Enterprise News has published a remarkably even-keeled article on tarot cards by Kathryn Rem. No doubt the quality of this piece was helped immensely by the fact that she interviews tarot author and expert Rachel Pollack (who has a blog, by the way).

“‘I loved the idea that there was a story involved with each card,’ said [Rachel] Pollack of Rhinebeck, N.Y., an authority on tarot and the author of 30 books, including “Tarot Wisdom” (Llewellyn, 2008) and “Tarot of Perfection” (Magic Realist Press, 2008). “The two biggest areas that people want to know about are love and work,” Pollack said. ‘Some readers focus on future events. But modern readers help people look inside. It’s a tool for self-awareness.’”

The Tower. Art by Pamela Colman Smith.

But if talking to a respected tarot scholar isn’t exactly what you had in mind for a Halloween-season story, Penn State’s student paper The Collegian gives you a more typical “interview with a tarot reader” piece.

“She pauses. “I thought everyone felt what I felt,” she said. “You feel something, they ask you, you tell them. You don’t see CinemaScope, Dolby Sound — it’s abstract. Some puzzle pieces don’t fit.” With her gift and her tools, she said, she can give people insight — perspective into themselves, into their future, into the people around them. She tells her customers to concentrate on three questions during tarot card readings, and by the end of the session, she does her best to answer them.”

Still a bit too mundane for you? Not enough salacious sensationalism? How about the arrest of a fraudulent teenage “tarot master”, who scammed the ex-president of Taiwan?

“The 16-year-old teenager surnamed Huang, who claimed telling fortune with tarot cards for Taiwan former president Chen Shui-bian, got arrested for forgery of documents last night in a motel in Taipei County … Huang caught media’s attention when he said he was the tarot master who had told fortune and pray for blessings for Chen Shui-bian in Huang’s office … Huang confessed that he tricked Chen in his blog article on the 23rd. He said he only learned tarot from reading books and that the three lamas in the blessing ritual were also fake.”

Now we’re talking! Sadly, since it happened in Taiwan, it will most likely get a pass from the Western media. Of course no U.S. president would risk such embarrassment (they like to stick to astrology).

So there you have it, three stories involving tarot cards, ranging from respectable to sensationalistic. A journalistic buffet catering to all tastes regarding “occult” subject matter. I personally hope for more like the Pollack article, but I fear that anyone peering into the future can expect more stereotypical fare as well.

Tags: art, journalism, occult, Rachel Pollack, Tarot