"For Entertainment Purposes Only"
Yeah, No. In fact, hell No.
The reading of Tarot cards is not purportedly illegal in my state1. Nor in my city2. Not even in my county3.
But, lots and lots of people aren’t so lucky.
Tarot reading, considered in the law as “Fortune Telling” is purportedly illegal in Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. New York is interesting because while it is purportedly illegal, an out is given if one posts a sign explaining that it is for ‘Entertainment Purposes Only’ or some similar disclaimer.
Fuck that.
I’ve been using Tarot my entire adult life. And based on those decades and decades of experience, I believe it to work. Not sometimes, always. I believe it to be true. I believe it to be a sacred tool, used in sacred work. Divine, divination, not ‘fortune telling.’
And you know what?
It is protected, absolutely, under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
It’s actually doubly protected. It is protected as Free Speech, because no government of or in the United States can tell one person that he or she can’t have a conversation with a willing listener. If someone asks me to lay some cards on a table and tell them how I interpret those cards, government is absolutely precluded from telling me that I can’t do so. For money, or otherwise.
It is also protected as Freedom of Religion. It is my sincerely held religious view that Tarot cards are spiritual, divine if you will, Truth. As such, no government in or of the United States has the ability to prohibit or regulate my use of the Tarot, nor even question my belief in it.
Quite simply, these are just basic facts about the United States and the limitations placed on our governments. Legislators and lawmakers in a handful of states and localities might like to deny these facts, but that does not make them any less true.
Check this baby out:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
And of course the Fourteenth Amendment ensured that State and local governments couldn’t ignore the above:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Pretty cool huh?4
So, the laws purportedly prohibiting ‘fortune telling’ in Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New York are invalid on their face.
New York is most interesting though, because it gives an out if a Tarot reader provides a disclaimer saying that it’s all just for fun.
But, golly, it seems that the First Amendment also precludes any government in or of the United States from requiring me to say anything. The whole “compelled speech doctrine.”5
Not to mention the fact that requiring me to claim that Tarot is for ‘entertainment’ or ‘amusement’ only, and not my sincerely held belief would violate my Religious Freedom.
See how much fun this is?
Ok, so normally, on a practical level, all of this amounts to a hill of nothing.
Because these are old laws, improperly written and passed long ago, that everyone knows are invalid, so they aren’t enforced.
(Of course fraud is a completely different matter. There have been plenty of con-men and con-women through the ages who have used ‘fortune telling’ as a means of effecting their con. Fraud is always wrong, and those who commit fraud, by whatever means should be prosecuted. This essay in no way argues against the prosecution of those who commit fraud which is rightly unlawful.)
But, things got interesting about a year ago.
A small woo shop opened in a town in Pennsylvania at which the owner offers Tarot readings. The shop was featured in a positive article published in a local publication. The Police Chief apparently read the article, and decided to visit the shop with one of his Officers.
While there he informed the owner that reading Tarot for money was illegal in Pennsylvania, and that his department would take action if a complaint was ever made.
The shop owner, feeling threatened (who wouldn’t if two cops showed up to tell you that your business is illegal and that they might haul your butt to jail) hired an attorney.
The attorney, recognizing the invalidity of the law, asked the city to assure his client that it would not be enforced.
No dice. The city refused.
Unable to get the city to agree to stop violating his client’s civil rights, the attorney filed a lawsuit in Federal Court alleging violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.6
The shop owner hopes that the lawsuit will result in the overturning of this old, unenforceable law.
And it should, and the shop owner is right to bring suit, because these laws are not designed to be enforced. Rather they are used to harass and intimidate people. Especially people who are otherwise marginalized.
Just as the Police Chief intended with his ‘visit’ to the shop in question, these laws do nothing but terrify people into not doing what they have every legal right to do.7 That is wrong, and it must be fought against.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to this shop owner for standing up to the tactics of tyranny.
You see, the Police Chief and other leaders of the town just don’t have the right to enforce their own religious objections on everyone else. We fought a war or two in order to prevent petty little totalitarians from doing such things here in the USA.
But, it gets a bit nastier than that. Going back to the New York statute (and as apparently practiced in Pennsylvania, see footnote No. 7) that requires Tarot readers to post a notice that the readings offered are for ‘entertainment’ or ‘amusement’ purposes only requires Tarot readers to give up their fundamental right to Religious Freedom.
If you post a sign or tell people that your readings are ‘for entertainment only’ you’ll have a heck of a hard time ever convincing a court that your belief in Tarot is a sincerely held spiritual belief. You are communicating that you are not offering spiritual guidance, rather you are offering a comedic or dramatic performance. That will certainly torpedo any claim that such a law violates your Religious Freedom, even if you do sincerely hold a spiritual belief about the efficacy and sacred nature of your Tarot practice.
According to media accounts, the shop did have such a sign8, and I must presume that is why the shop owner’s legal challenge is only in respect to Free Speech, and not both the exercise of Speech and Religion.
So, fuck that. Don’t put up a sign like that, or make a disclosure like that, unless you believe it to be true. I don’t. I believe my Tarot practice to be sacred, so would never make a claim otherwise.
But, ultimately even here in my very blue, very socially progressive State one must be on the watch for purported prohibitions at the local level.
Not too far from the city in which I live is a city called Orting. It has the following ordinance on it’s books:
“6-1B-9: FORTUNE TELLING AND RELATED ACTS:
Any person who asks or receives any compensation, gratuity, or reward for practicing fortune telling, tea leaf reading, palmistry or clairvoyance is guilty of a misdemeanor. Asking or receiving any compensation, gratuity or reward includes the receipt by the defendant of anything of value either before or after the act of fortune telling, tea leaf reading, palmistry or clairvoyance for whatever alleged or stated purpose. (1973 Code § 9.71.010)”9
So, golly, according to that ordinance you are breaking the law if your best friend invites you over for dinner, feeds you, and then asks you for a free Tarot reading which you provide.
Methinks that a wee bit of civil disobedience is in order.
As Tarot practitioners, we should never be made to feel that what we are doing is somehow unlawful or that we are doing anything wrong when we read for others. Ours is an honorable calling, no matter what some petty tyrant in Pennsylvania, or Orting might say.
I’m a guy who reads Tarot cards and writes things on the internet. I’m not an attorney, none of this is legal advice.
Want a Tarot Reading from your’s truly? Even if you live in Orting?
Well, here you go!
Just smash this pretty purple button:
https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/
https://www.codepublishing.com/WA/Centralia/
https://www.codepublishing.com/WA/LewisCounty/
https://constitution.congress.gov/
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/compelled-speech/
https://www.eveningsun.com/story/news/local/2024/08/23/serpents-key-owner-files-lawsuit-over-tarot-reading-statute-police-visit-hanover-pa-beck-lawrence/74920507007/
https://www.thecentersquare.com/pennsylvania/article_572839aa-780c-11ee-94fe-678026cdaa7e.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/us/pennsylvania-witchcraft-tarot-law-police.html
https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/ortingwa/latest/orting_wa/0-0-0-2778
The powers to be probably make it illegal because they don’t want you to use it. Because it is real. Remember when Reagan consulted his astrologer every day? He didn’t make a move according to Nancy unless he seeked out their advice. Thank you, Cameron!