The Sceptic's Tarot

Creativity researchers seem to have a lot of fun in the laboratory. Not only have they found a good mood makes you more creative, but they have also explored other entertaining stuff. Remember, your tarot reading can likely benefit from increased creativity. Let's have a look.

Creativity on tap

If you want to be more creative, get slightly drunk. No, really! Researchers gave 20 people cranberry juice with vodka until they were drunk enough to lose their inhibitions and reasoning abilities, but not drunk enough to stagger around. If your logical, step-by-step approach is down, your associational mind can leap from one thought to another, making crazy associations and wandering all over the place. That's creativity!

Having a glass of wine while doing a tarot reading could be fun! It may just be enough to nudge your understanding of a card and make connections between cards, and between cards and your problem.

Jarosz, Andrew F., Colflesh, Gregory J.H., and Wiley, Jennifer (2012). Uncorking the muse: Alcohol intoxication facilitates creative problem solving. Consciousness and Cognition 21(1), March 2012. 487-493.

Be sarcastic

This is your chance to say all those things you're usually too polite to say! But not only does sarcasm make you more creative, it also works when someone is being sarcastic to you. It can even enhance the creativity of someone who merely overhears the remark.

With sarcasm, there is a discrepancy between what is said, and what is meant. This discrepancy creates a psychological distance between the literal meaning and what the speaker actually meant (the opposite!). "Thank you for working so hard!" can be interpreted literally, but if someone said that to you in a sarcastic tone, you will know what is said is not what is meant. Creating the sarcastic remark requires creativity from the speaker, while inferring the intended meaning requires creativity from the intended victim and even someone who overhears the remark.

But I'm not suggesting being sarcastic with the querent ...! You may be sarcastic with yourself. Actually, I have found time and again that the cards can get pretty snarky with me. Especially when I don't want to understand or make the right connections. Even a sceptic can sometimes experience the cards "talking" to them!

Miron-Spektor, E., Efrat-Treister, D., Rafaeli, A., & Schwarz-Cohen, O. (2011). Others’ anger makes people work harder not smarter: The effect of observing anger and sarcasm on creative and analytic thinking. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(5), 1065–1075.

Sing a happy song

Happy songs make us more creative. Researchers found that people who listened to happy music came up with the most innovative and valuable solutions to creative tasks.

For a tarot reading, happy classical music such as Vivaldi's The Four Seasons (Spring) or Beethoven's Ninth Symphony fourth movement (commonly known as the Ode to Joy) may be a little too jolly. Try slow, relaxing music such as Brian Eno's ambient music or Debussy's Clair de lune. Relaxing music will calm you and make you receptive to messages from your subconscious or a higher power.

Ritter, S.M. (2017). Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking. PLos ONE, 12(9). e0182210.

Move!

Exercise can boost your mood and make you feel happier (and thus more creative), but researchers found that it can also make you more creative regardless of your mood.

Another study found that children playing aerobic games (running, climbing and so on) for 45 minutes or longer were more creative in several measures of creativity than children who did not take part.

Walking, in particular, makes you more creative. Researchers found that during a walk and immediately after that, 81% of study participants scored higher on a measure of creativity than when standing still. They suggest that walking "opens up the free flow of ideas."

Inspiration might strike while you're taking a walk before your tarot reading, or even in the middle of one if you're stuck. If you're not in a particularly good mood (we often do tarot readings when hurt or upset). a walk would soothe you enough to be honest with yourself and do a deep, meaningful reading.

Oppezzo, M., & Schwartz, D.L. (2014). Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(4). 1142-1152.

Roman, P.A.L., Vallejo, A.P., & Aguayo, B.B. (2018, September 18). Acute aerobic exercise enhances students' creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 30(3). DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2018.1488198.

Steinberg, H., Sykes, E. A., Moss, T., Lowery, S., LeBoutillier, N., & Dewey, A. (1997). Exercise enhances creativity independently of mood. Journal of Sports Medicine, 31, 240–245.

Coffee lovers!

Coffee makes you significantly more creative but only affects your so-called 'left-brain' problem-solving abilities. 'Right-brain' abilities, such as intuition and divergent thinking (thinking up many options and ideas), are not affected.

Although focusing on 'right-brain' abilities may make more sense for a tarot reading, you need your analytical mind to focus on the problem and choose among various options your 'right brain' has come up with.

Zabelina, D.L. & Silvia, P.J. (2020, March). Percolating ideas: The effects of caffeine on creative thinking and problem solving. Consciousness and Cognition, 79. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.102899. The full article is available for purchase at this link.

Put the kettle on!

Try tea if you want to work on those 'right-brain' abilities. Tea puts you in such a good mood that you feel (and are) more creative. In one study, people who drank tea 10 minutes before the test suggested more, and more creative ideas than those who drank water.

If you're a tea drinker, you know that tea can make you feel calm and relaxed, especially teas such as chamomile and green tea. This will help you focus better during a tarot reading and make the reading enjoyable and meaningful. Making and drinking the tea can be a meditative practice, helping you to centre yourself before a reading.

Huang, Y., Choe, Y., Lee, S., Wang, E., Wu, Y., & Wang, L. (2018). Drinking tea improves the performance of divergent creativity. Food Quality and Preference, 66, 29–35.

Close your eyes ...

Do you close your eyes when you're thinking? You should! Simply closing your eyes can make you more creative.

One study found that closing your eyes makes you more creative on various creativity tasks, while another showed participants came up with more and more varied ideas when they closed their eyes.

If a card doesn't make sense, try closing your eyes.

Ritter, S.M., Abbing, J., & Van Schie, H.T. (2018, July 31). Eye-closure enhances creative performance on divergent and convergent creativity tasks. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1315. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01315. eCollection 2018.

Yonemitsu, F., Sasaki, K., Gobara, A., Kosugi, K., & Yamada, Y. (2018, July 3). "Close, and ye shall find": Eye closure during thinking enhances creativity. Palgrave Communications, 4, 80. DOI: 10.1057/s41599-018-0138-0.

... lie down ...

When you lie down you're more creative than standing. People solved anagrams must faster when they were lying down than standing up.

When you lie down, a part of your brain called the locus coeruleus might be less active compared to when you’re standing. This difference is due to changes in how your body senses blood pressure. Research shows that this brain activity can make it harder to solve word puzzles, so lying down is a good idea.

It might help you to lie down if you get stuck on a card!

Lipnicki, D. M., & Byrne, D. G. (2005). Thinking on your back: Solving anagrams faster when supine than when standing. Cognitive Brain Research, 24(3), 719–722.

... and sleep

Taking a nap, in contrast to just resting, can make you more creative.

So can having a good night's sleep. The researchers suggest that switching between REM and non-REM sleep during the night helps build and reorganize complex knowledge, which in turn enhances creative thinking.

And here's an interesting one: A study found that changing how we process information during sleep can help with problem-solving. When people heard a sound related to unsolved problems while they slept, they solved about 32% of those problems the next day, compared to about 21% of problems without the sound. This shows a 55% improvement.

Sometimes when a tarot reading baffles you or makes you upset, taking an 'incubation' break may be a good idea. When you feel refreshed a tough reading may suddenly make sense.

Carlsson, I., Davidson, P., & Ors, M. (2019, Jun 23). Effects of a daytime nap on primed and repeated remote associates tests and relations with divergent creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 31(2). DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2019.1606619.

Lewis, P.A., Knoblich, G., & Poe, G. (2018, June 1). How memory replay in sleep boosts creative problem-solving. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(6), 491-503. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2018.03.009.

Sanders, K.E.G., Osburn, S., & Paller, K.A. (2019, October 11). Targeted memory reactivation during sleep improves next-day problem solving. Psychological Science, 30(11), 1616-1624. DOI: 10.1177/0956797619873344.

And so ...

And there you have it! Maybe you should try a tarot reading when you're slightly drunk and running madly down the road. Or maybe you should just sleep on it.

If you like this post, please share it or follow me on Facebook or Twitter (X).