Let’s give a warm Chicks welcome to Guest Chick Lina Chern, author of tarot card mysteries PLAY THE FOOL and TRICKS OF FORTUNE. Lina is giving away a copy of PLAY THE FOOL to two lucky winners! Read on, and leave a comment before midnight April 25 to enter. May the cards fall in your favor.

Take it away, Lina!

Do Tarot Cards Work?

I get asked this question a lot. It’s an occupational hazard of writing a mystery series starring a tarot-reading amateur sleuth. The answer depends on what you’re asking.  Here’s a list of possible translations: 

Do tarot cards predict the future? 

Don’t be silly, we have perfectly good and not-at-all predatory AI-based tools for that.

Are tarot cards Satan’s playthings? 

Yes, absolutely. My dimwit of a parakeet, whom I sometimes call Satan, likes to pick them up and carry them around in his beak, so that’s a big yes.  

Are tarot cards magic? 

No. Maybe. You mean, do they have supernatural powers of their own that do not come from you, a totally normal human being with no supernatural powers? 

Is that a real question or a rhetorical question? 

No, the cards are not magic. Next question.

If they are not magic, then why do they seem to work?

‘Work?’ We’re moving in circles here. 

Why do their interpretations often seem to match life events, even when the tarot reader doesn’t know about those events?    

Oh, yeah. They do tend to do that, don’t they? I taught myself to read the cards years ago, long before I even suspected I would someday write a tarot card-related mystery. I read the guide the deck came with, I picked up a library book or two, I learned the patterns, and what I didn’t learn I made up. Invariably, the strangers I read for would have a Moment, accompanied by much surprised blinking, when they saw the familiar staring at them from the cards: Is this magic?

Was it? Where was the magic coming from? From me? It certainly didn’t feel that way. From the cards? From all of the above plus something else? 

Here’s the real answer: The magic comes from storytelling, a thing humanity rigged up to explain an existence that too often feels frighteningly inexplicable. The cards are story elements: plots, characters, situations. They seem familiar because we made them up out of necessity and have been passing them around and down through the generations ever since.

Here’s your idiot cousin Pat who can’t keep ten dollars in a checking account but will give you the shirt off his back and tries to adopt every dog he sees:

Here’s an action photo from today’s sales meeting:  

Here’s who you think is making you binge one more episode, order one more drink than you need, text them even when you know they’ve moved on: 

So, yes, of course the cards “work.” You use the tools they represent every day to explain and understand your life. It’s not magic, but it’s real. Sometimes, the familiar tossed back at you from an unfamiliar angle can feel like magic.

Go ahead, ask what you’re really thinking (this is one question I don’t mind answering over and over again):  

Is the human mind a majestic thing at once unfathomably mysterious and totally predictable?  

Yes.

Readers:

Got a “magic” moment to share, tarot card-related or not? Share your favorite stories of serendipity in the comments. A lucky two (selected by random non-magical means) will receive a signed copy of my award-winning tarot card mystery Play the Fool. If you like it, I hope you’ll check out its follow-up Tricks of Fortune.

About the Author:

Lina Chern is most recently the author of Tricks of Fortune, the follow-up to her Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning, Lefty and Anthony-nominated debut Play the Fool. Lina has also written trivia questions, word puzzles for a TV game show, paranormal romances, dialogue for your favorite comic book characters, award-winning movie reviews, and poems that have been published and read by up to dozens of people. Find her at www.linachern.com, or on Instagram at @linachernwrites.