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Delving into the world of tarot

As uncertainty increases, so too does the search for fortune-telling in various forms, a religious expert says. Welcome to the rise of tarot. reports.

André Chumko

In the year 2000, after being fired from a job in the corporate world, Auckland-based Jackie Pope set up one of the first tarot reading shops in the supercity.

Now 68, she has been in business for 22 years, having been introduced to tarot in Wales when she was 17.

Over the years she has written the horoscope column for Woman’s Weekly and appeared on George FM with Peter Urlich in a ‘‘Friday predictions’’ timeslot and a similar show on Radio NZ.

But since the closure of her store and the rise of the digital world, Pope mostly spends her time doing online readings. Over the pandemic that spiked to up to five per day.

Tarot, originally a pack of playing cards used in 15th century Italy and other parts of Europe, transformed into its present-day association during the 19th century when occultists made claims about its history, meaning and supposed divinatory properties. Ever since, custom decks have been made and sold. It is one of a range of spiritual practices that have seen anecdotal increases in popularity alongside astrology, modern paganism and witchcraft in recent years.

Although no robust data exists to support how many people are engaged with tarot now versus historically, card readers say their services have been in hot demand over the past two decades, particularly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and as the internet has grown.

Economists have estimated the global tarot card market is worth about US$1.2 billion (NZ$1.85b) but that is expected to grow by US$214m by the year 2026.

International reports have pointed to declining rates of religion, a spike in anxiety in young people, and global sociopolitical instability as being contributing factors to people’s interest in purchasing cards. Tarot has been widely featured across pop culture in books, TV shows and films.

And references to tarot can be found in art and fashion, like in Dior’s spring 2021 haute couture show that featured garments based off traditional characters in decks.

Despite widespread scepticism about any actual fortune-telling abilities of the cards, New Zealanders who use tarot say they do so to help understand and interpret their own lives and personal situations and for reassurance through uncertain and unstable times – a feeling that has persisted since the start of the pandemic.

Traditionally, encounters with tarot were only possible at now-shut stores like Pope’s or at travellers’ fairs, where some card readers claimed to predict the future and held superstitions related to their own cards.

But online communities such as Biddy Tarot and Labyrinthos and platforms including YouTube, Twitch, TikTok and Instagram have democratised tarot, with thousands of card readers from a new generation now publishing content about the cards with various degrees of sincerity. This shift has mostly been celebrated by long-time tarot users due to the expanded access to knowledge that some card readers have historically felt should be guarded or tightly held.

Digital retailers have also created a commercial market for the thousands of decks available to purchase by collectors.

Wellington-based public servant Zamm Zamudio is one such person, having amassed nearly 300 decks in her lifetime. Zamudio offers readings and intuitive coaching through her personal development business Zammtopia, using tarot cards to aid her intuition.

In practice, she says, this means using a reading to get a client to think about a situation in their life that is troubling them from a different perspective, or helping them to see pathways forward they may be too stuck to realise.

For Zamudio, who has written a book on intuition, each tarot deck is a ‘‘work of art’’.

While cards in widely used decks have traditional prescribed meanings, some readers, including Zamudio, instead use the cards as a tool to tell a story or explain possibilities for the future based on a combination of the imagery and symbolism that emerges in a reading and what a client has told them about their personal situation.

Tarot decks are generally split into two parts – the major and minor arcana – with the 78 cards also split into four suits which correspond to the four elements: air, water, earth and fire. Each card is numbered and is said to have astrological and planetary associations. Hundreds of books attempting to illuminate the symbolism of tarot cards exist.

Zamudio’s practice has grown by word of mouth over the past decade and now she has clients around the world, including diplomats and professors. She says tarot has historically got a bad rap as people have used it to take financial advantage of vulnerable people via ‘‘addictive’’ phone readings but she says there are many people using tarot who just want to help others.

Despite this, fear persists about tarot in some cultures and religions, including Christianity in which divination is described as a sin.

Zamudio says while tarot can give people meaning, it cannot replace professional mental health services.

Auckland-based Pope says there used to be card readers ‘‘everywhere’’. Most of those shops were now closed due to costly overheads and the ease of being able to offer services through mediums like Facebook.

The thing Pope loves most about tarot is that it is all about storytelling. She also likes the flexibility of running her own business and considers it an art. Pope owns about 30 tarot decks. Wellington-based therapist Heidi Threlfo was brought up in a strict religious home but began learning tarot when she was 24.

Despite reading only for herself and friends for the next seven years, she has now been involved with tarot for two decades after people started turning up at her doorstep asking if she could help them too.

She now goes in and out of phases of reading, saying she gets more out of being a therapist than she does using tarot. Part of the reason, Threlfo says, tarot resonates with some people is that humans have always been storytellers. The process of selecting cards means people have made a conscious choice and it helps them to feel they have ownership over the spread, she says.

But tarot can also be addictive for some, Threlfo says.

Retired Massey University religious history professor Peter Lineham says it is difficult to quantify how many New Zealanders use tarot but one study in 2018 from the Wilberforce Foundation found about one-fifth of the population had spiritual beliefs – a rate about 5% higher than Australia.

There was no evidence the pandemic had resulted in higher levels of interest in spirituality but it had resulted in a sharp reduction of about 20% in attendance at organised religion events.

In the 2018 Census, 19,434 people professed to spiritualism and new age religions, representing 0.41% of New Zealand’s population.

But that data only showed those who viewed spiritual beliefs as a kind of religion.

Almost all organised monotheistic religions like Islam, Christianity and Bahai condemn forms of fortune-telling as forbidden knowledge and occult, Lineham says.

But in an uncertain world, people have a desire for certainty, and as uncertainty increases, so too does the search for fortune-telling in various forms, Lineham says.

News

en-nz

2023-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281681144012180

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