Method
Where the tradition ends and the machine begins
We would rather tell you exactly how this works than let you assume something flattering. Here is the whole arrangement.
Written by people
The correspondences
Card meanings, reversals, spread positions, and rune and hexagram interpretations. All written by our practitioners from traditional sources, and cited on every library page.
Composed by Nyota
The reading itself
Nyota reads your cards in their positions, reads them against each other, and writes it for your question. It works from the practitioners' material rather than from open-ended invention.
Never
What we don't do
We do not imply a human is reading live. We do not use your photos to train anything. We do not frighten people into repeat purchases, and we do not withhold the meaning of your own reading behind another payment.
Traditions we draw on
Tarot
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck, drawn by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909 and now public domain — the cards you see on this site are those originals. Primary sources: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911); Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom.
Búzios
The shell divination of Candomblé and Ifá, read with the guidance of practitioners raised in the tradition. We treat it as a religious practice, not a novelty.
Runes & I Ching
Elder Futhark from the historical corpus, and the I Ching read as a book of changes rather than fortunes. Both cast randomly, then read against the traditional correspondences.
Numerology
Calculated rather than generated — life path, expression and soul urge derived from your name and birth date by our own engine, then read alongside the cards.
Astrology
Western tropical astrology from your birth date, time and place — not a template keyed to your sun sign.
Questions about how this works
- Are Nyota readings written by AI?
- Partly, and we say so plainly. The correspondences, spreads and card meanings are written by practitioners from traditional sources. Nyota composes those into a reading for your specific question and spread. The tradition is human; the composition is machine.
- Does that make the reading less real?
- That is yours to judge, and we would rather you judge it with accurate information. What we will not do is imply a person is reading for you when one is not.
- Which traditions does Nyota draw on?
- The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, Western tropical astrology, Pythagorean numerology, and the búzios of Candomblé and Ifá — the last read with the guidance of practitioners raised in it.
- Do you keep my readings?
- Your readings are saved to your Journal so you can return to them, and you can delete any of them permanently at any time.