You may have seen TikToks of cards being drawn and someone telling you what they mean regarding your life. These cards are called Tarot. Since the 1400s, tarot cards and readings have been used to show someone their future, almost like a non-magical crystal ball. So why do people still practice or even care about tarot?
A Tarot community has erupted as social media and the Internet continues to progress and connect people around the world. The tarot community has used social media to help their audience connect to their spirituality and inner self. Tarot reading has stretched beyond just a hobby, some people have become professional card readers. People practice Tarot to help people connect to their spirituality and inner self. People are even able to become professional card readers as they have practiced and learned all about the cards and their meanings.
Amy Zener and Monte Farber are both professional card readers. Zener and Farber claim that tarot has a significant correlation with wellness, adding how practicing Tarot can help connect and develop one’s psychic abilities. Zener and Farber explained “…our Tarot is an executive decision-making tool, a sacred machine that can capture the possibilities and probabilities of the moment and reflect them back to you for your consideration. Expanding your mind and intuition… as you interpret your reading develops your decision-making abilities and intuition.”
But what do Tarot readings really show us? Senior Ava Wolgamott has been practicing Tarot since she was twelve and discussed her interpretation of what Tarot is. “You can get guidance from your own intuition and the idea that all the answers that we need are already within ourselves… it’s the idea that the Universe also knows what path you’re on and knows where you need to be going.” Wolgamott later added, “Sometimes you can be very lost and not know where you’re going or what you need to be doing and the cards just give you reassurance.”
After seeing tarot card readings all over her social media, senior Anna Troetel talked about her experience with tarot. At first, she was skeptical about the readings she saw, but after practicing and performing readings of her own, she began to feel like they were accurate and applied to people’s own situations.
Troetel began to discuss how she felt tarot can apply to wellness and spirituality, saying “I think when you’re kind of lost spiritually, you can kind of seek out answers and sometimes you’ll find that things will apply to your situation in ways you hadn’t thought about before.” Cards are able to open people’s eyes offering new perspectives and ways of guidance.
In March of 2023, The Gallery hosted the first annual Winter Carnival in the gym. One of the booths that the carnival had was the health and wellness section’s Tarot reading table. Troetel was one of the volunteers helping run the booth by giving readings to those who wanted their cards read. This is where current Junior Leniz Benjamin had her first-ever tarot reading. In regards to that reading, Benjamin said “I think the statements were a little bit broad like they could apply to anybody but they applied to me and I thought that it was fun.”
A large consensus regarding Tarot is that readings can be kind of vague even if they do apply, causing some to be skeptical. Because of how broad the readings done and shown on social media are not trusted because you aren’t sitting with the person reading the cards you’re blindly listening to how someone else interprets the message of the cards drawn. In the end, tarot is really how you interpret your reading. What you take away is more meaningful than the reading itself.
