I Became A Tarot Reader

With tarot cards gaining in popularity, writer Daisy Waugh reports on their resurgence – and why she became a professional tarot reader

- Daisy Waugh

Tarot readings have become fashionable. As a professional tarot reader, I can tell this by the sheer number of requests for readings that I get these days. Six years ago, when I first discovered my love for the cards and began the long journey of learning how to read them, I’d never have imagined how much attitudes would change.

Back then, I took a one-day course with the intention of writing about the tarot as a journalist. It was meant to be a bit of a laugh. But after that single day, I found I was hooked – captured by the beauty and structure of the cards and their uncanny wisdom. I could think and talk of nothing else. Friends thought that I was losing my marbles and didn’t hesitate to tell me so.

Not so, anymore. Now, they ask for readings. Now, I am invited to read the tarot at fat-cat corporate lunches! It’s wonderful for my bank balance (I won’t lie). More than that, though, it’s wonderful that something with so much potential to help people is no longer looked on with the fear and ridicule it once was. People are discovering the comfort and clarity that the tarot can bring into their lives, and it’s being accepted into the mainstream.

But tarot has been around for centuries. So why is it so popular now? People often suggest the upsurge in popularity is in response to world news: the uncertainty of the economy, the unpredictability of Trump and Putin, the melting ice caps, and so on...

Of course, it’s no good pretending the Western world is in a particularly happy or stable place right now. On the other hand, life on earth has never been safe, or stable, or certain. What’s changed is our awareness of the world. Technological advances bring us 24-hour rolling news – a never-ending feed of the mayhem and wickedness taking place in distant corners of the globe. It’s bound to make us feel insecure.