“Lovely bloke, but posing.”
– Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones commenting in 1986 on Elton John’s lack of rock & roll authenticity.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In music there is what is known as a “fake book” that typically provides melody and chords but no written-out “parts” for each player. It is defined as “the minimal information needed by a musician to make an impromptu arrangement of a song, or ‘fake it.'” In the tarot-reading business, those who are seeking the ultimate “fake-book” usually wind up online, where they can pose as legitimate and not have to “face the music” of personal interaction.

I’m not leveling the epithet “poseur” at those serious tarot students who are still struggling to find their way around the cards; they can be excused for trying on different styles to see what fits best. My target here is those online hacks with their $5 Etsy readings and their “one-size-fits-all” collective predictions who couldn’t successfully navigate a Celtic Cross spread if their life depended on it. For the critical observer, the veil of anonymity covers them like the “Emperor’s new clothes.” As to where I’m taking this rant, “Caveat lector!”

I’m reminded of the old military insult “90-day-wonder” that was aimed at newly-minted junior officers who came out of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), a college-based program that provided inexperienced and often woefully unprepared candidates for leadership roles in the US Army, Navy and Air Force. To put it mildly, career servicemen were unimpressed with their credentials. In the world of tarot, a comparable path to dubious proficiency is offered by the “Learn-Tarot-in-a-Day” books that promise near-instant qualification.

Sincere beginners frequently ask the tarot community “What is the best way to learn tarot-reading?” My advice, and that of many other seasoned diviners, is “Study and practice, practice, practice.” There is no “magic bullet” that is going to bestow an immediate aptitude for deciphering the cards. A powerful urge is evident among the social-media generation to consult YouTube “talking heads” for their basic knowledge, and now to seek AI-generated content that will spoon-feed them ready-made interpretations with no thinking required. There is little interest in cracking a tarot book or two, and virtually none in being adventurous. All of this reminds me of the insidiously misleading labels on 1950s instant-food containers that encouraged buyers to “Just add water!” for a delicious meal. Uh huh . . .

Unfortunately, when applied to divination this “so-easy-a-caveman-could-do-it” mindset normally yields a thin gruel of generic advice that amounts to little more than upbeat cheer-leading of the “it’s all good” variety. I recently watched an interesting video that compared an AI-generated tarot reading to the experienced reader’s personal interpretation, and the deficiency of well-reasoned insights in the former was glaringly obvious no matter how competent the text was. It lacked the inflection that can only emerge under the gaze of human intuition, which doesn’t always arrive at “1+1=2.”

What came through loud-and-clear was that the AI program delivered the kind of “Lego-block” reading that is the bane of tarot novices who can’t yet synthesize everything into a compelling whole. It just stacked up a string of definitions and didn’t succeed at correlating the various pieces in a meaningful way. There was no effective summation of how everything fit together, no convincing high-level overview that gave divergent possibilities their due. In short, no consideration of intuitive outliers of the “what-if” kind was evident in its output. The card meanings were all rendered in a positive light with no shades of gray, as if someone had trained the language protocols to recognize the principles of affirmation and empowerment.

What I see happening in online divination is that even the practice of assembling narratives from tarot books or apps and passing them off as original thought has been tossed aside in favor of delivering undiluted computer content directly to remote clients with no personal touch whatsoever, and letting them puzzle it out. Not only is there no involvement of the seeker in selecting the cards, there is also no human engagement from the reader’s perspective. It might as well be one robot talking to another.

At some point, querents will wake up to the fact that they don’t need the services of a prognosticator at all, they can just ask AI for the same thing they would get from a paid consultation. As AI hits its stride, professional tarot readers will join creative writers and visual artists who are well on their way to Winston Churchill’s “dustbin of history.” At their present level of uncritical consumption, online customers won’t even notice the difference, and the cynical purveyors of such nonsense won’t care as long as the payment transactions clear. I would say they’re “laughing all the way to the bank,” but at $5-a-pop I doubt there is much bankable profit in it.

Obviously, not all internet readers are faking it, but I suspect those who aren’t are under-selling their talents by offering penny-ante readings rather than advertising their services at a reasonable rate. Perhaps they failed to make a go of a more professional online career because nobody wanted to pay, so they got in on the “hustle.” I refuse to compete at the $5 level, but then I don’t need the money so I’m mainly an opinionated grumbler with an attitude but “no dog in the fight.” I won’t be going to Hell in that particular handbasket, and my only purpose in commenting is to steer the unwary away from being lured into the flames. While it may seem that I’m just indulging in a bit of my usual “sacred-cow-tipping,” if I can let some of the hot air out of the overheated bubble I will have accomplished my mission.