{"id":570990,"date":"2023-04-19T21:25:09","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T18:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-tarot-became-the-latest-social-media-craze\/"},"modified":"2023-04-19T21:25:09","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T18:25:09","slug":"how-tarot-became-the-latest-social-media-craze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-tarot-became-the-latest-social-media-craze\/","title":{"rendered":"#How tarot became the latest social media craze"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n It’s a source of introspection and reflection\u2014not unlike therapy\n <\/div>\n
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Once a patchouli-scented pastime, tarot is now decidedly chic (Photograph by iStock)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cSo, the very first thing is kind of a kick in the ass,\u201d says Lori Simeunovic, who goes by Tarot Lori professionally, as she draws the Four of Cups. We\u2019ve connected on a Sunday morning over Zoom to talk about her 35-year career in tarot, and when she offers to read for me, I can\u2019t pass up the opportunity. The cups, she explains, represent love and abundance, but the worried figure on the card looks distracted. \u201cThis card is asking you to be more present. I call this a \u2018cranky grandpa card\u2019 because in my head, it has this old-man voice like Clint Eastwood,\u201d she says, radiating Old Hollywood glamour with her Corvette-red lipstick and platinum-blonde hair in front of a shelf of crystals. I\u2019d classify myself as tarot-agnostic, but I find myself leaning closer and closer to the screen as she flips through her well-worn deck of Rider-Waite-Smith cards.<\/p>\n

Tarot seems to be everywhere lately: on The White Lotus<\/em>, where a spacey heiress played by Jennifer Coolidge receives an ominous reading; in the purse of actress Anya Taylor-Joy, who told British Vogue<\/em> she loves to pull the cards out at parties; in the creations of Montreal jewellery design studio Sofia Zakia, whose tarot collection features gold-and-diamond card pendants. Simeunovic, who started out doing readings in nail salons and coffee shops, has been swept up in the craze: she just signed a two-book deal with HarperCollins to write about rituals and tarot. What was once a patchouli-scented pastime, discoverable through your witchy aunt or local crystal shop, is now decidedly chic and increasingly ubiquitous.<\/p>\n

READ<\/em>:<\/strong> Mindfulness goes corporate\u2014and purists aren\u2019t pleased<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tarot cards have been a party staple since the late medieval era. Fifteenth-century Italians played parlour game<\/a>s with their decks, which are similar to modern playing cards: four suits, each with cards numbered one to 10, followed by four face cards. In tarot, these 56 cards are called the minor arcana, divided into swords, cups, pentacles and wands. Then there are the 22 cards of the major arcana, many of which are familiar even if you\u2019ve never picked up a deck: the Devil, the Lovers, the Chariot. By the 19th century, the cards had become associated with divination and fortune-telling, largely after French occultist \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi helped popularize their esoteric symbolism.<\/p>\n

Today, tarot is a popular tool for self-reflection and introspection, not unlike therapy. For someone like me, who finds the thought of talking about my feelings and anxieties excruciating, the open-ended nature of a tarot reading offers a comfortingly indirect app<\/a>roach. \u201cIt\u2019s like a conversation with your soul, and I\u2019m the interpreter,\u201d says Simeunovic. \u201cI also say that it\u2019s like life coaching the crap out of yourself.\u201d When my attention snagged on the Four of Cups, a figure who is always scanning the horizon for what\u2019s missing, I felt my own worries represented.<\/p>\n

As with pretty much every other aspect of our lives, the tarot business was transformed by the pandemic. Simeunovic says that COVID-19 exploded her reach as people started scheduling readings on Zoom, sometimes even for first dates. She believes that people became more attracted to tarot, astrology and other forms of \u201cwoo woo,\u201d as she puts it, as a way to combat the pandemic\u2019s isolating effect. The striking imagery and open interpretation of the cards also make them ideal for social<\/a>-media algorithms; the #tarot hashtag has over 45 billion views on TikTok.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong>\u00a0You\u2019re Wrong About Gen Z<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Maybe that\u2019s why tarot is flourishing among millennials and Gen Z, whose members are also much less likely to belong to organized religions than their elders. Several of my friends, while telling me about their tarot practices, mentioned that they used to be religious. \u201cTarot and other mystical practices fill that void,\u201d says Keagan Perlette, a Quebec City writer who publishes a news<\/a>letter on tarot cards and astrology. \u201cWhy are we here? What am I doing? You can ask those questions without tying them into the dogma of religion, which can feel restrictive or unaccepting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether you think tarot is a fun party trick or a direct line to the cosmos, it can be an effective way to slice through the Gordian knot of your own tangled thoughts. \u201cThese are just pieces of paper,\u201d Simeunovic says, but there\u2019s pleasure to be found in listening. \u201cWhen you\u2019re shuffling your tarot deck, you\u2019re acknowledging that there\u2019s some force outside you that you can\u2019t see and you can\u2019t control,\u201d says Perlette. \u201cWhether you call it God, or the universe, or physics\u2014it\u2019s something you can\u2019t touch, but it\u2019s going to come and give you a message.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

This article appears in print in the April 2023 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s magazine. Buy the issue for $9.99<\/a>\u00a0or better yet, subscribe to the monthly print magazine for just\u00a0$39.99<\/em>.
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