As for the peer review —- after the replication crisis of psychology, I don’t put too much value in scientific process in that or related fields. When we live in scientific ”wild west”, one has to try to find the truth oneself, being both open-minded and critical. That is why I tried Tarot when a friend suggested it, and then learned what I wrote above. And I was very critical of the whole idea of Tarot, because I believed like most people do that it is just completely made up magical thinking. What I learned is not something I have read anywhere or been told by somebody. It is hard-earned piece of information.

> after the replication crisis of psychology, I don’t put too much value in scientific process in that or related fields

I thought I had preempted this in my comment: whatever criticism of psychology and therapy there is, it applies tenfold to fringe stuff like Tarot.

There may be a crisis of replication in psychology, but there is simply no replication or oversight or peer review at all with Tarot and occultism in general.

This is what strikes me as very odd about people's beliefs in occult and fringe stuff: their standards of proof are completely imbalanced against science. "Nobody has proof vaccines work", "doctors are spreading falsehoods", etc, and yet -- "the friend of my cousin is a Tarot reader, you wouldn't believe how accurate he is!". Say what? What happened with the skepticism about medicine and science, did it fly out the window the minute a psychic friend of my aunt's grocer said I should try Bach's Flowers?

I think your comment about ”trading with the occult” below is related to the point you make here: people appear to have different level of skepticism toward ”science” and ”occult”.

I don’t want to go too much on a tangent here, but in my experience, it is about trust.

People have lost their trust that in multiple fields the scientific process works as it should, and by association, they have lost their general trust in ”The Science” as well.

This is because scientific community as a whole has failed to come up with measures proportional to the problems. I think this lack of trust makes sense, although it probably is based on emotional reaction for most people, rather than rational thinking.

Trust is in short supply nowadays, so people grasp even the little trust they see. And that is more likely to be their neighbor.

This may make you angry, but the science needs to earn the trust again if we want have the level of trust to be like it used to be.

(Again, thanks for the honest and measured reply)

My problem with what you are arguing has multiple sides.

First, science brought us here. The people mistrusting it are using computers, tech, medicine and are possibly alive (or their ancestors were, anyway) thanks to scientific or protoscientific advances. So their skepticism is demonstrably misplaced. And what exactly are they skeptical about, anyway? "Big Pharma"? Well, that's conflating science with business -- and while there might not be such a thing as "Big Tarot" (plenty of scammers though, in the sense of preying on the weak), there's even less oversight for Tarot, so every problem you can spot with scientific endeavors is manifested tenfold with fringe practices!

There. Are. No. Standards. And. No. Oversight. For. Fringe. Practices.

That's what kills me.

What about "regaining" trust? I don't think that's at all possible given the unequal battle between science and baloney. It takes basically nothing to make magical claims. There are no experiments, no standards, no testable assertions, it only takes some charlatan claiming the Third Moon of Jupiter or the Death card means that some stranger in your future yadda yadda. But science is built on an edifice of failures and tribulations, I can even talk about the "replication crisis" of science and that alone will tell you there's oversight!

I guess that's it: science can speak about its failures; charlatans will eventually be shunned by their peers. With Tarot, palm reading, etc, they never speak about failures, there's no oversight and nobody gets shunned because they are all charlatans.

How can science "fight" against that to "win" public trust, when science by its own method MUST (eventually) admit its mistakes, whereas Tarot will not, ever?

No charlatan successfully won the Amazing Randi's (R.I.P.) bet. No Tarot reader either. The other person in this conversation making claims you can influence which cards get drawn by asking a question -- that would have won a tidy sum if demonstrated to Randi, how come it never happened? Shouldn't that demolish any of their fringe claims, or do people "mistrust" Randi as well?

Science may have brought us here, but that is part of the problem. That was the science of that time. That is not the same science we have today.

I think it is analogous to a some high quality product brand name that has started selling some pure crap under the same brand name, while still also selling quality products.

When people trust the brand name, they believe it guarantees the quality. For me, the "product strategy" of selling crap under the quality brand name is form of lying. These people are both selling crap and lying about the quality. To me that is worse than just selling crap and not lying about it. And if you buy one crap product, you will lose the trust to the whole brand name very quickly, as has happened with "the science".

I see Tarot etc. are more like hand-made products on some stereotypical African market. Nobody guarantees anything. Many people try to cheat you. But you might also find good quality products from one seller. Perhaps later you find out the quiet guy who produced these solid products, one who has craftmanship. And little by little you start trusting him as you see what he has done. To me that might produce more healthy attitude than blind trust in a market that is incentiviced to produce crap.

The etymology section on Occult Wikipedia page says 'as opposed to "knowledge of the measurable", usually referred to as science.' I think one needs to be very clear about this distinction. Randi's "trick" was to imply that everything is measurable. But not everything is measurable. Quality, for instance, ultimately cannot be measured. Quality can be experienced, and most people can agree on quality when they see it. But still, nobody can define objective measures about quality.

I don't buy it.

The people Randi challenged were goalpost movers. They claimed pretty wild things until challenged, in which case they didn't like it and didn't accept the challenge, or argued they didn't really claim what they had claimed (often on record).

He merely asked them to demonstrate the powers they claimed they had when duping people. Is that "measuring"? Why, if you claim you can move a spoon with your mind, or read other people's minds, or that you can predict the order of Tarot cards, is it unfair to ask you to demonstrate in an environment not controlled by your confederates? Is that "measuring"?

I think Randi was right, and Tarot is a swindle.

Scammers and swindlers attacked Randi as a person when they really should have put their... um, powers where their mouth was and shut Randi up by demonstrating what they claimed. A neat prize awaited them! Of course, no-one ever claimed that prize because it's all bullshit.

> But still, nobody can define objective measures about quality.

This isn't true, there are tons of metrics about quality. In software it can be fewer that N bugs per M lines of code, or whatever. For knives it could be sharpness and lack of brittleness (measured). For airplane models it could be fewer than N crashes per decade or whatever.

More importantly, fringe pseudoscientists made actual measurable claims and only backed out when Randi warned them he would monitor the demonstration and bar any confederates from messing with it! So there's no "trick" except that of those refusing those very fair conditions.

Good that you are not buying, because I am not selling.

I am sure Randi exposed lots of charlatans, and my point is not to defend them. There are certainly lots of charlatans in those fields. There are charlatans everywhere, even in science.

My point was that no sensible person would take on Randi's offer, because ultimately you need to claim that something that cannot be measured can be measured. And that is not possible, because not everything can be measured. And those things that can be measured, would not be "paranormal" by Randi's standards.

I never said that there are no measurements for certain aspects of quality. If you care to look, you can see measurements even for certain aspects of things Randi would call paranormal. For example, there have been found measurable neurological changes in people who engage in certain kinds of meditation for extended periods.

But those aspects are consequences of the thing, they are not the thing itself. I don't see it very useful to argue about this. If you do not see that there are things that cannot be measured, we will not get much further in this discussion. And we we are already way too much on a tangent here anyway. Thanks for the discussion.

Just to make sure, I am not the same person you originally commented.

I just wanted to add my 2 cents and tell that Tarot can be something else than what people typically think it is.

It is not scientific and I am not claiming it is. But I think science in these fields is not scientific either —- that is what the replication crisis implies.

However I find interesting that your preconception of Tarot seems so strong that you believe I have somehow taken something a friend suggested at face value. Nothing I wrote suggests that.

Tarot cards do not have to be scientific to be useful. Would you be against Brian Eno creativity cards that just give you a suggestions on what to think, such as ”What to increase? What to reduce?”

Hopefully we can both agree that such cards can be useful when stuck with a problem and you need to invent new ideas. Do you need scientific proof of them once you see that it obviously works? Tarot cards can be used in very similar manner.

Yes, I can certainly agree that Tarot cards in the sense you mean -- the same sense as jogging, taking a shower or doodling on a piece of paper -- can help one's mind become unstuck on a problem.

But how many Tarot readers are going to agree with your interpretation? You know they trade on the occult.

In my experience it can potentially help you unstuck a little bit better than jogging for two reasons. As you are approaching the question you are interested in systematically from multiple directions, it gives you more perspectives. Also, the symbolism in the cards appear to be efficient in encouraging new ways of thinking. That was Jung’s idea as well: the symbolism is closely related to certain deep patterns of our thinking, and that in itself is helpful.

You are asking how many people use the Tarot cards in this manner. Firstly, the number is non-zero because I am doing it, and I know others who do it. Secondly, as I do not believe the cards are magical, I believe everybody who is getting some meaningful results are using the Tarot cards in this way, even if they are not conscious about it.

I think the question you really want to ask is that how many people believe the carda have some supernatural powers. I don’t really know, but I would suspect that most people using them. This is partly because the reputation they have, and strong opposition to the cards just increases this reputation.

You ask whether people understand that they are ”trading with the occult”. I do not understand what you are asking. It appears that you so mot believe in the supernatural. If you did, I would get the impression that you think anything occult is really bad (i.e. from the devil) and god-fearing people should avoid it. But if one does not believe in the supernatural, then ”occult” is just a word.

Yes, I understand you don't believe the cards are magical. Everything you've said so far points to you taking them as some sort of psychotherapy, a way of introspecting with the help of some external tools. I think it's exactly like doodling on a piece of paper, but I'm ok if you disagree.

I think most people and almost every Tarot reader -- regardless of what they privately believe -- is going to "sell" you Tarot in one of two ways:

1. "oh, it's just a game! Don't take it seriously! Though the cards sometimes speak the truth... for example, my cousin one day was told that [anecdote]" <-- this take irritates me because it's the most dishonest. Be brave and take a stand! Either you believe there's something going on or you don't, don't cowardly hedge your bets.

2. "The cards are magical, there's a system to them, they channel the energies of [explanation]" <-- I bet most people believe this, or in the case of Tarot readers, claim to believe it for the sake of their customers. And it's bs.

No-one really claims "this is just therapy to get you unstuck, you could just as well doodle with a pencil, but let's use these expensive cards/sessions instead". Well, you are sort of claiming it here, but most people don't. I've never met a Tarot... uh, "fan", who claimed this, for example.

> But if one does not believe in the supernatural, then ”occult” is just a word

Sorry, I didn't address this. Of course I don't believe in the supernatural or the devil, so my reaction against this is not from a "God fearing" perspective.

I mean "the occult" as in "fringe practices that claim to use the supernatural, spirit world, etc." and I object to it because it's fraudulent and harmful magical thinking. I'm not worried about the "spirit world" itself, because it doesn't exist; I'm just worried about the bullshit.

"Occult" is indeed just a word that means "hidden", but its actual usage has implications.

I have never participated in Tarot in professional setting so I cannot answer why others do it. I probably would not do it if I had to pay somebody for it.

I have done psychotheraphy though and it was not very useful beyond having somebody listen to you attentively.

In my very limited experience Tarot was more useful and cheaper — hence poor man’s psychotheraphy.