Practice of Tarot during the Revival of the New Age Movement

Cultural colonization of Rromani spirituality

By: Vishalli Alagappan

After a long night of talking and procrastinating on homework, my roommates and I peel ourselves off the cozy warm bed in one of our rooms and gather around the coffee table, wrapping ourselves up with robes and blankets, to do Tarot readings. The reader cleanses the living room, the rest of us, and the Tarot deck with incense sticks that our Indian moms insisted we have in the apartment. The person getting their future divined asks the deck a question, the reader shuffles and spreads the cards out for them to choose from. Once chosen, the cards get turned over and the reader reads the meaning of the card from the instructional book. The reader, and sometimes the whole group, interprets the reading as it pertains to the question at hand.

This is how we, and since the recent revival of the New Age movement, many others, practice Tarot. Divination through Tarot, which traces its origins to the Roma people (also called the Rromani, which is spelled this way to distinguish the Roma ethnic group from Romanians) has become a very diluted and fetishized practice. Think about divination, palmistry, and scrying crystal balls. Do you see an old, worn, “mystic” woman or an exotic, hyper-sexualized woman like Esmeralda from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”? The images you conjure up are the romanticized and unrepresentative depiction of Rromani women that is fed to us by the media and, ultimately, a society steeped in cultural erasure of ethnic minorities.  

First, a history lesson that was never included in the syllabus. The Rromani are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group who migrated from India to Europe in the 12th century. Since their arrival, the Rromani have been ostracized, persecuted, and enslaved, with abolition only arriving in the 1850s. During the Holocaust, Germany marked the Roma as “enemies of the race-based state,” alongside the Jewish population. Rromani are referred to as the “Forgotten Victims” of the war as they were massacred and forcibly sterilized to keep down the population of the Roma. To this day, much of the Roma population survives without access to housing, healthcare, and education, meanwhile, many young Roma girls are kidnapped and pressured into sex work. Many Rromani are stuck in a vicious cycle of generational poverty and de facto othering.

As I was researching for this article, I came across this phrase that the Roma learn young: “Bury me standing, for I’ve spent a lifetime on my knees.”   

The grim irony lies in the fact that throughout history jobs were withheld from the Rromani, so they were forced to use divination through Tarot for a meager income and were further stigmatized for their work as Tarot readers. Some countries even specifically ban Rromani from fortune telling, but allow others to practice divination. 

In recent times, when Rromani Tarot readers criticize non-Rromani about their white washing of the Tarot’s origins and practice, they are posed with questions such as, “Where are your sources? What historical record affirms that claim?” The Rromani record and preserve their history through oral tradition. Demanding written historical sources for proof is a habit that arises from white supremacy and the dominance of the written languages throughout history. Rromani have fought and died to hold onto this tradition of Tarot reading that has sustained them through years of persecution and ethnic cleansing. Cherry picking the “fun” parts of the Roma’s spiritual practices while actively stigmatizing Rromani practitioners and erasing the Rromani roots contributes to the cultural colonization of the New Age movement.

Anna, a Rromani Tarot reader says, “When you can take on the history, suffering, shame and trauma, then you can have Tarot.”

It’s important to note that there is indeed disagreement within the Roma community about non-Roma individuals practicing divination from Tarot. However, this should not be the source of an easy pass. Nor should the fact that belonging to a marginalized group give anyone a pass to participate in closed practices not from their culture (again, Rromani disagree about whether Tarot is a closed practice, but it’s always better to err on the side of caution).

Now that we have established that, what can you do to not contribute to the cultural colonization of Tarot and uplift Rromani practitioners? Get Tarot readings from a Rromani practitioner and pay them for their divination services. If you have a Tarot deck and want to abstain from the practice, donate them to Rromani, dispose of them, or recycle them, if possible. Listen to Rromani voices and educate yourself about Rromani history and culture and resilience.  

If you want to participate in the New Age movement without contributing to cultural colonization, explore your own cultural roots, partake in open spiritual practices, or even create your own custom of divination.