Although the practice of tarot reading dates all the way back to the fifteenth century, it’s no secret that tarot has become more popular in recent years. With this rise in popularity comes the inevitable criticism that the practice often faces — that it’s evil and satanic and shouldn’t be trusted. But according to a Financial Times article titled “Why tarot is trending again,” the steady rise in tarot card sales skyrocketed during the pandemic due to their unique ability to make sense of our ever-changing lives.
“During the pandemic, a lot of things shifted for us. Our needs, and our emotions in particular,” says New York-based tarot reader Shawn Engel. “And a lot of women — especially women — are still feeling very lost as a result.”
Engel explains that some of these women enter her tarot reading space with shockingly low standards, simply because their emotional needs haven’t been met in so long. “But by the end of every [tarot] reading that I’ve done, these women walk away with a glow about them,” she says. “They walk away with a sense of self, and a sense of where they need to be. And I think that’s really beautiful.”
Engel is a renowned spiritual mentor and modern witch affiliated with a metaphysical store known as Modern Mystic Shop, which opened its New York location last year and is cherished by many, including celebrities such as Alicia Keys and Emma Roberts. However, Atlanta locals know that the shop’s roots began right here in Georgia.
Modern Mystic Shop has stood at its Atlanta location in Ponce City Market since 2016 and is often where locals have their first experiences with crystals, magic or tarot. While catering to the mystically minded and people that are curious, Modern Mystic has been striving to destigmatize the satanic misconceptions about tarot reading and similar practices for years, long before its shop doors even opened.
“When I started reading tarot in 2012, I still wasn’t very comfortable being known as an intuitive witch and a tarot reader,” says Kelley Knight, tarot reader and owner of Modern Mystic. “So, I created Modern Mystic Tarot as an Instagram account for me to share my tarot journey, my insights and experiences, and to connect with like-minded people on social media while remaining anonymous.”
“I know it was only ten years ago, but the practice of tarot was a lot less prevalent, especially in Atlanta, Georgia, where I started,” says Knight. But once she became more comfortable and secure with herself and her practice, and once she started seeing clients in person, Knight decided to take a leap and open her own tarot studio.
“That [tarot studio] eventually transitioned into Modern Mystic Shop, which was developed because I didn’t have a place that I could send my clients to for post-reading care,” Knight says. The tarot shops that she would initially send her clients were about as stereotypical as it gets — complete with crystal balls and dreary velvet curtains still standing from the sixties. “And when they were coming to read with me,” she says, “It was much lighter and brighter with a totally different aesthetic.”
“I’m a pretty modern mystic, as we say, right?” Knight laughs. “So that’s what I aimed to create with Modern Mystic Shop. Something that aligned more with the refreshing environment that I was giving tarot readings in.”
As far as the Modern Mystic Tarot space that exists within the Atlanta location, visitors can expect readings that are very casual in nature. “The environment is very conversational, easy and relaxed,” says tarot reader Georgie Harris. “I like to meet people with curiosity, by asking clients what they’re looking for but also asking myself the best way to connect them with a practice that they can carry on in the future… we always try to stay true to what we know we can offer as tarot readers in the space.”
Tarot readings can seem a little overwhelming at first if you’ve never received one before. But after years of experience, Knight can explain the practice in the simplest of terms: “The tarot deck includes 78 different archetypes and human experiences that we all go through in this lifetime,” she says. “It’s essentially just a kaleidoscope of what’s possible and what’s out there.”
“When we’re looking at tarot as an intuitive tool, I like to compare it to flipping a coin to try and make a choice,” adds Harris. “It’s like when we want heads, but we end up with tails — and as a result we get a little more information about what we really want or what feels right to us. But with tarot, it’s with 78 images instead of two sides of a coin.”
“Honestly, tarot is nothing more than just pretty pictures on cards,” says Engel. “So, it’s up to us as tarot readers to excavate and interpret the truth out of it. It’s the purest form of making the mundane magical.”
If Harris, for example, is conducting a shorter introductory tarot reading with a new client, she likes to begin by taking it easy. “I’ll use three cards, and that can refer to past, present and future,” she says. “It could also refer to what we know is currently going on in our lives, what changes need to be made in the process of finding ourselves, and what we can look forward to in the future as a result. That would also be the point where I would ask if that’s even something that the client wants to move towards in the future. That’s what a short reading with me could look like.”
From there, most clients leave their tarot reading at Modern Mystic with a weight lifted off their shoulders. “Generally speaking, my clients leave one of two ways,” says Knight. “Either very validated — where they can find that sense of relief in needing someone to reiterate what they already know about their life — or with clarity. And those are my goals with tarot reading. I want my clients to leave with either validation or clarity so that they can take the next steps on their own.”
Although Modern Mystic is just one of many metaphysical shops that proves that tarot reading is a healing practice, not a harmful one, there are still many tarot skeptics out there. This could be because some still consider tarot reading and fortune telling as one and the same, but the tarot readers at Modern Mystic want to make it clear that tarot reading and fortune telling are two very different practices.
Engel shares that a couple years ago, she learned that a well-known credit card processing company released a list of businesses that they wouldn’t support. She was shocked to find that fortune telling was on that list.
“Personally, I feel like that’s anti-religion in a way,” she says. Since spirituality has evolved in recent years as a valid religion amongst younger generations, she mentions that the whole thing “felt really weird to [her].”
While Engel understands that some scammers use the guise of fortune telling to prey on people’s vulnerability and collect their money, she still feels that this exclusion on the company’s end is one of the many contributors to the stigma around tarot reading. “The idea of fortune telling has such a horrible overtone to it, so it really sucks all the culture, all the professionalism, and all the nuance out of what we actually do, and just slaps this dismissive label on it.”
“Tarot is a tool for insight and intuition,” Engel continues. “There are 78 cards, and [at Modern Mystic] we all have just about a decade or more of experience. There’s a lot of work and research that goes into this, especially approaching it from a scholarly aspect. It’s a skill. It’s a service. I hope that in the years to come, since tarot reading is becoming more popular, that we’ll also get the respect that we deserve.”
“Fortune telling frames this practice as future predicting, and I don’t love that,” adds Knight. “I think that people think of fortune telling as a predictive, ‘tell me my future’ kind of tool, but that’s just not what we do here.”
Knight recalls that there are people near Modern Mystic’s New York location that will set up “fortune telling” tables on street corners. They’ll tell passing customers that they’re cursed, and that since they’re a fortune teller, they’re the only ones that can lift the curse — only after appropriate payment of course. “Those ‘fortune tellers’ really negate the whole mission of Modern Mystic Shop, which is to destigmatize these practices,” says Knight.
“Instead, I enjoy doing what I call forecasting,” Knight continues. “Where through tarot and my intuition, I feel like I can predict the most probable outcome based on the momentum that the client has been cultivating in their life, and the most probable outcome for whatever the client is asking me about.”
“However, if that predicted direction is one that the client doesn’t want their life to go in, as Georgie [Harris] alluded to earlier, we work together to find what steps this person would need to take in order to have a more aligned outcome,” Knight says. “Some clients might not even realize that their life was going in that direction. We, as tarot readers, are here to help our clients realize that their future is in their control, not ours.”
Knight notes that all the tarot readers that are employed at Modern Mystic have a certain degree of professionalism that fortune tellers don’t always have. “Our tarot readers are trained to think about how this information could negatively impact the whole being who’s receiving it, and how to deliver it in a way that is elevated and nuanced and caring,” she says.
Perhaps it’s the nuanced and caring nature of Modern Mystic that explains why the community has welcomed its witchy practices with open arms, as opposed to spewing the same hateful backlash that similar tarot shops have faced.
“I’ve been pleasantly surprised that we have received very little if no backlash — or if we do, it never makes it to me — regarding Modern Mystic Shop and the work that we do there,” says Knight. “I’ve been really fortunate to not receive a lot of hateful comments about what we’re doing, especially since opening in the Bible Belt at our first location, where tarot is a little outside the norm.”
However, when asked what she might say to someone to urge them that tarot reading isn’t a satanic practice, Knight says that she just doesn’t bother with over explaining these inaccurate assumptions.
“I don’t feel like it’s my position in this role to convince people that what we’re doing is real and valid,” she says. “I feel like I’m here to create a space for people who are curious, who want to participate, and already have a level of belief or interest in tarot. And then we can take them as far as they want to go. But I don’t find it worth my energy to try and change someone’s mind. I just want to be there for the people that — when they’re ready — want to explore the healing aspects of this practice.”
“If anybody’s reading this article, and they feel the resistance to this practice come up, I would encourage them to just sit with that resistance and inspect it,” adds Engel. “Ask yourself why you’re so resistant to this practice.”
Ultimately, Knight wants to emphasize that it’s important to use your own discernment and intuition if something that a tarot reader mentions in your reading doesn’t align with your path.
“Our tarot readers [at Modern Mystic] have all been vetted, they have the training and they’re going to bring positive healing to the lives of many people,” she says. “But at the end of the day, if your reading doesn’t sit right with you, just take what resonates and leave what doesn’t.”
“In order to believe anything that we’re saying, you have to experience it yourself,” says Knight. “I don’t know if just reading this article will convince anyone that the magic of tarot is powerful. But to have a profound experience with one of these tools, to blow your own mind through tarot reading, that is the best way. So, I would suggest just giving it a try.”
To keep up with all things Modern Mystic, be sure to give them a follow on Instagram at @modernmystic_shop. If you’re interested in booking a virtual reading with Shawn Engel, visit witchywisdoms.com and be sure to follow her spiritual content across all her social platforms — you can find her at @witchywisdoms on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
And if this article has summoned you to try a tarot reading right here in Atlanta at Modern Mystic — either with Georgie Harris or any of the shop’s other talented tarot readers — visit modernmystictarot.com.
