There’s been a rise in anti-Chinese xenophobia here in the West, and the tarot community has been no exception.
Yikes, did the well-known public figure in the world of tarot just say, in that above comment, that they “know of no Chinese printing” company that doesn’t steal copyrighted work? And then imply that Chinese people like to “beat the foreigner” aka exploit white people?
Every one of these screenshots were authored by someone I know or know of, someone I am connected to via the tarot community. Many are by well-known public figures in our community– published and celebrated tarot authors and popular deck creators. However, I’ve redacted names and profile pictures because that’s not the focus here. This is not about calling anyone out. Let’s focus on the content of the messages being spread in the tarot community and what social impact it might be having.
If you don’t think the rise in anti-Asian hate and violence here in the US is connected to all of these little microaggressions against the Chinese, then you haven’t been paying attention.
Since the opening premise of the tarot deck I created, the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot, was to explore and experiment with the concept of animism, I thought I might chime in. To that end, I’d like to separate out the discussion on deck personification and the discussion on animism.
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. =)
Random old photo to accompany the commentary. I’m holding the Tarot of the Holy Light by Christine Payne-Towler, which at some point long, long ago I received for free. Do I need to disclose that?
Psst… I have a “TL;DR Short Summary for the Not-Readers” that summarizes this otherwise very long blog post. So if you don’t have the time or you’re only a little bit interested and not that interested, then scroll all the way down to the end for the TL;DR Short Summary.
I’m reviving and sharing a blog post I drafted in 2019 that has sat in my WordPress saved file for the last 3+ years. It’s about FTC-issued disclosure guidelines (“Rules”) for social media influencers, and key takeaways to glean from the Rules if you’re creating content in the Mind, Body, Spirit spheres. I never got around to finishing and posting that 2019 draft, back when the FTC disclosure guidelines first gained traction, but I think now is a good time to reopen the discussion.
What’s of note to me is how the legal minds who are often the ones drafting these Rules seem to be people who have no personal experiences or insights into the communities they’re drafting the guidelines for. Even when they employ subject matter experts, those SMEs tend to be biased, or come from a very particularized segment of the community, and therefore do not fairly represent all interested parties.
There’s consumer protection, which nobody’s against. But then there’s untenable rules of compliance that aren’t clear enough for practical application by the people the rules are demanding compliance from.
By the way, none of this is my legal opinion, and do not rely on it as such. All of this is personal commentary in reaction to the FTC disclosure guidelines as someone who considers herself a deck reviewer but who could potentially be categorized as an “influencer.”
My interest in this particular consideration piqued earlier in 2023 when I noticed a sharp change in the gender demographics of who views my Yutube channel, which appears to have shifted just as the subject matter of my channel’s content shifted, from being tarot dominant to more I Ching.
Though I don’t have any screenshots to show, back in 2018 and well into 2019, the gender demographics for my Youtube channel was something closer to 20% Male and 80% Female, and that checks out for most of Tarot Tube and witchy content creators, especially among witchy content creators who present as female. I did notice that after 2019 when I started making more Taoist occultism content on the channel, the demographics shifted slightly to 30% Male and 70% Female.
(For clarification, when we say Male or Female, these are per the identifications opted in by the users.)
I didn’t follow the analytics too closely, so I can’t pinpoint exactly when the shift happened, but in early 2023, per the screenshot image above, I noticed suddenly that the demographics were closer to 50/50, which is in fact strange for the tarot and witchy communities and stranger yet for female-presenting content creators like me. You don’t typically see 50/50 demographics for viewership when it comes to tarot and witchy content. There’s typically an underrepresentation of men.
In my head I’ve been mulling over a candid video chat I’ve been wanting to make for some time now, but it’s only these last few weeks of stirrings in our tarot community that concretized my motivation to just go ahead and do it. =)
I’ve only chosen one comment to read as an example of a recurring common critique I get, and the three recurring common critiques I’m chatting about in this video are as follows:
I’m pretentious and elitist, and also an opportunist,
My work is imbued with negative, demonic entities and/or I am possessed by or consort with negative, demonic entitles (evil, dark energy, etc., take your pick of descriptive), and
I say insensitive things at all the wrong times (as interpreted from the writings I’ve put out there).
In the video I also reflect on authenticity, the perception of virtual authenticity, and how true, sincere human authenticity will come back to bite you in the ass online, and the only way to appear authentic is to fabricate and manufacture the illusion of authenticity.
The photos interspersed throughout this post are totally random, just for Pretty.
It would have made more sense for me to present this topic in video form on my YouTube channel, but I’ve been a bit under the weather with the flu, so my voice is scratchy, my nose is stuffed, and I don’t feel like putting on makeup. A blog post will have to suffice.
You’ll have to watch these videos first because what they have to say is what I’m referencing throughout this write-up. By the way I hope you’ll like and subscribe to them all as I have. ❤
If I tried to list out all the impactful video discussions on AI art I’ve been loving, it would just go on and on, so I won’t link to the more popular takes from artists themselves. Plus, you can find them via any quick keyword search on YouTube.
I’ve been quite verbose myself when it comes to sharing my thoughts and commentary on AI art. See below hyperlinks to three past blog posts. As an assist I’ve outlined bullet point lists of subtopics each blog post covers.
But I thought I might add a candid video chat, too. =)
We have an abundance of persimmons this year and I remarked to the father-in-law about how I wanted to make hoshigaki, using the traditional method.
Crystallized sugars coming to the surface of the dried persimmons
Hoshigaki are peeled persimmons that you hang up to sun-dry for four to seven weeks (depending on climate/weather), and then you have to massage every persimmon weekly so it ferments evenly and the natural sugars get coaxed up to the surface of the fruit, forming this light dusting of finely crystallized sugar dust.
Sliced hoshigaki, final result
Is it magic or chemistry? I’m not quite sure. =) Meanwhile the fruit becomes deliciously gummy, like chewy candy. It is one of the sweetest and most delectable desserts you can have.
Final stage of hoshigaki — when it gets that natural crystallized sugar coating on the surface!
Immediately, before I could even complete my explanation of the process, the father-in-law shot the idea down, listing out all the ways this could go wrong, all the reasons this is not worth the trouble, just one negative statement after another.
This is his personality, his habit. He’s been doing this to James since hubby was a boy. If you’re sparked by an idea that’s just slightly more labor-intensive or slightly more aspirational than ordinary, the father-in-law’s immediate response is to shoot down the idea and be really negative about all the ways this is stupid.
Oh and if you haven’t guessed already, this is a personal blog post. Not in any way tarot, esoterica, or “in line with my branding” related. Just me sharing what’s actually been on my mind as of late, and ranting. Continue reading “How a Parent Makes or Breaks a Child’s Dream”→
But since then there have been new developments in this subject area so I thought I might revisit the topic.
Left: My illustration, by hand in pencil and ink. Right: NightCafe, art style: “Charcoal”
Some Personal Dabblings with AI Art
Above to the left is a sketch I did by hand, first in pencil, then outlined in ink. I started with the following prompt, text I typed out myself and stared at for a good five minutes before putting pencil to paper: Solitude. Contemplating. Maiden in a moment of self-questioning.
I copied some text written by Hildegard of Binden on the transcendental experience of God, to fill the blank space. What you see took me two hours. Uh, tbh, probably longer than two hours. I lose track of time when I’m doodling. (The barely-there blue grid lines was added digitally, because that’s just something I like to do when I share my doodles to the public.)
What you see to the above right was produced via NightCafe, an AI art generator, with the same exact text as the prompt: Solitude. Contemplating. Maiden in a moment of self-questioning. I selected the art style “Charcoal” to see how close to a pen and ink sketch it could go. The illustration to the right took the program two minutes.
Left: High school art by yours truly, from the 90s. Colored pencil. Right: AI generated art based on text description of illustration to the left, via Wombo
I’m fascinated by how similar the interpretations were, between me, a human, and AI tapping in to collective knowledge. In fact, in the past I’ve drawn illustrations in charcoal very similar to what the AI produced!
The pose, the facial expression, the way the hair falls, the vulnerability– if I rummage through my old art portfolio from high school, I can excavate a charcoal or pastel drawing that looks more or less the same with that!
“You Are the Journey” by @KaliYuga_ai via MidJourney (AI art)
Does AI Art Lack Soul?
I explored the question “does AI art lack soul” here in an earlier rumination on the subject. In that blog post, I talked about how this advent of AI generated art has shifted my former paradigm on the mind-soul relation.
This declaration you’ll hear oft repeated — AI art lacks soul; AI lacks soul — is one I’m most apprehensive about. Perhaps we can say we don’t understand the soul of AI, but to declare that AI art lacks soul… I dunno. It doesn’t sit right with me.
I’m not convinced that these works “lack soul.” If I’m getting all psychic and woo, I might say the impression of the soul that’s present feels different from a human sapient soul, just like an animal’s sentient soul or a tree’s soul feels different. You hear people critique the evident style or aesthetic consistent in AI generated art, but just because you don’t love an artist’s style or technical approach doesn’t mean that artist suddenly lacks soul.
So while I have many conflicting thoughts about AI art, the accusation that it lacks soul isn’t one of them. If anything, I wonder if the full body of AI generated art is mirroring back something deep within us collectively, for us to see.
Technomage Tarot by Lee Duncan in collaboration with AI, via Kickstarter campaign (last visited 2022 Sep. 30)
A Rising Popularity of AI Generated Art Decks
Oh, and to illustrate what the community has been buzzing about with regard to AI-generated tarot decks (or in collaboration with AI) coming on to the market, I’ll feature several throughout this commentary.
benebell wen 