tarot, AI, and the power of process

hello, friends. last month i shared a thread on bluesky about using AI for tarot readings, one that i knew was an essay waiting to happen. this is that essay.

(in case you're new here, let me make myself extremely clear: fuck genAI, forever and always. i don't want it in my creativity, i don't want it in my tarot, i don't want it in my spiritual life, i don't want it anywhere. if you love LLMs, if you're already cracking your knuckles to write me a scathing explanation of why you have to use it and i'm being left behind and AI is the future, please just go ahead and unsubscribe.)

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i am not the first person to say this, nor am i the first to sound the alarm about how reliance on AI is impacting our ability to read fluently, think creatively, or problem-solve effectively. not just in tarot but in your entire life, AI fucks with our heads. 

over the last year i have seen more and more people on social media asking folks to help them understand their LLM chatbot tarot interpretations, or sharing tips for asking chatbots questions about tarot. we're also seeing an increase in AI-generated and AI-assisted tarot decks, from straight-up counterfeit cards to publishers fully embracing the use of AI in deck artwork.

and listen, i do (kind of) get the temptation to use AI for tarot. AI accelerates a final product, letting people skip the process, the uncertainty, the confusion. AI strips out the struggle and hands us a shiny, polished answer. AI means we don't have to try.

the problem is that tarot readings are the process. the whole point of the reading is the process of reading.

defenses for using AI to help interpret tarot readings are predictable in nature: that people don't understand the cards on their own, that they want another perspective beyond what they do know or that LLMs can be objective, that they're not "good at tarot" (whatever the hell that means), that they don't have time to study the cards in-depth but need an answer right now, or that they're freaking out about their cards and want assurance that the bad feelings they have post-reading aren't valid. some argue that chatbots can help readers see past their own blind spots, especially if it offers up an interpretation that the reader hasn't thought of. others insist that there is magic and spirit somehow in these LLMs, that something is speaking to them using stolen words and ideas.

the good news is that if you want a sycophantic plagiarism robot to tell you that everything will be fine and you've never done anything wrong in your life, it exists, and you sure could use it to interpret your tarot readings into meaningless slop or generic cheerleading. the bad news is literally everything else.

i hope that i'm preaching to the choir here, but truly: there is zero benefit to you in outsourcing your fluency, intuition, creativity, experiences, discernment, and meaning-making to an AI chatbot. all you are doing is surrendering your one wild and precious imagination to a billionaire's pet project that is actively destroying the planet, while also actively teaching yourself that you cannot be trusted.

and friend, you can trust yourself. tarot can literally help you learn how to do that, if you lean into exploring the process itself, the act of reading, the journey of listening.

when i first started reading tarot, i didn't trust myself at all. i'd grown up in a fundamentalist evangelical church, thought intuition was just the devil's voice in my head (seriously), and had no idea how to make space for my own thoughts and feelings and desires. every tarot reading was a two hour process of reading four different tarot experts' thoughts on the cards, trying to find the throughlines between their interpretations, and then connect it to whatever vague question i had shakily asked my cards.

it was a nightmare. readings took forever, i was usually really confused, and i would often walk away from my cards more uncertain and frustrated than before. and that happened in large part because i was overly concerned with whether or not my reading was "right," and forgot to pay attention to whether or not my reading was true.

slowly, painfully, i've built an actual relationship with my cards — through readings, through study, through trial and error, through talking with other tarot readers, and through staying curious. and the best part is that the longer i've been reading tarot, and the more i've learned to listen to my gut, the more it's felt like building a deep and profound relationship with magic itself – and with my own spirit, my own power, my own truth.

not only are my tarot readings so much more resonant, profound, authentic, and genuinely supportive, but i also know myself better, trust myself more, feel more courage and conviction in what i'm doing both during tarot readings and in the rest of my life.

my tarot readings literally feel better than they used to — and so do i.

AI wishes it could give tarot readings like i do. AI wishes it could make typos and mistakes like i do, create messy and silly spreads like i do, offer alternative interpretations and unexpected questions like i do. but a robot, a computer, with stolen words and voices and ideas, will simply never be able to give you a tarot reading that simultaneously quickens your breath and steadies your spirit — not like you can give yourself, when you truly let yourself be part of the reading. not as a crutch, not as an excuse, but as a devotion, a dedication, and intention.

AI wants us to outsource our thinking, our intuition, our creativity, and our gut instincts. AI encourages us to surrender meaning-making to something else, something impersonal and nonhuman. AI strips the magic out of everything and flattens it, homogenizes it, makes it bland and sycophantic. AI makes complex things seem simple, in an effort to make us feel comforted and quiet.

but tarot — tarot does the opposite. tarot calls us on our shit, helps us strip away the layers of nonsense and avoidance to see the truth of a situation. tarot pushes us in ways that allow us to grow. tarot is a mirror, one that we have to be brave enough to look into — but it can also be a compass, one that offers guidance but doesn’t try to convince or force us to do anything. tarot can support our free will and our agency, serving as a tactile, analog connection point between our body, our mind, and our intuition. using tarot can make us braver, help us feel more certain of our own voice, empower us trust in our own decisions and make courageous actions in our daily life.

and while AI actively encourages people to pull away from community and beloveds, ignoring relationships with humans in favor of a chatbot that consistently defaults to praise, tarot helps us deepen connections with other people, making space for collaboration, care, and compassion. AI is designed to smooth out all that pesky human shit, while tarot helps deepen our relationship to humanity itself.

in other words: you belong in your own fucking tarot readings, friends, and AI is going to get in the way of that work. you're part of the magic. your only role isn't just pulling cards and then turning somewhere else for the truths that they reveal: you should be part of that process, part of that magic.

you make the tarot reading a reading.

here’s my truth, after ten years of tarot: there is no “right way” to read the cards.

there are common ways, standardized ways, colonized ways. there are typical ways, popular ways, expected ways. there are convenient ways, complicated ways, simplified and streamlined ways. there are also weird ways, irreverent ways, abandoned ways, strange ways, personal ways. and, of course, there's your way.

every day i’m on the internet, and every day i see someone saying what tarot is or is not, what it can or cannot do, who it is or is not for. and honestly, what is the purpose of these rules? what do they accomplish? who are they for, and who are they benefitting? when we fight amongst ourselves about who can access magic or who can tap into intuition, who wins?

tarot has been around for centuries. the order of the golden dawn didn’t invent tarot, nor were they the first to understand it. people have been making up their own rules for the cards since always. people read differently from each other other all the time. people have different beliefs about the cards and what they’re capable of. and nobody is “right,” because right isn’t a thing in this particular context.

when you see someone arguing that there’s only one correct interpretation for a card or only one way to practice (somebody literally left a comment like this on a post of mine as i was writing this fucking essay), when you hear someone talking about what chatGPT told them is accurate about an archetype, when you see someone insisting that the order of the golden dawn knew what was up and everybody else is clueless, do yourself a favor and ignore them. because people who defer their knowing to others, whether it’s old dead white guys or a plagiarism robot, are more interested in being “right” than they are in being true.

and i’d much rather talk about what’s true — along with what’s strange, what’s weird, what’s magical, and what’s mysterious. i’d much rather live in a world brimming with questions, engaging with people who see curiosity and not-knowing as sacred, than surrender my agency to those who are so sure they’re right that they can’t see any other possibility, or have no room for learning more.

this binary way of thinking is some white supremacist shit, friends. this demand for perfection, this insistence that only one thing can be right or true, this refusal to challenge existing beliefs, is some colonizer shit.

let’s make space for shades of gray, for discovery and weirdness, for the knowledge that there will always be so much that we don’t know. let’s release these narrow-minded ways of thinking, and make space for curiosity instead.

let's try, and try, and try again.

as long as you keep deferring your own wisdom, experience, and magic to others, you will struggle to give yourself tarot readings that feel resonant, authentic, and truly connected to who you are. and the more you rely on external sources to smooth out the rough edges and make everything easy to digest without bringing your own messy humanity into the reading, the less you're going to trust yourself — not just in your readings, but in your daily life.

this isn’t just about AI. this is also about beliefs that people who write tarot books automatically know more than you, or that you have to read for a decade before you can give readings to others, or that you have to be fluent in the rider-waite-smith system, or you have to do three decan walks, or whatever other arbitrary goalposts you have in your head for who gets to read tarot and what being “good at tarot” means.

if you read tarot, you’re a tarot reader. your intuition, your wisdom, your experience, your observations, your truth, your magic, and your questions are all valid.

i know: tarot is hard to learn sometimes, and can feel overwhelming. there's a lot to memorize, a lot to unpack, a lot to understand. there are so many methods and techniques available, so many different approaches, so many weird rules and gatekeepers and unexpected road blocks. but tarot is a lot easier to learn when you allow your own identity, history, desires, insights, and worldview to be part of the process and the practice.

and no matter how well-trained a chatbot is, it will never replace your unique mind, your unique heart. honestly, why would you want it to?

learning tarot does require effort for most people. it takes time and energy and care. it takes effort and devotion. but when you aren't trying to use tarot card meanings and definitions that rub you the wrong way, that feel at odds with your own values, that make you wildly uncomfortable or afraid, it all gets a little easier to navigate. and when you aren't ignoring your own intuitive insights or responses to prioritize keywords or interpretations that someone else is sharing, it becomes so much easier to build a relationship with your deck and a personal tarot practice that resonates with you.

i want you to be able to give yourself clear, resonant tarot readings. you don't need AI to do it. you just need to try.

tarot doesn't have to be serious all the time. learning the cards doesn't have to take over your life. having a tarot practice doesn't have to be something that requires hours a day. but taking five minutes here and there to pull a card for yourself and listen to your intuition and see what bubbles up is a really potent and useful way to slow down, take a breath, and remember what it feels like to think for yourself.

if you want help, if you could use support, or if you just need a place to get started, i've got tons of resources available on my website — this free crossroads quiz can help you figure out what might feel good for you right now. i've also got a really fun, deeply playful community tarot container beginning on june 24th that you can learn more about right here. and i run a signature membership called the hermitage that's packed with resources for intermediate tarot readers who are ready to build their own meanings, find themselves within the cards, and give readings that feel deeply personal.

however you engage with the tarot, take it slow, and take it personal. you don't need AI — you just need to remember how to trust yourself.

i believe in you, friend.

thank you for reading, for being here, for using your mind and heart every day. if you enjoyed this essay, i would love it if you'd forward it to a friend or share it with your tarot pals. and if you want to deepen your tarot practice and truly make it your own, i've got plenty of resources that can help you do so on my website.

wishing you a beautiful june, a happy pride, and a magical practice.