Recently, I had a week in which I gave 43 tarot readings, primarily to people outside the Pagan and Witch communities. Two people asked if I was psychic, and I stumbled. They said they didn’t want tarot readings; they wanted psychic readings. I encouraged them to see other readers who could better assist them.
I struggle with applying some identity labels, particularly in the overculture. Pagan, Witch, Wiccan, Tarot Reader, and Psychic are among those labels, words laden with cultural baggage and misconceptions. This blog is one of those rambling ones to explore and process my relationship with identity labels.
Here and there
Since I was a teen, I’ve had incredible and diverse friends from communities outside the mainstream: goddess women, Pagans and Witches, queer besties, radical feminists, and other wonderful weirdos that just don’t easily fit into the overculture. I have taken it for granted.
I am wary of the overculture. In Pagan communities, where I have always felt safe, most people understand what I mean when I say I am a Pagan, Wiccan, Witch, Priestess, and High Priestess. When navigating the overculture, I never know how people will understand and react to these labels.
For most of my life, I haven’t worried. Although I’ve never been in the broom closet, I have compartmentalised my spiritual and professional lives. My professional journey has taken me through various overculture spaces, from retail to journalism to digital specialisation. I’ve encountered a mix of progressive individuals in these spaces and even made non-Pagan friends and acquaintances. However, the overarching atmosphere has often been one of patriarchal, conservative, and traditional Christian values. Even in spaces that appear to be dominated by women that hint at feminist approaches, the influence of patriarchal frameworks was evident. So, life has been pretty clear: my Pagan world is here, and everyone else is there.
About a year and a half ago, I walked away from an office job in the overculture and into the death doula space and the world of spiritual care. Since then, my Pagan world and the overculture have been butting against each other, and I am now exploring a landscape I haven’t travelled before. It’s a part of the overculture deeply influenced by New Age thought yet afraid of witchcraft, and in which people whom I share tools and practices with but who perceive and understand them very differently.
For example, in the death doula space, I’ve seen people call quarters (but not with the associations we typically use), use the phrase “holding space” (and believe they invented it or coined the phrase), identify as psychopomps and refer to Hermes (no mention of Hekate, however), and talk about the Descent without mentioning its related myths and figures. It’s not clear to me where they’re picking up these ideas or how they explain or integrate them.
New Age and Witchcraft
As many Pagans and Witches have observed, people embrace New Age practices while rejecting similar ones perceived as linked to Paganism and Witchcraft. For example, in New Age circles, crystals are often used for their purported healing properties. They are marketed as tools for enhancing positive energy, balance, and well-being. This appeal to health and wellness makes them widely acceptable. When the use of crystals is associated with witchcraft, people may reject it due to fears of invoking supernatural forces or engaging in “dark” practices. The same crystal that is seen as a healing tool in New Age contexts can be viewed with suspicion or fear when linked to witchcraft.
New Age practices benefit from modern, health-oriented marketing and positive media representation, making them accessible and acceptable to a broad audience. In contrast, practices associated with witchcraft suffer from historical stigma, fear of the unknown, and negative media portrayals, leading to rejection or suspicion by those who might otherwise embrace similar spiritual practices. The aesthetic matters, too. New Age is white and pastels; we Witches love black.
I’m not sure what ‘Pagan’ means to people in the overculture. In the U.S., some Jewish and Christian people use ‘pagan’ to refer to everyone else and conservative Christians to what comes after the crumbling of America due to the imagined decline of its Christian heritage. I don’t hear the word much in the Australian overculture; I’ve heard a few people dismiss Paganism as something hippie. ‘Wicca’ seems largely unknown in Australia. But everyone knows what a Tarot Reader and Psychic are, or at least, they think they do.
Tarot Reader
Although I have been reading tarot for myself and others on and off for almost 30 years, and it’s a common practice among Pagans and Witches, I’m only now starting to identify as a Tarot Reader in the overculture.
My experience as a Tarot Reader has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve been my biggest detractor. I’ve allowed the overculture’s misconceptions and scepticism surrounding tarot to affect me too much, particularly people’s dismissal of tarot as mere entertainment or charlatanism.
While waiting for my flat white in a tiny coffee shop in the Royal Arcade, a man and I began chatting about our Hispanic backgrounds. He asked if I worked in the area, and I said I read tarot sometimes at SpellBox around the corner. I also have a real job, I added.
“Reading the cards is a real job,” he said.
Psychic
Calling myself a Psychic is harder than calling myself a Pagan, Witch, Priestess, or Tarot Reader. I prefer almost any other synonym: Seeress, Oracle, Sibyl, Pythia, Prophetess. Perhaps it’s because these words and titles are rooted in the ancient pagan world and the delivery of prophecies inspired by the gods. In contemporary Paganism and Witchcraft, we have our practices of Drawing Down and aspecting and, from Lukumi, I also learn about possession and Espiritismo. Developing our abilities to perceive and connect with deities, spirits, and other unseen forces is part of our development as Pagans and Witches. These words, concepts, and practices feel safe and comfortable within my Pagan and Witchcraft communities.
Despite its Greek etymological origins, ‘psychic’ has its roots in the Spiritualist movement and is more well-known and used in the overculture thanks to the New Age movement. When I think of psychics, I think about techniques like hot and cold readings and a legacy of exploitation and fraud. I think of personalities like Sylvia Browne, John Edward, James Van Praagh, and Tyler Henry. Witches get the Satanic Panic; psychics get daytime television. They also attract the attention of sceptical activists who devote their lives to debunkery.
The primary purpose of language is to communicate, and ‘psychic’ does provide a word that people readily understand, but I don’t think we have the same understanding. If someone sits at my table and expects something like, “I sense a connection with a father figure, a man with a ‘J’ name,” they will be disappointed. I’m a cartomancer first, and not every tarot reading results in direct messages from the querent’s dead. Additionally, ‘psychic’ can evoke expectations of infallibility or supernatural prowess that I neither claim nor desire.
Sometimes, people in the overculture use the word “psychic” to describe me. I’m okay with that; it is often the only word they know to describe a cartomancer, someone with extrasensory perception, or someone who communicates with spirits. I’m just not yet sure if I am ready to embrace the label.
