Someone in a witchy group recently shared that they had asked ChatGPT to interpret a tarot spread they’d done a few months ago. When the model offered to pull follow-up cards, they agreed—curious to see what would happen. And what came through seemed eerily aligned with the original spread and the situation at hand.
Their question to the group that followed: What are the odds? Was it just smart context-matching from ChatGPT, or had the universe somehow spoken through the machine?
Seeing as there seems to be an influx of generative AI type questions, I offered my understanding of large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT.
Technically speaking, ChatGPT doesn’t “pull” a card in the same way a human does. It’s not using a true random number generator. There’s no shuffling. No physical deck. No pause to listen inward before a card is drawn. Instead, the model draws on language patterns and context; it generates a card that makes sense based on what you’ve said, what it has been trained to know about tarot, and how the symbols might connect.
So, from a statistical perspective, the odds aren’t mysterious at all. The model is optimized to give you something that feels right. That’s what it does. Pattern recognition, symbolic coherence, linguistic mirroring. Not magic, just math.
Someone unearthed a deeper question, in response to what I shared (similar to above) about ChatGPT’s response. In a way that was curious and open-minded, they asked me:
But we put faith in the power of the card being relevant as a tool to communicate the information, couldn’t the universe speak through GPT the way it does the cards?
I offered the following (expanded upon here):
Personally, I trust my intuition, inner knowing, and sovereign power first. I don’t believe the cards are magical on their own. They’re mirrors. They help me see what’s already there beneath the surface, but what I’m perhaps too close to, or what I’m scared to admit, or what I forgot I knew.
That moment of resonance, that deep-body yes, the shiver, the feeling of “this means something”… that’s not in the card… that’s in me.
So when someone feels a moment like that with ChatGPT, I won’t rush to dismiss it. I may rush to make sure they understand LLMs, how they work, their impact, etc. But if something clicked, if something truly stirred, then it was meaningful. It’s valid. The delivery method might be synthetic, but the impact? Real. Also acknowledging that the original cards this person pulled were done by themself, and entered into ChatGPT for interpretation. So it’s likely that the person already had some resonance with whatever message was being brought forth from this set of cards.
Still, I hold caution here. Because sometimes, the search for meaning becomes compulsive. When that spark of resonance isn’t organic, and when we’re scanning everything for signs, it can start to be like spiritual hypervigilance. Meaning-making for the sake of it. And that’s not only exhausting, but you can start to lose touch with the tried and true intuition signal.
There’s also something about the texture of the experience that matters to me. When I pull cards by hand, I feel it in my body. The pause before I flip one over. The subtle knowing of when to stop shuffling. That’s a form of communication I trust. It doesn’t translate when I’m typing into a machine that’s feeding me something based on probability.
To me, letting a language model pull cards feels like using a pre-curated subset of a deck, or a mish-mash of partial decks. There’s no room for true interruption, surprise, or emergence. It’s like manufactured synchronicity—designed to feel magical, without the messiness or mystery.
That’s not to say meaning can’t come from it. It just doesn’t resonate with how I relate to the unknown. I don’t want a machine to tell me what fits. I want to discover that for myself.
So, can the universe speak through ChatGPT?
Maybe. Maybe not.
I think the better question is: What moved in you? Did it open something? Did it land in your chest like a truth you weren’t ready for? Or was it just… clever?
Meaning is allowed to emerge from strange places. I won’t gatekeep that.
But I will say: the more connected I am to my own intuitive compass, the less I rely on mirrors that have no soul.