again, if you don't insist on bothering me with it it's fine.
But drawing three at the end of the day and seeing how I’ll interpret them has been very meditative and actually kind of a good way to figure out the things that weigh on my mind without realizing.
Whatever tools work.
I often think that, sometimes, any (voluntary) structure is better than none.
If you'd like a framework to think about magic(k) in terms that are compatible with scienc(k)e, I recommend the information paradigm laid out in Postmodern Magic. If you find it useful, Dunn later wrote a book on Tarot.
As long as you're "using it responsibly", and not to justify poor choices, I think it's fine.
There's a story behind this I won't bother telling.
I once read that horoscope personalities are as accurate as personality tests (like Meyers Briggs). And I think of tarot in this same way. So I say go for it. Enjoy it. And if it's working for you, feel free to use it to make major business decisions (at least as good as many business leader out there 😉).
I don't think this is an unpopular opinion.