What Got You Into Tarot?

I’m a Tarot reader. I use cards to tell stories in a way that sparks insight, reflection, and clarity.

There is an inherent psychic element to card reading, which is the sexy part of Tarot. There is also a heavy dose of practical psychology, which is the useful part of Tarot. And at the intersection of those two things, where the logical and the unempirical rub up against each other and create friction in their opposing views, we find the best part of Tarot: a sense of Wonder.

I would love to say I came to Tarot through some unshakeable spiritual calling, motivated by the desire to attain wisdom by which I could heal, inspire, and enlighten my fellow humans. If ever I tell you that’s what brought me here, you have my permission to backhand me and tell my mother what a filthy liar her baby boy turned out to be. What actually brought me to Tarot is this: I like witches.

Brett flying a broomstick with absolutely no editing involved whatsoever. Photo by Daniel Bucci.

My primary childhood obsession (which has extended into my reluctantly-accepted adulthood) was witches. I compulsively drew pictures of green-skinned women bent over boiling cauldrons, played with porcelain Halloween hags from the dollar store like they were action figures, and was excited by traffic cones because they’re shaped like witch hats. Now, it’s a known fact that the average gay man is notorious for worshipping fabulously wicked women, and I’ve considered that my love of witches was merely an early symptom of my belligerent homosexuality. Except it wasn’t just witches. It was genies, who could shuffle reality with a finger-snap. It was prophets, with their direct link to a greater-than-human intelligence. It was angels and demons, the divine hierarchy which, I believed, should have featured more prominently in my half-assed Catholic upbringing. The core of my obsession was magic, the promise that our eyes can only tell half the story, that behind the sepia-toned veil of mundane existence there is something worthy of a sense of Wonder. I loved magic more than anything else in the world. And the hard thing about magic being your first love is that heartbreak is bound to come early.

Magic is taken away almost as quickly as it’s given. Our world is rife with stories chock-full of wishes, marvels, and miracles. These stories are used to delight our little ones, then promptly dismissed so they don’t get in the way of What’s Real. I was a tempestuous child, and my peers’ willingness to roll over and let the best part of being alive (i.e. magic) get taken away by an Adult™ disgusted me. I resolved to be the frontier that would protect magic from the dangers of Facts. I felt a strong sense of purpose in this self-appointed role, but it was… difficult. I had never seen a broom fly. I’d never spoken to a ghost. Despite vigorous inspections, I’d yet to uncover a fairy village underneath a toadstool. (Though I hadn’t given up trying.) The Adults™, the enemy, were well provisioned with data to support their barren, monotonous worldview. Fortunately, I had an ultimate maneuver that not even the adultiest Adult™ could deny: Santa. Invoke his name, and the Adults™ shut their pompous mouths. They’d get quiet, and uncomfortable, because I had won. Behold, Santa! He who sees your heart and knows where you live! Cower before his omniscience of all things Naughty and Nice! Face the one-night whirl around the earth, the flyer-by-sleigh, the bag of infinite gifts! Look Santa in the eye and then muster the gall to tell me magic isn’t real.

It’s trite to call Santa a trauma. It’s silly. It’s nonsensical. But, still, I remember losing Santa so, so much more vividly than I remember having him. I learned the secret, the real reason Adults™ surrendered in the face of a red suit and white beard. Santa went away, and he took magic with him.

My quest to find magic didn’t end. It just took on a (healthy, rational) psychopathic fervor driven by spite. Proving magic was real (and salvaging my Wonder) was going to be difficult in the absence of flying reindeer. But there were other stones to turn; namely, religion. On the brink of puberty, I learned people hadn’t quite reached a consensus vis-à-vis spirituality, and there were many differing philosophies about what’s happening out there in the cosmos. Some of those philosophies included magic. Real magic. The kind of magic that could be harnessed, directed, and instructed to defy probability. Here was something Marvelous! Here was something to Wonder about! I made occultism my sandbox, and I played.

Wicca was an obvious starting point. I loved the (ahistorical) claim that there not only were witches but had always been witches, and I called myself Wiccan before I understood what that entailed. The Law of Attraction was very appealing, with its faux-scientific jargon and its promise of wish-fulfilling-good-vibes. I was willing to try anything once, twice, seven times. I chalked pentagrams onto the basement floor (sorry to my parents), memorized incantations from books off the New Age shelves, and whispered them over candles when my mother wasn’t looking lest I be reprimanded for literally playing with fire. I donned and discarded occult practices in the way of a makeover montage, trying to be so assertive in my faith that I would derail flouters and skeptics by my conviction alone.

(And all the while, I had a quiet, persistent crisis where I stared down the barrel of a world without magic, and whispered: “Please be real, please be real, please be real.”)

I did encounter the uncanny in fits and starts. A spell would seem to work. A gut feeling would prove correct. There were teases that kept me going, but nothing close to the proof I wanted. Nothing truly, unequivocally Wonderful.

And then, one day, my search… stopped?

Not stopped, exactly. I identified as a witch, my love of the supernatural was still my defining characteristic, and I maintained that the only media worth consuming was that which featured magic. But I was in theatre school, tousling undiagnosed anxiety, and meeting boys who I not only wanted to kiss but who wanted to kiss me back. In short, I was busy. Also, though I never admitted it, I was beginning to feel the pursuit of magic was a dead end. Maybe it wasn’t real. Or maybe I just didn’t have it. Maybe it was too exhausting (and heartbreaking, and damaging) to keep chasing Wonder. After all, other people seemed to be getting by without it. It was easier to give my heart to theatre and pretty boys (and to quietly turn my back on the magic I’d never find) than to confess to having wasted my time.

There was, however, one little bit of magic that stuck. Thank you for your patience, and enter, at long last, Tarot.

One of the first bits of magical paraphernalia I acquired was a Tarot deck. Other things came and went – crystals, chalices, pentagram jewelry, wands and Ouija boards, thuribles and pendulums – but my cards stuck around. I kept them because they were interesting, and meaningful, but also because other people were fascinated by them. Like any good theatre kid, I loved attention. And people loved having their fortunes told! Thus, I carried my Tarot cards and the accompanying manual around with me, doing readings by quoting the book out loud. It was the closest I would get to feeling like a real witch, and the deepest level of spiritual practice I could afford without having my heart broken. I told myself that was enough for me.

“That’s enough for me,” I said as I collected books about divination. Not just Tarot, but other traditions of cartomancy, as well as tea-leaf reading, palmistry, numerology, runes, scrying…

“That’s enough for me,” I said as, per the recommendation of multiple Tarot books, I studied the symbolism of each card, meditated about them, dealt daily readings for myself, journaled my interpretations, compared the outcomes, and updated my views on the cards accordingly.

“That’s enough for me,” I said as I sought mentorship from experienced readers, planning trips to Salem and New Orleans so I could meet with people who actually knew what they were doing, taking classes, joining a coven, learning.

I ignored my craving for miracles even as it puppeteered me through years of intense Tarot study. Eventually, I put away the manual. I started charging for readings (albeit nominally) as a side-hustle. And all the while I dismissed and downplayed how central a role the Tarot played in my life, pretending there was nothing serious or important happening between me and my cards. I wasn’t about to be caught flat-footed by caring too much, nay nay! The bubble that protected my dreams of a magical universe burst when I was offered a position as a Tarot reader at a speakeasy.

I’m won't lie, it was a pretty sexy job. I was set up in a lush, secret boudoir behind a swinging door disguised as a bookshelf. People were brought to me in small groups, and I was allotted twenty minutes to delight and astound them with my little cards. I was hired as an entertainer, not a conduit for the divine. “Make it theatrical!” I was told. “Ham it up!”

I didn’t care for that. But who was I to preach the legitimacy of Tarot when I wasn’t sold on it, even as an active reader? Nevertheless, something about that comment – at once totally innocent and deeply insulting – filled my mouth with bile. Sure, I’ll make it fun, I thought. But I am not your entertainer. I am your reader. And I will show you that even if there’s no magic, no ghosts, no Wonder, no nothing, there is something valuable in what I do.

The groups came in, usually couples having a date night or tipsy colleagues from one of the nearby office buildings unwinding after work, and I dealt the cards. I read, as honestly and pragmatically as I could, refusing to hum or gasp or rub my temples, and I sent the merry patrons on their way, content to be forgotten as the bookshelf closed behind them.

At the end of my first night, the entertainment manager approached me with a strange expression on her face. “I don’t know how you’re doing it, but people are spooked.” What a delightful compliment, not least because it meant I could keep the gig. That being said, I didn’t leave the speakeasy shouting “I’m a spiritual medium!!” to the heavens. I was a good orator, I had a knack for reading people, and perhaps my passion for Tarot was somehow infectious.

I kept on at the speakeasy, which turned into private readings. And events. And the same people visiting week after week. “Everything you said came true! You were dead-on, I had to see you again! How often are you here? I’m bringing my friend. Where can we book you?”

It was overwhelming because, obviously, I was a fraud. I had chased magic for so long. It wasn’t about to show up for me here, in the velvety back room of a cocktail bar. Except – and at the risk of tooting my own horn too loudly – I was getting a lot of things right. Things that surprised them. Things that surprised me. My cards started to feel more like a prompt, taking a backseat to my own instincts. I grew more daring with the information I shared.

“Your mother’s new husband is bad, but it won’t last.”

“Your best friend is having a baby.”

“Your grandfather used to love blueberry bundt cake.”

And they would say, “Yes! Yes, exactly!”

My mistake, as I pursued engagement with it (magic, spirit, whatever) was thinking that if something was going to be mystical, it had to be grandiose. It only counted if it was an unwavering certainty, a transcendent vision, a voice heard with my actual ears. It had never occurred to me that the voice of spirit might be the same voice that makes my grocery list.

I kept doing readings, and removed obstacles (like my copy writing job) to make room for it. Because I love Tarot. And because I was excited, ecstatic, elated to be engaging with something that felt legitimately mystical. The more readings I did, the more clearly I was able to intuit those nuggets of information that left people with that look. The one with the gleam and the wide eyes. It reminded me of childhood. It reminded me of fairy tales, and flying broomsticks. It made me remember Santa.

While I do believe predicting the future is possible (to a point), I don’t believe in fate, and I especially don’t believe in predetermination. That being said, it’s hard not to relish the poetry of losing my sense of wonder, fighting desperately to recover it, and eventually discovering Wonder again when I committed to sharing it with others.

It’s pretty neat to be able to pluck information out of the air, and that’s the part of my job Little Brett is most excited about. But the psychic stuff, while neat, isn’t the important part of Tarot. In reading Tarot, we find our own stories. Maybe through mysticism, maybe through colourful psychology, maybe (as I believe) through the intersection of both. I don’t really care how it happens, and I still don’t have irrefutable proof that magic is real, but I do have a body of knowledge that, in my experience, helps people think there’s more purpose, more possibility, more Wonder than our world lets on.

That’s my job. I read cards. I tell stories. I help people see their stories in those stories, and I try to guide them towards the outcome they’re looking for. And I listen to a little voice that is simultaneously a mysterious spirit and an understanding of the human psyche and just little ol’ me, and I share that voice in the hopes that I’ll get to see Santa on their face.