AUTHOR’S NOTE: When I started this blog in the summer of 2017, I made it abundantly clear that I would be writing primarily for myself, not the public, and I would not monetize it, instead paying for the privilege of saying whatever I want to say on the subject of divination, which – as an old-school diviner who is dubious of its relentless “psychologizing” – I realized could stand a bit of “demystifying” as well as a good “airing-out.”

I made this move after spending six years on the estimable Aelcectic Tarot forum, where I was insulated from the superficiality of the online “noise” that was mercifully absent there. But Aeclectic folded in mid-2017, and when I went looking in vain for where my more intelligent forum-mates had gone, I landed squarely in the middle of the social-media “snake-oil trade” that strives unconvincingly to pass for meaningful tarot discourse.

Under the assumption that it is better to be respected than liked, I’ve minced no words about what I think of the current state of popular tarot reading and its practitioners, a community with which I have nothing in common except the cards, and for which I have little patience when it comes to its demonstrated insensitivity to the history of cartomancy and its established conventions.

Social-media addiction has turned what was once a dignified counseling pursuit into a “parlor-game-on-steroids” frequented by insecure, love-starved teens with poor interpersonal skills who are looking for a “magic bullet” to quell their anxiety. What they get is the divinatory equivalent of “fast food” offering instant gratification and “feel-good” cheer-leading that doesn’t bear up under more level-headed professional scrutiny. In short, they’re being “sold a bill of goods” with no promised delivery date. As to the purveyors of such tainted fare, I like to quote Mel Brooks that their motive is nothing more than “the soitch for more money.”

I had no doubt that sooner or later I would go a step too far with my pointed rhetoric, and it seems that my uncharitable attitude may finally be catching up with me since I’ve lost nearly two dozen followers over the last couple of days, right after I indirectly suggested that no small fraction of their number falls within the “there’s a sucker born every minute” demographic. Too many of my less-experienced online compatriots have shown a “tin ear” for nuance when interpreting the cards for it to be coincidence. I’m more curious than distressed over this development because I’m wondering whether there may be another reason for it that has left some of my regular readers behind.

Over the last year (and after more than 2,700 blog posts) I’ve been slowly turning away from writing exclusively about the tarot and toward the more profound occult subjects that have always been my first love going back all the way to 1972. I recently discovered the r/occult sub-reddit with its robust contingent of metaphysical deep-thinkers, and I told them “I believe I’ve found a home,” even if some of the conversation is more religiously-slanted than I prefer. This has meant a gradual scaling-back of my participation in the more prosaic tarot discussion on the various Facebook pages I frequent, and to be honest I’m not feeling much remorse about it because the “fit” has never been quite right anyway.

I’m far too crusty for the “wet-behind-the-ears” crowd that makes up most of the population, those novices who invariably begin posts with a disarming acknowledgement that they don’t know what they’re talking about: “I’m totally new at this, but . . . ” I have no desire to mentor rank beginners when what I’m really after is mentally stimulating dialogue with my esoteric peers. Let the YouTube gurus have them (although it conjures up unsympathetic aphorisms like “the blind leading the blind” and “going to hell in a hand-basket”), or let them read a few good tarot books and ponder what they find there.

I think the crucial link between diviner and seeker that has been traditionally forged in face-to-face reading scenarios has been irrevocably sacrificed on the altar of convenience. The current resurgence of interest in the mystic arts is almost entirely driven by remote connectivity, and I joke that I can now read the cards professionally while sipping a cocktail in my pajamas. The casual informality of it just rings false for me when it’s too easy to hide behind an online persona and never have to look a client straight in the eye.

It seems to me that the widely-held opinion about divination tapping into “universal psychic energy” that anyone can access without being in the same room with the querent is just a transparent excuse that attempts to justify the lack of direct engagement, as well as being far too prone to the diviner’s subjective bias. I want my sitters involved with the reading by handling the cards, not dangling at the far end of an electronic tether; after all, it’s their reading, not mine.