The Tarot has long been considered “woo-woo” or “magic” but it might also be a perfect example of the quantum concept of collapse.
Wave function collapse—known as the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’, was discovered by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, and is the proposal that all outcomes of a situation exist simultaneously—also called “superposition”—until an observer takes action by observing, which then collapses the possibilities into one state or another.
In 1935, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger created a thought experiment where he proposed placing a cat in a box with poison and a random process that might or might not release the poison, supposing that the cat would theoretically be both alive and dead at the same time until he opened the box. “Schrödinger’s cat” became famous as an indicator of the quantum state of ‘superposition’. Schrödinger didn’t really prove anything except his lack of empathy for cats, but the question remained as to how exactly the collapse from quantum state to our reality occurs.
Quantum scientists recently attempted to observe this moment of collapse, just after an electron is still in what is called “superposition” or, in more than one place at once. This shouldn’t be possible of course, since the observation is what causes the collapse in the first place. The ideal they are looking for is to keep the “superposition” intact even after observation. (I’d argue that perhaps that is collapsing the very fabric of the universe, but whatever.)
Super Positioned
Researchers from Stockholm University actually accomplished something akin to it recently in an experiment that basically created a über-short film (a millionth of a second) that showed most of the superposition states gradually falling away and leaving behind others that actually became the reality we know.
Their press release said it occurred “gradually under the influence of the measurement” meaning that time is not constant as previously observed, but malleable, as suspected. This is important because Quantum science has long treated the collapse as an instantaneous moment, not a gradual (if brief) unfolding.
But back to our reality. In our personal experiences, we know that time is definitely malleable, the same hours expanding into great lengths when we are waiting for jury duty and contracting into small increments when we’re spending time with our lover.
The Quantum Concept of Collapse and Tarot
When you do a Tarot reading, you shuffle the cards and they are all there as part of your potential reading. You decide which ones to leave behind and which ones to keep as your cards. It is active observation—in a moment of malleable time—which imprints itself on the cards. When you gradually turn them over, they are revealed, imbued with all your intentions (or observations) with the universal pattern of “superposition” turned into quantum collapse, with you as participant.
Maybe someday science will really explain what seems like magic to us now: malleable time, possibilities manifested with intention. But for now, we have Tarot.
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