AUTHOR’S NOTE: I just discovered a thread on the r/tarot sub that questioned whether tarot can be used to locate missing people. The consensus ran strongly in the direction of “No,” with one person saying that only law-enforcement professionals can find them and another stating that psychics never succeed. Both of these attitudes are misinformed, as my own experience over the last fourteen years shows. A third stated accurately that “the Law” seldom knows what to do with this kind of input. I didn’t reply because I dropped my membership back when the newbie questions became too redundant, but the discussion provided inspiration for this post.

My answer to this question is two-fold: Can tarot be used effectively to locate those who disappear without a trace? Absolutely! Will it do so before it’s too late for the victim? In my own practice this has occurred rarely. I’ve had some remarkable successes with both tarot and horary astrology, but in all but one of them the missing individual was deceased. These were not “cold cases” but fairly recent ones that were resolved at some point after my reading; my positive “hit rate” in older scenarios has been poor, mostly because the mysteries are still unsolved after decades of detective work so there is no way to confirm my theories. A case in point is the long-running “Maura Murray” investigation; I’ve had consistent results in four readings across seven years so I have reasonable confidence that I’m close, but unless she is found there’s no way to prove it.

I should also mention that I don’t share my readings with law enforcement for the reason mentioned above and also because I don’t want to be ridiculed, even behind my back. At one time long ago there was an uptick of official interest in the involvement of psychics and other diviners, but they typically stay away from it now, leaving it up to the families to enlist any metaphysical scrutiny. Due to the successes I’ve posted in the past, I’ve been contacted by relatives and friends of the families affected by several disappearances who were looking for assistance, although it was often a question of recovering the remains and not rescuing the living because too much time had passed since the event. My most recent case of that type was in Nova Scotia, and the reading was accurate although the outcome was unfortunate as predicted. A handful of other correct calls has emerged over the years; my closure rate has been notably better than the miserable less-than-2% claimed by the reddit crowd, although I strive constantly to improve my methods.

One thing I’ve learned is not to jump in too quickly. In a good many cases the absentee turns up safe-and-sound a day or two later, so a prediction can wind up looking foolish. I’ve had a couple of those and learned my lesson. Now I wait a week or preferably two, although you never know when there will be a “break” in these situations that will render a reading moot, so I don’t like to hold off too long. Because I have no official standing, my unpaid work is entirely experimental and academic, but at some point, if I’m contacted by them, I might help police detectives with my insights. Another lesson I learned is not to get mixed up in big-city disappearances that may have drug-related or crime-ring implications. Although it hasn’t happened yet because I backed way off, I don’t need thugs knocking at my door.