Last Thursday Sam and I got a 20 minutes tarot reading session. The practitioner, Jeff, is a round face young man. Although it was quite expensive, $190 for a session, we still thought it was worth.

Tarot is a deck of 78 cards originated in Northern Italy 500 years ago. The cards contain various symbols deeply rooted in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, many relate to myths or legends. It is a tool of divination and is believed to reveal the hidden reality or psychological thoughts. People always associate tarot with magic, gypsies, spell or witchcraft. As the idea of 'New Age' is growing rapidly in the recent decades, more and more people believe tarot is a effective tool for guidance.

I always have great interest to study the 'supernatual' stuff. Remember that my most favourite course in Anthopology is 'Magic, Myth and Supernatural'. Divination is one of the topics in this course, anthropologists could not prove whether tarot or other fortune telling are 'true', but we assume that they make sense in cultures and fulfill human's psychological needs.

We were excited while having the tarot reading but kept reminding ourselves with skeptical attitude. You know, being market researchers, we should be rational to everything we see and hear. After we had asked questions, Jeff drew out several cards and made interpretation. His interpretation was greatly influenced by the depth of question we provided. For example, Sam asked him several specific questions, he could guess her current situation accurately and then provided her some guidance. However, the questions I asked were very vague, then his interpretation was not that satisfactory. That is why I commented that tarot reader is like psychiatrist, he/she helps you to unwind your inner struggle, and through rationalising the interpretation, you could find your direction in the cloudly situation.

It was a very amazing experience, and I will encourage my friends to have a shot of it. I do not think people who believe tarot reading is superstitious, as long as they do not totally depend on it to make any single decision.