Chat GPTarot
“Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work.”
-William Arthur Ward
I’m not a superstitious person but I dated a witchy girl for a while and picked up a set of tarot cards as a result.
I use them both as a party trick/conversation starter but I also think they are a fun tool for self-reflection. The way I see it doesn’t really matter what cards you draw because whatever comes up will prompt your mind to bring up whatever is just under the surface because you went into the exercise looking for meaning. And not to get too philosophical about it, but you could argue that all meaning is manufactured.
Anyway, I have the Osho Zen Tarot deck. I’m not an expert by any means but liked this one because it’s got a wide variety of themes to reflect on.
One fun aspect that I like about these readings is the need to ask a specific question and to physically touch/cut the cards. I guess the intuition there is that by interacting with the deck you’re entangling the outcome of the draw with your wave-function.
Another fun fact There are 79 factorial possible configurations of the deck, but only around 47K unique configurations of 3 card draws (if you account for their ordering, past, present, and future).
These were the three cards I drew when I asked the deck how my 2024 would look.
Fun fact, Chat GPT can actually do Tarot card readings if you just upload the picture. Pretty wild, a lot of psychics are going to go out of business. I guess if you think about it, what Chat GPT is doing basically is magic. To quote Arthur C. Clarke:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
Read from left to right, those cards represent the past, present, and future. Here’s what it came up with for the reading:
Past: The Dream
- General Meaning: This card represents the realm of dreams and the unconscious. It’s about exploring the depths of your imagination and confronting the myriad possibilities that exist in your mind’s eye. It’s a card of potential, but also of illusion, reminding you to ground your dreams in reality.
- Advice: Take time to explore your dreams and aspirations, but also be discerning about what’s practically achievable. This card might also suggest that you’re facing a situation that’s not entirely as it seems, so it’s important to look beyond fantasies and face the truth of your circumstances.
- Deeper Insight: Dreams can be a source of inspiration, but they can also distract you from your path if they remain unanchored to reality. Reflect on your current dreams — do they align with your true path, or are they a form of escapism?
Present: Receptivity
- General Meaning: This card embodies the qualities of openness, empathy, and intuition. It speaks to a need to be open to experiences and emotions, both yours and those of people around you. It suggests a time when you’re particularly attuned to the nuances of emotional communication.
- Advice: Embrace your empathic abilities and listen to your intuition. This is a time for you to receive, to be a vessel for understanding, compassion, and connection. Be open to the messages of your heart and the universe.
- Deeper Insight: Receptivity is about more than just passive acceptance — it’s an active engagement with the world around you. By being receptive, you’re able to truly listen and understand, which can lead to deeper connections and more meaningful interactions.
Future: Participation
- General Meaning: This card signifies active engagement and participation in life. It’s about being part of something larger than yourself, such as a community or group project. It emphasizes the joy and fulfillment that comes from working together towards a common goal.
- Advice: Find ways to get involved with others, whether it’s through community service, collaborative projects, or social events. Your contributions are valuable and can lead to a sense of belonging and accomplishment.
- Deeper Insight: Participation isn’t just about doing your part; it’s about merging your energies with others to create something beautiful and harmonious. It’s a reminder that collective efforts can often lead to greater results than going it alone.
Together, these cards suggest a narrative of dreaming and aspiration (The Dream), guided by emotional and intuitive receptivity (Receptivity), leading to a communal or collective achievement (Participation). This could pertain to a creative project, a community endeavor, or any area of life where your dreams, emotions, and collaborative spirit play a significant role.
Chat GPT does a good job of replacing the instruction manual that describes each of the cards. It’s easier to upload an image rather than look up the meaning of each card in a read.
But unlike your typical human psychic, Chat GPT didn’t do any cold-reading on me beforehand to personalize its responses, so it misses some of the fun context that you otherwise need to provide in the prompt.
The first interesting thing is that I recently started to keep a dream journal by my bed to document the dreams I’ve been having. I think it’s made it easier to remember dreams now and I can go back and look for themes in them. I think car accidents for whatever reason have been a fear of mine lately.
Here’s what it said when I asked it about that coincidence:
It’s indeed quite intriguing when the tarot seems to align closely with personal experiences or actions you’ve taken, like starting a dream journal. While some may view this as a coincidence, others might see it as synchronicity — a concept introduced by the psychologist Carl Jung, which suggests that events are “meaningful coincidences” if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related.
Keeping a dream journal is a practice of self-reflection and introspection, and drawing “The Dream” as the first card could be seen as a reflection of your current engagement with your subconscious. Whether you view it as a simple coincidence or something more significant, it’s certainly an interesting connection and perhaps a sign that you’re on the right path with your efforts to explore and document your dream world. This could be a cue from the tarot that you should continue to pay attention to your dreams and what they might be telling you about your waking life.
But the second coincidence that stood out to me was about the last card: participation.
Something I have been telling people lately is that I want to use the content I create to connect with people and build community. I want my content to be participatory so that people can help me by being in the videos, bouncing ideas off them, asking them questions, telling their stories, doing activities together, etc. So it was serendipitous that the card appeared in my future. Here’s what Chat GPT said about this:
The “Participation” card from the Osho Zen Tarot deck is typically rich with symbolism that encourages engagement, collaboration, and community building. If the card is depicted with a motif of interwoven designs or interconnected figures, it often symbolizes the interconnectedness of all things and the beauty of working in harmony with others.
In the context of your intention to create videos that foster participation and community, this card could be seen as a very affirming message. Here are some potential interpretations of this card in relation to your goal:
Interconnection: The imagery might show different elements coming together to form a whole, reflecting the idea that each individual contribution is valuable and that together, they create something greater. This can be a powerful reminder of the strength and creativity that comes from collaboration.
Active Engagement: The “Participation” card may depict action and involvement, highlighting the importance of not just being a passive observer in life but rather an active participant. This aligns with your idea of making interactive videos where the audience can engage and contribute.
Harmony and Balance: The visuals may emphasize a sense of balance and symmetry, suggesting that when people come together in a spirit of cooperation, there is a natural harmony that emerges. This can be likened to the dynamic of a community where everyone plays a part in maintaining the balance.
Creativity and Contribution: The card might show a creative process that involves various parties, akin to your concept of community-driven video content. It suggests that the act of creating with others is not only fulfilling but also brings out the best in everyone involved.
Fulfillment from Sharing: There may be elements in the card’s imagery that symbolize joy and fulfillment arising from sharing experiences and accomplishments with others. This aligns with the sense of community you hope to build through your videos, where the collective participation is the source of enjoyment and success.
The appearance of the “Participation” card in your reading could be interpreted as a strong signal that your inclination towards creating participatory videos is in sync with the energies around you. It seems to affirm your desire to connect with others and create a space for shared creativity and interaction. This card’s message is to trust in the collaborative process and recognize that your individual talents, combined with the contributions of others, can lead to a powerful and positive collective experience.
To bring this all full circle back to the quote by William Arthur Ward at the beginning of this post, there were times last year when I was feeling like a spectator in my own life. I realized that I was often holding myself back from doing what I truly wanted to do and being who I wanted to be. I think this became most apparent at Burning Man, probably because of how overwhelming that experience was to take in at first.
But when I looked back at my year through the lens of my 2023 recap video I understood that it’s not quite that black and white. There were times when I was full of intention, fully living in the moment and a state of flow. Then there were others when I was feeling anxious, lost, and confused. And while having good habits and practices could skew things towards a better state of mind these swings could still happen within weeks, days, or even hours.
The point is that we do have at least some control over our narratives, and the degree of control depends on our ability to self-reflect. I’m constantly looking for new use cases for Chat GPT and I thought this was a fun one to share.
And as much as I hate to promote magical thinking (or not, I’m not even sure about where I stand at this point), I do have to say that this interpretation is pretty accurate for where I want to take my content and direct my efforts in 2024:
To build community through participation.
