probability

(Before I start I’d like to make clear that while I slip into some physics jargon, I’m using it as a model, I don’t believe this actually works on the same principal as a probability wave, only that it makes a good illustration for what I’m discussing.)
When I use the tarot I don’t believe I’m seeing the future, I might be, but I don’t believe in a predestined future. Reality and time are far too mutable for me to believe in a single outcome. The cards show me a probable future, generally the most probable future based on how events have transpired and have the potential to transpire. Potential does not equal predetermination; some events may not come to pass as other probable paths may be taken, especially if people involved have knowledge of what is shaping up, just as using the tarot allows. By knowing the way the probable future looks someone can begin to change it, either through an active or passive Will, making it a self-fulfilling or self-defeating prediction.
Way back as I first began working with the tarot more seriously I started to tune into this concept, and called it probability waves (with the obvious nod to quantum physics). My image of the concept was of a point in time, floating in a sea of infinite possibilities, and various internal and external influences making waves in the sea, making various outcomes more probable than others. These waves can be interfered with though, other events causing them to change or “collapse” allowing a different possibility to become the most probable, and possibly come to be. I started to find a point in readings, where I could intuit a branch, or weakness, where the current Wave could be shifted to another one, to bring about a more preferable outcome. I could see the probable future before me, and I understood where the weak point was, that with a bit of pressure could shift it best from one outcome to another.
This evolved into my Fractal Spread, in which I would map out options from a specific choice, and see what possible outcome looked the most desirable to me, and what I would have to do to achieve this. Instead of questions about what will happen, or “should I do”, I’d look at the outcomes for all my choices and make my decision based on what would arise. If the cards could reveal these Probability Waves, and I could affect them, why couldn’t I use the cards themselves to affect the Probability Waves, and begin to shape the outcomes I want in a tarot spread. This was the birth of my Probability Wave Tarot Working -which is still evolving and being refined. Now unlike a ritual with may have very clear goals, this working is more thematic. As tarot cards are open-ended and vague, you’re not necessarily creating specific events, but thematic environments for the value of the card to arise in. You can’t enchant for a specific lover (for example) but set up the situation for a lover to appear.
This working involves dealing out multiple cards, which are the most probable futures, and then turning face down the less desirable futures, in order to work against them, and attempt to “collapse” that probability wave. The model here is loosely based on the probability waves of quantum packets. That observing a phenomenon “collapses” it into reality, such as the double-slit experiment or Schrödinger’s hated absurd cat. I do the entire spread inside a Tesseract/Hypercube, because I feel that allows me to influence further than I would be able to without it, as well as it gives me a good focus and visualization for the arising and collapsing of Probability Waves. Now the actual method, the way I describe it, can take up a lot of space, so feel free to rearrange it depending on your available space, but try to keep the cards in an order you recognize.
I use the Tesseract in this ritual/working in place of a circle, though a similar idea to some models, it is something to contain, and focus the power of the working. It also works well in my head as using a four-dimensional shape helps me think of the working as being something a bit beyond and above the day-to-day world, and as the axis shifts and different faces appear I interpret that as fluxes in the probability. I’m sure other set-ups could work as long as you can link it to the model somehow. The only other container I know someone has used for this was a clock, but they focused on having one hand go forward, one backwards, and the other popping in and out of existence. Personally I feel that’s more on the timey-wimey side of things instead of probability, but if it works it works.

Create a Tesseract intersecting the surface the reading will be done on, and have it rotate on its axes, with the deck contained in the centre of the construct. If you’re unfamiliar with the shape I recommend wiki or googling for examples and explanations of a tesseract. To create it draw a point, and then mirror that point so you have two, and draw a line between them. Then mirror that line and connect the ends of both giving you a square. Mirror the square and connect all the corners giving you a cube. Lastly mirror the cube and connect all the corners of the cubes. The connections should all be the same length, and at the same angles from the cubes, yes it’s a bit brainbreaking. Take the deck, and shuffle it with your intent as you would for a reading, but rather than what you want to know about, it is what you want to influence.
Deal a single card, this represents where you are now, this is the point in time that all the Waves extend to and from, in the image this is the bottom card. Now deal five cards face down above it. These are five of the most probable outcomes from your current position. (I find five is the magic number here, four seems too limiting and six too many) I like to draw with my finger a line from the single card to each probable future, tracing the connection forward through probable timelines. Turn them over and read the faces. Doing this starts to “narrow” the possibilities down, because the state of probability is beginning to be observed. Immediately turn over the most undesirable cards, and see that Probability Wave collapse. Feel the “door” to that future being closed, and trace the line back from the facedown card to the present card, undoing the connection to the probable future. Turn all the cards save one facedown until you have the most desirable card left.
Now deal another five cards face down above them, these represent the five most probable outcomes stemming from the desired outcome below. Again trace the probability line up into them, and turn them face up, then turn face down all the undesirable outcomes, collapsing that Probability Wave, tracing that probability line back down, and then turning face down all the lesser desirable outcomes, until you have one card face up, your most desired outcome.
Continue repeating this five card process until one of two things happens, you deal out five probable outcomes that are all desirable (a very good sign), or until you have eight probable future cards (so a total of 41 cards dealt out). I know eight seems like a lot, but you’ll understand why in a minute.
Take all the face down, undesirable probabilities, and place them face down in the centre of the Tesseract, I call this the Quantum Abyss, for no real reason, but it fits my focus and intent. Place them there with the intent that it will completely collapse those Waves, and keep those outcomes from coming to be. I deal each card down one at a time, and as I do I feel it “drop out” of our reality, down a well in space-time where it can’t come to pass. Then arrange the desirable outcome cards around this. If you went until you got five desirable outcomes, try to arrange them in a rough circle around the Quantum Abyss cards. If you went until you had eight desired outcomes, arrange them around the Quantum Abyss cards in the pattern of the inner Octagram of the Tesseract (this is using a 2D projection of a 4D shape, it looks like the image to the side). Place your current situation face up over the Quantum Abyss cards, it is already occurred/occurring and it’s observed (face up) so it doesn’t fall down the Abyss but seals it instead.
Visualise the Probability Waves of these cards flowing from these eight points into the shape of the rotating Tesseract, and banish/dispel the Tesseract to release the Working, and set it into motion. For me I find that works best by expanding it until it breaks apart, and everything that it has contained flies out of the explosion.
As always this is a Working that is ever evolving, so I will occasionally do it again for the same idea a week after, to reinforce events, and take care of other probabilities that are arising. I also do this to watch how things are shaping up from it, and how to further refine the technique. I encourage people to contact me with feedback, and I encourage people to take their tarot decks, and instead of using them as passive messengers of the future, turn them into the active transformers of the future. (And hopefully this didn’t seem too random for people)