There was a TikTok video that kinda sorta went viral among tarot people. All my tarot friends were chattering about those “six ways” and so many feels got riled up. Heck, the fact I made my VR two weeks ago and am still talking about it right now with an addendum blog post shows I got a little riled up, too.

In my (probably misplaced) priority of trying to keep videos short and succinct, I didn’t flesh out the thoughts I had wanted to share. And then many tarot colleagues continued and extended the discussion, so now I have even more thoughts. =)

This is a follow-up or written sequel to my VR.

As many tarot readers pointed out, the six tips from that viral TikTok video are superstition-based. It’s like saying if you’re not wrapping your tarot deck in black silk, then you’re a fake tarot reader. Or readings with a purchased tarot deck that was not gifted to you are null and void.

So reprinted again are the six ways to spot a fake tarot reader, each with a written addendum expanding on my VR.

I want to revisit Tip #1 on how to spot a fake tarot reader– they don’t cleanse their cards in between each client reading.

I had said kind of in a tongue-in-cheek way, what do you mean by cleansing?– feigning confusion and saying, oh do you mean shuffling a deck of cards? I love how people took me seriously and quite patiently explained to me the art of cleansing a tarot deck.

Here’s the thing. If we’re now going to take our own subjective personal ritual approaches to tarot as universal gospel mandated for all to follow, then let’s go.

Under the TikTok video in question, the OP (original poster) clarifies that cleansing a tarot deck can be done by knocking on the deck of cards or banging on a singing bowl around the deck, and voila! Cleansed!

Like if we’re enforcing personal opinions onto everyone else, then let’s do it. Friend, that in no way is sufficient for fully cleansing a ritual tool such as your deck of cards.

You’ve got to look at a synastry chart between an electional chart and your natal chart, and make sure you’re fully cleansed yourself first, and all your tools are fully cleansed and consecrated, and the workspace is fully cleansed and consecrated, and then pass each card, one by one, through the smoke of sandalwood incense hand-rolled by monks or nuns, harvested at an auspicious time per moon phase and since we’re talking about a tarot deck, then also the decan rulership of transiting Mercury. Invocations and sounds during this process must be keyed to specific solfeggio frequencies and electromagnetic tones for raising power. And then after you’ve done this, cast a horary chart to confirm whether the deck has been successfully re-consecrated. All while ritual candles are lit around the room and after you’ve ceremonially invoked deity.

So, combining the OP’s belief system and my belief system, everything I just said about cleansing a tarot deck must be done in between each and every reading you do for different querents. Otherwise, you’re a fake tarot reader.

You get my point?

The point is of course each and every seasoned tarot reader develops their own “mandatory” personal rituals. But that “mandatory” personal ritual applies to a population of one. Yourself.

Athletes, musicians, and psychic mediums all develop these really specific and particular personal rituals that they need to perform to “get in the zone.”

And that’s totally cool. In fact, I’d recommend figuring out what your personal rituals are. You gotta figure out what helps you to “get in the zone.”

But once you’ve figured out what works for you, you don’t then declare that the rest of the world must follow what you do, or else they’re doing it wrong.

It’s super interesting to me how culture- and viewpoint- specific this is.

Think about the many, many cultures and traditions around the world based in shamanic drumming rituals as the environment needed to alter your state of consciousness and get in touch with Spirit.

Think about the bass beat of the sacred music found in many indigenous rites and rituals. It’s really not unlike, say, the bass beats and rhythms of hip hop or rock.

So if I were to flip that on its head, couldn’t I also make the argument that if you do not listen to music with a strong rhythmic bass beat like hip hop or rock that you are the fake tarot reader because you are not effectively connecting with the superconsciousness of Spirit? How the heck can you channel Spirit and the Divine without shamanic drumming rites?

In the comments section of my VR, some readers noted how the rhythmic beats of certain types of music like hip hop or rock actually help them to enter a trance-like state and channel the divine voice more clearly. Uh…yeah! Totally that’s a thing!

And in fact, couldn’t you now make the argument that if it’s too quiet, all you’re really hearing is your own ego voice? Ergo, rhythmic drumming bass beats oft found in hip hop and rock tune out your ego voice so you can actually hear a divine voice channeled through?

Again, I’m not declaring anything one way or the another. I’m just showing you how you can make a compelling argument in support of either direction and then make dogmatic blanket statements.

After posting my video, the conversations that ensued around the concept of the divine feminine and what it implicates today were really eye-opening to me.

I guess in the generational context I learned about the “divine feminine,” I associate it with primordial chaos (think: Yin and its association with the dark, with mystery, and that which is occulted), personifying Mother Earth, and like, if we were going to draw the divine feminine personified, then it’s going to be more in the direction of Venus of Willendorf.

So it was kinda news to me that the concept of the divine feminine today is now associated with reclaiming traditional values of femininity rather than spearheading radical values of gender equality.

I associate “divine feminine” with bra burning and growing out your armpit hair, reading bell hooks and celebrating a more Lilith, Morrigan, Hekate vibe. I would not have associated “divine feminine” with pastel colors, soft focus, cottage core, baby pink, and white Mother Mary. But again, nobody’s wrong, nobody’s right– it’s such a matter of personal experience.

Not to mention the whole conversation about divine feminine (and by implication divine masculine) in the context of the tarot seems out of place.

I can appreciate the valid observation that the tarot marketplace today is saturated with imagery and depictions of traditional values of femininity. But I think to take that many steps too far and extrapolate such a zeitgeist-specific observation to the conclusion “tarot is a divine feminine art” seems faulty.

As many seasoned tarot readers and tarot history buffs pointed out, this one is particularly amusing. Because is a tarot deck really officially truly and only exactly 78 cards?

Also now we get into debates over whether historical Minchiate and Tarocchi di Mantegna are tarot decks. Even among contemporary decks, what about decks like the 92-card Terra Volatile, or the Evolutionary Tarot with 84 cards? Or just decks with extra cards like the Happy Squirrel, or a new card conceived by the deck creator? Tarot of the Orishas has 77 cards. Daughters of the Moon Tarot has 75. Or Maxwell Miller’s Universal Tarot with only 74. The Linweave Tarot, circa 1960s, only contains 42 cards. The Prager Tarot from the 1980s has only 54 cards (22 Majors + 32 Minors).

And what about all the 64-card I Ching Tarots? I mean personally I prefer to categorize 64-card I Ching decks as oracle decks and not tarot, but to someone who does call an I Ching based deck a tarot, I’m not going to say they’re “wrong.” Or what about a 144-card Mah Jong Tarot deck subdivided into two sections similar to Majors and Minors, and among the “Minors” further subdivided into suits?

How do you define a tarot deck anyway? This isn’t so much about wrong or right as it is an interesting debate during which we need to be mindful not to declare one way as wrong and another way as right, and to be clear that what we offer are our perspectives only.

In another video, the OP talked more about this point of having to use the entire deck, adding that legit tarot readers read with reversals. To say you must read with reversals is (hilariously) opening up an age old can of worms.

A lot of fascinating philosophical discussions with tarot friends ensued in response to this point. While we all unanimously agreed that whether you use spreads or not in no way goes to determining a fake vs. not fake reader and is entirely a matter of personal approach, we definitely had fun debating the merits and drawbacks of the two differing approaches.

Is use of a spread an integral part of the ritual of tarot? Does it indispensably support intention setting? And while we’re being dogmatic about it all, are there any standards involved in what distinguishes between a valid and invalid tarot spread?

Is non-use of a spread more in line with faith in the Divine, or channeling the Divine? And therefore in some ways the argument could be made that it’s more “magical” to not use a spread?

And on another philosophical line of inquiry, can a human tarot reader even not insert the ego mind into a reading? Is that actually possible?

To me, this is more of a branding and marketing tip for professional tarot readers than anything insightful re: fake vs. not fake readers.

If you want to gain visibility and therefore more clientele as a pro tarot reader, then it makes good business sense to create value-add content (typically in the form of educational content) to gain more subscribers, followers, etc. To conflate that with markers of legitimacy is a strange leap of logic.

As for throwing around the term “gatekeeping,” oh man, can I say that I’m a little fatigued by the overuse of that word? Aren’t mystery traditions innately gatekeeping? Can’t gatekeeping be construed in the positive, as protective guardrails? And I’m just curious– what’s the difference between the way we use the term gatekeeping and when we say we’re enforcing boundaries?

Like the OP’s drop-in references to the divine feminine, the drop-in reference to gatekeeping seems out of left field. If Jan, a tarot reader, decides not to spend time creating educational content to publish on her platform, she’s now suddenly “gatekeeping” tarot knowledge? What?

I’m also intrigued by her experiences– where is this OP meeting tarot readers?! Because in my decades of being around tarot readers, if there is any stereotype, it’s that they are eager-beaver to share tarot knowledge. Their eyes light up and they become over-enthusiastic about teaching you tarot. Not all of them have the personal bandwidth to organize and write up a cohesive course teaching tarot, but tarot readers loooove answering questions about the tarot. =) Gatekeep tarot… I wish! You open that door and you can’t get a tarot reader to shut up about the tarot!

So then how does one spot a fake tarot reader?

Well for starters can we talk about the scam impersonators? For instance, the scam accounts on Instagram pretending to be me, or you, or other people in the tarot community, and then solicit the real people’s subscribers for subpar questionable reading experiences? Can we all agree that is fake?

Another point I might make is fear-mongering, but that isn’t so much an issue of fake vs. real reader as it is a general red flag. Fear-mongering is emotional manipulation causing you to be afraid of pending doom, and then the only way to avert that pending doom is to surrender your trust in the tarot reader as a figure of power or authority. When the tarot reader positions themselves as your only hope for salvation and safety, that’s a red flag.

And then, the issue is less about trying to spot a “fake” tarot reader, whatever that means, and instead, focus on finding a tarot reader you resonate with. I recommend doing your due diligence. Get a sense for the reader’s vibes, and perspectives, and chances are if they’re a pro, they’ll have shared some stuff about their reading approach. So you can see how well they align with your philosophy of life.

Ultimately I get that titling a video as “how to spot a fake tarot reader” is clickbait, and don’t hate the player, hate the game, what’s wrong with using clickbait titles to get people to pay attention. I get it. For me, the issue was the content– that kind of content is now very likely to cause harm to authentic and genuine tarot readers trying to make a living, but who happen to do things a little bit differently from this viral TikToker. When you have a platform that large, you do have a social and moral responsibility to do right by your own people.