AUTHOR’S NOTE: In the Monty Python sketch Interesting People, in which Michael Palin as the master-of ceremonies interviews a stream of curious characters, Graham Chapman arrives carrying a live cat. Palin asks Chapman what the cat does that is interesting. Chapman replies “She flies across the stage and lands it that bucket” (conveniently placed at the far end of the set). Incredulous, Palin protests “What? By herself?” In a peeved Cockney accent, Chapman shouts “Naaao, Oi flings ‘er!” after which he proceeds to swing the (stuffed substitute) cat by the tail and hurl it across the stage.

The purpose of this digression will become clear in a moment. What brought me to it was the fervent but probably futile hope that the “pop-tarot” world will get over its fascination with so-called “jumping” cards that leap out of the deck while shuffling. I recently came across yet another online question (an almost daily occurrence) that implied a conscious motive on the part of a “jumper” that flew at the inquirer’s face as if bearing an important message. That, in fact, is the premise behind the whole fanciful notion, as well as the “sentient deck” assumption that underlies the “tarot-cards-have-personalities” delusion.

If tarot cards could truly throw themselves at us, they wouldn’t wait to be agitated by the shuffle; they would attack us like the “killer cars” in that other old Monty Python cartoon. They are completely inert pieces of cardboard that only our clumsy handling gives the impression of projectile intent. We could say that, like Graham Chapman, we “flings” the cards at ourselves, so if there is a message in them it isn’t coming directly from the Universe, we are initiating it subconsciously and the cards are just the delivery system. Mainly they’re telling us to pay more attention to what we’re doing.

Personally, I think the whole thing is nonsense. If the cards have something to say, it will come out plainly in the pull. Any that fall out of the deck onto the table or floor do so because of sloppy shuffling, nothing more. There are no mystical or magical insights hidden in this, no enlightening serendipity, it is a purely mechanical malfunction. When I was learning tarot in the early ’70s, it wasn’t even mentioned (nor, for that matter were “clarifiers” or “base/shadow” cards).

Somewhere along the line a tarot writer with an overactive imagination decided that these incidental considerations are significant. For me it couldn’t be more straightforward: I concentrate; I shuffle; I cut; I deal; I read the cards on the table. If I’m careless and a card falls out, it goes back in the deck and the shuffle continues. There is no mystery and precious little trendy romanticism to be found in these actions. Until the actual interpretation begins, the reader is a technician, not a mystic, and there is no reason to honor such an inadvertent (and inept) “slip-of-the-digits.”