In these uncertain times, tarot and astrology readings are experiencing a renaissance.
But should they? If they are that great, surely they would have predicted the calamities of 2020. Right? Covid is the largest, most disruptive event in our lifetimes and, in spiritual parlance, the energy shift has been epic.
With the benefit of hindsight, some in the spiritual world say they sensed something was afoot.
June Field, voted the UK’s leading psychic, told the Guardian: “I started January 2020 with a feeling of dread. Long before coronavirus arrived in the UK, I had cancelled work commitments – theatre dates and events. I felt death coming. I wanted to give the year a miss.”
Did any other psychics feel death coming? Or were they as blindsided as the rest of us?
Coronavirus saw the cancellation of all the major New Age conventions in Australian capital cities – sending them online.
I decide to visit a virtual convention to work out who knew what, when, and if not, why not?
I book a 30-minute Zoom tarot reading with a psychic called Liz*.
Liz is sitting in a suburban lounge room looking very unmystical. She has a short grey bob, a brown jumper, and her background is a cream-coloured wall with a bookcase.
Although a veteran of the New Age convention circuit, Liz has adapted well to giving Zoom readings, finding them preferable to in-person events. “There’s a lot of distractions in person. It gets really noisy at conventions because of all the workshops. I’m relaxed, I’m in my home, you’re relaxed, you’re in your home. In a way it helps it to flow easier.”
But don’t you need to be physically near your client to get a sense of their energy?
“The reading I did just before you, I couldn’t see her because she couldn’t get her camera to work, but you can still make the connection.”
Liz wants to start the reading with an oracle card, but I want to start by asking her if she predicted Covid.
“No. I was interstate and when I heard about it I thought ‘oh quick – get a lot of food!’ I heard the supermarket shelves were empty. So I piled my car with canned food and headed for the border.”
This doesn’t sound like the actions of a clairvoyant.
In hindsight, did she see any signs that a pandemic might have been on the cards?
“No one has asked me about the pandemic and I haven’t wanted to look into how long it’s going to take. I just work one-on-one and this [Covid-19] affects millions of people.”
We proceed to my first card. I try not to look alarmed.
The card I’ve picked is a small island in the middle of a lake. It screams “solitude”.
“Does this mean there’s another lockdown coming and I’ll have to isolate?” I ask.
“It’s not about being lonely – it’s about having time to yourself,” she says.
I don’t want time to myself.
“This card could mean you need to clear your head out,” says Liz. “There’s a lot of information bombarding us and we’re in this world where millions of people are having illness and death. We need to shield ourselves from that a bit. Because even though we’re in a different country – energetically humans are all connected.”
While shielding myself from bad news is tempting, I tell Liz I need to be informed for my job.
“Look at it [the news] when you need to know something – but don’t get caught up in it,” she advises. “The media sensationalise every single thing because they’ve got to get people to look at it, and make the sponsors happy and stuff.”
The next card I pick depicts a cruise ship. My heart sinks. A year ago an image of a cruise ship conjured positive thoughts of holidays, tropical islands, leisure and rejuvenation. Now cruise ships are synonymous with infection and death.
“This one is about holidays,” Liz says.
“But we can’t go anywhere – all the borders are shut,” I say.
“You’ve enjoyed holidays before – and it’s about trying to experience that again. You will be planning a trip overseas. I don’t recommend cruise ships at the moment. This card is about the future – maybe in several months, international travel will have opened up.”
You don’t need to be a clairvoyant to realise this prediction is highly unlikely.
We talk about other things. The marriage card tells me I’m going to get hitched in the next 12 months and I should trust my intuition “if something in you says ‘I don’t feel like going out tonight’.” This advice feels incompatible with going out and finding a husband.
Next up is my appointment with a psychic called Zenith*, who is sitting way too close to the camera, and by the end of the meeting hasn’t so much given me a tarot reading as a really scathing life-coaching session.
I am a workaholic, she says, obsessed with deadlines and my job and nothing will change for me in the next 12 months unless I have some radical revelation (of which this tarot session comes close to being).
“The next 12 months, it’s not rocket science to predict you’ll be sitting in the same place writing something,” she tells me. “Your wombat burrow is a very comfy place at the moment. There’s more to life, wombat, than working. If you work, you avoid all of life’s little dramas. And workaholics try and find a way to carefully avoid any of them.”
OK, thanks Zenith.
As for Covid, did she predict it?
“This is probably an unfortunate way of putting it – but I couldn’t give a shit about the pandemic probably because from where I’m sitting it’s not real.”
OMG. No!
“You think the pandemic is fake???”
“No. I think it’s seasonal, just like the flu season. Trust me, come the winter, you’ve got it back, come the summer, it’s gone – you learn to live with what they call the Covid season.”
It is hard to tell if this is a psychic premonition or just Zenith wildly riffing. But it is as close as I get to any Covid predictions.
* Names have been changed
