Learn about tarot card reading — and if you should get one — from Charlotte experts
Have you ever walked past a store offering tarot readings and felt intrigued but too afraid to walk in? Nervous, perhaps, that the reading might not be accurate, or worse, provide future projections you don’t really want to know?
Us, too.
So we decided to talk to four Charlotte tarot card readers to find out what it is all about.
What is tarot card reading?
Tarot card reading is a somewhat spiritual practice that uses intricately decorated cards to tap into the lives of inquiring customers.
For some Charlotte-area tarot readers, like Gina Spriggs, tarot cards act as a medium through which readers with natural intuition channel their talent for projecting the future. For other tarot readers, the cards act as a way to stimulate and inspire their intuitive abilities.
Tarot cards usually come in packs of 78, each card displaying intricate illustrations with a unique history and meaning. Originally used as playing cards in Italy in the 1400s, tarot cards were adapted for mystical and fortune-telling purposes in 18th century France.
The broad aim of a tarot card reading is to help the person receiving it to connect to their intuition and understand how to harness it when needed. Each tarot reading will look slightly different depending on where you go.
What is it like to experience a tarot reading?
Spriggs offers readings both virtually and in-person at her store in the heart of NoDa, called Curio, Craft, & Conjure. The store is filled with colorful candles, magic rocks, incense, and piles of tarot card decks, providing a suitably mystical ambiance for an in-person tarot reading.
She likes to start her readings by asking the customer to think of one of their happiest memories. This helps Spriggs to tap into her customer energetically.
“I’ll talk about the entities and energies that I perceive around them,” Spriggs said. “And then I tap into their energy centers or their chakras and tell them what I feel.”
Spriggs goes on to use two tarot decks to provide clarity on any unspoken burning questions the customer may have. For example, she might use the cards to help predict whether a customer will get the job she applied for or when a child will be born.
Tarot readings tend to last between 15 minutes and an hour, depending on the complexity or quantity of the dilemmas the client would like to address.
Other tarot readers will ask their customers to verbalize the questions they are struggling to answer in their lives. Mariah Oller owns her own tarot reading company called Harvest and Moon and provides most of her readings online or at events. She told CharlotteFive that she gets straight to the point.
“What’s a question you’ve been considering lately?” Oller asks at the start of a tarot reading.
For one customer, who shared they were having trouble choosing between two career paths, Oller picked four cards that fell from the tarot deck after loosely shuffling them. Using the cards and her intuition, Oller suggested a few possible outcomes and opportunities laden in each career path. Most of Oller’s readings last 15 to 30 minutes.
Raven Runyan, a tarot reader and owner of Raven Moon Emporium in Rock Hill, SC, hosts hour-long readings. Customers often come to Runyan seeking to better understand the direction of their lives more holistically. When clients start sharing their problems at the start of the reading, Runyan politely interrupts, asking:
“Don’t tell me anything until I tell it to you first,” Runyan said. “Once I tell you and I bring up (the dilemma), then you can engage.”
Runyan starts her sessions by first looking at the tarot cards she draws, influenced by the energy she reads off of her customers. Without any prior knowledge of the customer’s life story, she will start bringing up themes she notices from the cards and ask her client if they resonate. Most of the time, they do. From there, Runyan works collaboratively with the client, using their shared intuition and the tarot deck to provide clarity on the challenges her client is facing.
When should you get a tarot reading?
“Generally, people come to me where they’re at a crossroads in their life,” Spriggs said. “They want validation on the choice they feel they have to make.”
Tarot readers can provide insights on any kind of dilemma, from romantic uncertainty to parenting challenges or choosing whether to move to a new place.
Oller tells CharlotteFive that her customers mostly request tarot readings when they have important career decisions to make. All of the readers we spoke to for this article said most people seeking their services are facing some kind of important life decision.
Is tarot reading a cheap therapy alternative?
Short answer? No.
Tarot readings from established tarot readers like Spriggs are quite expensive — $300 per hour (although most readings are 15-30 minutes).
Tarot readings are not intended to be a weekly or even monthly investment. Runyan and Spriggs will turn away customers asking for repeat readings within a short timeframe.
“I could take their money and do the reading again, but I wouldn’t do that,” Runyan said. “I follow a pretty strong code of ethics in that regard. I’m not going to take money from people unless I feel I can give them something of value in return.”
And ultimately, tarot readers are not certified therapists.
“I always tell people to go find a therapist because I’m not one. It’s not what I’m trying to do,” said Runyan. “I’m here to bring up all the s—; that’s my job. Now it’s your job to go work on it.”
Mary Beth Wrenn, another tarot reader from Charlotte, also advised people to avoid phony tarot readers who might claim to be able to solve all of your life problems, citing a story about a former client who lost tens of thousands of dollars in payments to a man selling her potions and spells intended to win back her ex-boyfriend.
What if you don’t like your reading?
“I’m very clear with people that tarot is a snapshot of what’s going on at this very moment. It’s not written in stone, it’s not prophecy. It’s none of that. So your decisions can alter that and can change that,” Runyan said.
Spriggs cited a margin of error in most tarot readings. “Even the best (tarot readers) are only going to be accurate a good 80% of the time,” she said.
All of the tarot readers interviewed emphasized the importance of clients taking ownership of their ability to shape the outcomes of their lives, regardless of how bleak their tarot readings may be.
“I tell people, if they hear something that they don’t like, they have the power to change it,” said Spriggs, who once predicted death during a reading.
“And that if they hear something that they do like, it’s their responsibility to continue doing whatever it is that they’re doing so that they yield that outcome.”
Want more?
We’ve compiled a list of 5 places to get a tarot reading in the Charlotte area.