AUTHOR’S NOTE: I call myself a “professional tarot reader,” and in fact there have been periods in my life when I’ve lived up to the calling. But I don’t have to make a living at it now, which is a good thing given the fact that I won’t succumb to the trend for ultra-cheap online readings as sold on the major social-media platforms. It’s just another example of how electronic de-personalization has cheapened and de-vitalized many of the experiences of modern life. (I’ll stop short of saying “de-humanized” since humans just make up the game as they go, for good or ill.) What was once a highly interactive and intimate form of face-to-face divination has been gutted by entrepreneurial opportunism masquerading as helpful advice.

As this blog gains in popularity, I’ve seen an increase in requests for readings, but as soon as I mention what I charge, prospective clients disappear, never to be heard from again. I can almost guarantee they have been conditioned by the $5 and $10 offerings they’ve encountered on places like TikTok, which are algorithm-based and almost certain to be impersonal in the extreme. Consequently, these inquirers are spooked by someone asking $50 for a 10-card Celtic Cross reading.

I put a lot of care and effort into my work; it isn’t just tossed off as might be expected from an app-based presentation. A Celtic Cross performed remotely takes me around four hours, most of which goes into writing the narrative. I do my best to engage the querent in the process of card selection since I believe tarot responds to the subconscious awareness of the person shuffling the deck. This approach is what makes in-person tarot reading so effective: the seeker “owns” the process and receives answers that are tailored directly to their subliminal input.

I charge the same thing for a “live” session as I do for an internet consultation, taking my cue from the local rate for massage therapy, which was once $1-per-minute but has now escalated considerably. Thus, a one-hour, face-to-face Celtic Cross reading comes in at $60, which I discount to $50. (The same thing fetches $200 in large urban areas.) I should really charge more than that for the written output that remote reading requires but I’m already outpacing the market for the “instant-gratification” crowd, who prefer “fast-and-cheap” and are willing to forego anything more thoughtfully profound. All they typically want to know is whether Joe or Mary likes them, not that the target of their interest is even worth pursuing.

There is a theory that goes “Anything that is too inexpensive won’t be valued by potential buyers, so charge a fee that makes them think they are getting something worthwhile.” Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to work in the online world, where rapid turnaround is prized over thorough exploration of the querent’s options. I’ve called it “fast-food tarot” in the past because it produces high-volume, low-nutrition metaphysical fodder for those who don’t have (or who don’t want to take) the time to puzzle out their future with the aid of the cards. If they don’t like the first answer they receive, for the same overall cost as one of my Celtic Cross renderings they can get another ten or twelve TikTok readings, at least one of which they may find more agreeable. I don’t see how it can avoid being a case of “diminishing returns,” and it is entirely foreign to tarot’s traditional focus on personal attention.