*Lyrics quoted are from the Dave Mason song Sad and Deep as You.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Quantum theory in modern physics holds that until an elementary quantum object is observed (by direct measurement according to mainstream scientists and in response to conscious attention in paranormal circles), it is in an “indeterminate state” and has “no definite properties.” When considered in terms of the transmission of light, quantum objects display a wave-like form until observed in motion, but once “seen” the wave collapses into a linear string of particles known as photons (in other words, it takes on real – although massless – properties as a result of detection).

I’m proposing that a similar phenomenon of ambiguity followed by scrutability occurs with the 78 cards of a tarot deck before and after the acts of concentration, shuffling and cutting in preparation for a reading. Subconscious intention aided by conscious attention aligns the cards to generate a coherent narrative.

Unlike the majority of tarot readers, I don’t believe that a querent shuffles the deck to randomize it; that should be done by the diviner before bringing it to the session, and in my own case I let it become cumulative over time. The seeker’s task is to rearrange the cards to bring just the right sequence to the top of the pack through a feat of subliminal induction.

Until that is done, the cards exist in an arbitrary state of senseless noise with no rhyme or reason to their random scatter. Proposing that they should be further dispersed by the querent’s handling makes no sense when the goal is to establish a productive communion between client and cards. How can the latter accomplish their mission if they are sent off in all directions with no organizing impulse behind their distribution?

Readers who believe they can transform such chaos into coherent meaning without breaking a sweat are not thinking it through. It is up to the diviner’s trained and experienced comprehension to distinguish the actual from the fanciful, and starting with the equivalent of a Jackson Pollock “drip-and-splash” pastiche is getting off on the wrong foot. I expect the sitter to do the “heavy lifting” of invoking their subconscious awareness of future conditions and directing it into the cards via the shuffle.

The “eyes” of the title are those of the competent prognosticator who is able to peer into the depths of a convoluted tableau and pick out the choice bits of wisdom that reveal the facts of the querent’s situation. This is an acquired skill that takes years of patient study and practice to develop. Skimming the surface via visual free-association from the pictures on the cards yields only anecdotal glimpses of a deeper current of understanding that will invariably benefit from more diligent analysis.

Tarot reading of the fortune-telling variety is a type of “seeing” that employs both clairvoyance, or remote viewing of events and circumstances at a distance, and precognition, or knowledge of future conditions. But it also involves prescience, or premonitory “feelings” that are more akin to hunches than reliable visions of reality. Thus, when applied too instinctively, divination with the cards resembles “psychism with props” that invites intuitive guesswork and is too “squishy” to be considered trustworthy in the way of lucid awareness and any actionable advice that might accrue from it. Personal bias and projection are all too likely to skew the reader’s perspective to the detriment of the querent’s enlightenment.

In a broader, more philosophical sense, prediction strives to come in contact with objective truth via the subjective act of manipulating symbolism encoded in printed images. The operative principle would seem to be the seeker’s channeling of insights from a more rarefied source of inspiration, which passes from the unconscious to the subconscious and from there to conscious expression in the cards of the reading.

The tarot speaks through the spread and the diviner translates its language into the “common tongue.” I trust a serious querent to be able to put aside wishful thinking or other preconceptions and follow my instructions to concentrate intently on the question or topic of interest while shuffling. If they take only one thing to heart from my preliminary guidance, it should be this.