8 Things You Need To Look For

In a Genuine Tarot Reader

By Kel Fabie and Robert Rubin

As a mentalist and an entertainer, I always looked at Tarot reading with a raised eyebrow and a healthy amount of skepticism. There’s always been something about the Madame Aurings and the Jojo Acuin’s of the world that has made me sour on the notion – until I made the acquaintance of one Robert Rubin, founder of Mysterium.

Mysterium is a foundation established with a very simple objective in mind: to uplift the state of Tarot and the other esoteric forms in the country, away from the laughing stock it has become after being left out in the wild wild west for so long. As such, Mysterium is the only organization in the Philippines that is internationally accredited by the Tarosophy Tarot Association.

You may, as I have always been, choose to be a skeptic about these things. What you should never allow yourself to be, though, is ignorant. Tarot has been around for centuries and will continue to be for many more, and not everyone out there is a charlatan out to fleece people of their hard-earned money. Some people simply figured out how best to help, and Tarot is where they found that avenue.

Here now are 8 things you need to look out for when you’re looking for a genuine tarot reader.

8. You get what you pay for.

“When you pay 20 pesos to 100 pesos for a reading in Quiapo, do you really expect a quality reading?” Rob asks, rather bluntly. As readers become better at their craft, they charge at a reasonable rate, and it gives them a livable income to work with. When you pay a paltry amount for a reading from some random fortune teller in a seedy stall, are you really going to trust them when they tell you that you’re being hexed by somebody?

Conversely, when you see someone charging an exorbitant five-digit figure for a single reading, you also need to be wary. As Rob pointed out, even the top names in the international community tend to top out at charging $100 for a reading, so anyone charging significantly higher than that ought to make you wonder exactly what they’re offering.

7. They don’t try to upsell you all the time.

“Imagine that 20-peso reading again, and imagine she now tells you that you are being cursed by someone,” Robin explains. “How do they make money? Therein lies the problem.”

Most charlatans would offer to upsell you a charm or a trinket to ward off bad spirits or curses, and proceed to charge you outrageous prices for them. It’s then that their M.O. becomes clear: they give dirt cheap readings just so they could offer to sell you something for maybe 20,000 pesos or more that may or may (probably) not work, anyways.

6. They are professionals.

One of Mysterium’s main thrusts as a foundation is to standardize readers not for the sake of conformity, but for the sake of quality and professionalism. If your reader values your time and theirs by not showing up late and not tolerating excessive lateness from their clients, if they don’t dress like a stereotypical Romani, if they don’t mix their personal lives in between readings for you, much less share embarrassing tales about their clientele with you while showing you their clients’ pictures, then you are in professional hands, and that’s a good start.

If they don’t try to use their readings to drop hints that they want to date you, if they don’t ask to be included in your will if you’re old enough to have one, then yeah, you’re dealing with the bare minimum for a professional here.

5. They don’t practice gloom and doom.

“Do you really want a reading where someone is going to tell you when you would die?” Rob asks.

In reality, topics like these are lose-lose for the reader. If they predict someone’s death accurately, they are suspicious by default. If they get it wrong, they’re being a douchebag, especially if the person who was supposed to die did something impulsive such as spending all their money in anticipation of what they thought will be their dying day.

Going to a Tarot reading should not be a depressing experience. If your reader is piling on the bad news for you instead of making you feel good about the reading, then you’re probably not dealing with a particularly good one, even if  they turned out to be accurate.

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