She makes an excellent point, but not the one she intended.
When done properly and with responsibility, it does not claim any accuracy when it comes to telling the future.
It's a tool that you use to have deep and meaningful conversations. The cards are loosely similar to Jung's archetypes, among other things. Modern tarot is an anachronistic melting pot of many philosophies and concepts.
You simply use the cards to investigate a situation. You may discover someone's fears or hopes through one of those conversations. You can then use this information to help them plan out their future. That's pretty much it.
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For example:
Say someone asks you about their career and you pick a card that means "shyness" at some point. The conversation then focus on the concept of being shy. Is this person shy? Could their shyness be the thing that make their work life harder?
If the answer is no, do they have someone at work that may be shy? You then talk about that.
If the answer is still no, could it be that they should be more shy? Is this person too bold? You ask this and the person gets defensive about themselves. A good reader will be able to notice this and then shift the conversation on that.
Through this discussion, they tell you that they might be too brash about one of their employees. You can then help them figure out a plan for the future, a plan to apologize or simply be more emphatic about that employee. But this person come up with the plan by themselves. You simply facilitated this discovery.
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In short, it's a tool that get people to open up to you. Some people abuse of this. They give dates, prophecies, claim truths. They pick up on the points where the person they read for gets defensive and then use this information to emotionally blackmail them.
A good tarot reader is a good listener. You should not make any claim, you are not a trained therapist. Tarot readers should allow people to discover themselves without forcing anything. They should never say "you are x and need to do y before z happens".
(This is going to be controversial on HN. Keep an open mind and be polite. I am not a professional tarot reader and decline reading for people most of the time because of the liabilities that come with it.)
That's why legitimate therapists, etc have professional associations and standards of ethics.
For the non-scammy entertainers, no need for a law whether it's real magic of pretend magic.
It is all fraud, but if we're going to be charging all people like that with fraud, then freedom of speech becomes infringed to some extent. Many of these fraudsters genuinely believe what they're doing is legitimate and isn't fraud. Many of the clients genuinely believe it's legitimate due to their belief systems.
An argument could be made that people should be allowed to spend their money as they choose and that the government should not be in the business of deciding if they're spending their money wisely. Gambling is another example.
> freedom of speech becomes infringed to some extent
Fortunately not everyone thinks that freedom of speech extends to freedom to defraud the vulnerable.
Thats not free speech. That’s fraud.
that's largely an American concept, along with the rest of your post. please stop assuming other countries are like the US, especially laws and legal systems. it rarely furthers the debate
But this article is about Canada, which is also pretty friendly to free speech, even if it's not to the extent of the US.
Taking the slippery slope even further, organized religion (and religion in general, but the non-organized ones usually don't harm people too badly) is a fraud. Saying that prayer will help someone recover from disease is fraud. Scientology is fraud. Prosperity gospel is fraud. Compulsory tithing is fraud.
We could make all of these things illegal, but then you're crossing into authoritarianism. Psychics and mediums are no more fraudulent than any Mormon church (Mormon churches have compulsory tithing), in my opinion. It's all woo and it's all pilfering money from the gullible and hopeful, but I don't see why it needs to be illegal.