Confessions of a Tarot Reader

You know him, you love him, John Holden, of Tarot by John, is back in the Confessions booth this week.  The tea is scalding hot! 

Connect with John

https://www.tarotbyjohn.com/

https://www.instagram.com/tarotbyjohn

Like the episode? Leave a review !

Never miss an episode: tap on the Follow or the '+' icon

Follow me on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/bex_tarot_london/

Connect with Patti

https://www.pattiwoods.com/

https://www.instagram.com/boozy_tarot

Show Notes

Fair warning: this episode may make you feel simultaneously vindicated and deeply unsettled.

Patti Woods is back in the confession booth, and this time, she and Bex have come armed with browsers, physical decks, and a burning need to know: what actually happens when you ask AI to read your tarot cards?

This is not a theoretical debate. This is a live experiment. Bex and Patti use identical prompts on Claude and ChatGPT simultaneously, pull their own physical cards alongside, and then compare everything. They chortle through the results, the explanations, the card choices, and the moments where the AI gets a little too comfortable calling itself a “fellow reader.”

Listener, it gets messy. Listener, it gets funny. 

In this episode, we cover:

• Patti’s real-life AI reading experience  she ordered one for an art residency application, and was surprised to find it “kind of helpful.” She still hates it, though. Two things can be true.
• The live experiment  Bex and Patti use the exact same prompt on Claude and ChatGPT simultaneously: a three-card collective energy reading for the end of the calendar year. Then they pull real cards. Then they compare.
• Why Claude and ChatGPT gave different results from the same prompt  and what happens when you ask the bots to explain themselves. (Spoiler: they both admit they didn’t shuffle a deck. One of them offers to write code instead.)
• “I picked cards that form a coherent narrative, not because they were meant to come up” ChatGPT’s candid admission, and what that tells us about what AI tarot actually is
• Claude goes passive aggressive “If you want genuine randomness, use a real deck.” Bex’s response: “Okay, Claude.”
• Claude calls itself “reader to reader” and why this is actually the reason people end up with AI boyfriends
• Reading on King Charles’ health Patti pulls Eight of Cups, Bex pulls Ace of Swords. Then the bots weigh in. One of them gets told off by Claude’s legal team.
• Reading on the Sussexes returning to the UK this time, they ditch the AI. Bex pulls Strength, The Moon, Wheel of Fortune, and a jumper: The Sun. It gets speculative and delightful.
• The great spiritual community brawl  tarot readers defecting to Christianity, psychic mediums calling each other fake, witchtok drama. They read on it. The cards are not impressed.
• Who’s standing at the end of the brawl? Three kings and an Ace of Wands, apparently. The house will be cleaned out.
• The bigger picture why infighting in the spiritual community only benefits the people who want it divided, and what ethics-led practice actually looks like

Like the episode? Leave a review !

Never miss an episode: tap on the Follow or the '+' icon

Follow me on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/bex_tarot_london/

Connect with Jenna

https://www.jennamatlin.com

https://www.instagram.com/jennamatlin

Show Notes

This week, Bex is joined by Jenna Matlin, author of The Tarot Book of the Dead. A Chthonic Journey of Death, Mediumship, and the Art of Guiding Souls (Weiser Books), and previously Have Tarot, Will Travel, Have Tarot, Will Party, and Will You Give Me a Reading? (Llewellyn, 2022). Tarot Book of the Dead is a book about using tarot as a mediumship tool, a grief companion, and a guide through the underworld journey. It has been described as coming through her rather than of her. Synchronicities pursued her as she wrote it. Death stalked her until she began. She started the Sun chapter on Lughnasadh. She was editing the Hierophant chapter when Pope Francis died.  The list goes on and on!

In this episode, we cover:

• How perimenopause, ADHD, burnout, and a dark night of the soul led Jenna into the underworld of this project
• Why Jenna saw AI coming for tarot readers before most people were talking about it
• The crucial distinction: AI can infer, but it cannot intuit, and why that matters most at 3am when someone’s anxiety is crawling up their throat
• What it means for tarot to be a co-medium, not a tool to fetch information, but a co-participant in mediumship alongside the reader
• Psychopomp work, using tarot with people who are actively dying, in comas, or in liminal states (including Alzheimer’s and dementia)
• The simultaneous spread that reads both the spirit and the grieving person at the same time
• Jenna’s anthropology background and what global shamanic mediumship traditions taught her about right relationship, right intention, and right space
• Why she reordered the entire Major Arcana around the four stages of the underworld journey: katabasis (the plunge), bathos (the depths), anados (the rising), and apanados (return to the world)
• Tarot as a child of the Black Plague and its connection to the medieval Dance of Death tradition
• Hecate with the golden hair, the earliest writings and how very different she is from how we conceptualise her today
• Oya, the Yoruban crossroads goddess, and why Jenna needed an underworld-based mother she couldn’t find in European mythology
• The Cumaean Sibyl, the ancient prophetess who refused to sleep with Apollo, asked for immortality but forgot to ask for eternal youth, and became patron saint of the tarot reader who also does mediumship
• Why there’s an old man (the Hermit) in tarot but no old woman, and which figure Jenna believes should fill that role
• The cutout exercise: Jenna’s brilliant technique for bypassing the left brain’s keyword shortcuts and forcing readers to really look at the imagery
• Stacking readings: tarot + Lenormand + runes + charm castings, and why Jenna is always asking “is this rule breakable?”
• Whether Jenna might ever create a tarot deck

Like the episode? Leave a review !

Never miss an episode: tap on the Follow or the '+' icon

Follow me on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/bex_tarot_london/

Connect with Hannah

https://mystics-cavern.myshopify.com/

https://www.instagram.com/_midwesterncryptid_

https://www.tiktok.com/@_midwesterncryptid_

About this episode:
Hannah from Mystic Cryptid is a tarot reader, spell candle maker, pop-up market organiser, and self-described favourite Midwestern cryptid. She joins Bex for one of the most varied, funniest, and most warmly human conversations in the show's history.

What we cover:

• The second time Hannah had to publicly announce she does not offer topless tarot reading (and what a fake impersonator account sent her cousin).
• Feeding a fake account's username to her Morrigan candle and taking it to the river
• How she started organising pop-up mystic markets in the Twin Cities 
• Reading at a vampire ball in Superior, Wisconsin (at a witchy restaurant/oddity shop/bookshop collective)
• Event reading approaches: the menu method, "what messages have you been missing?", and what to do with first-timers who don't know what they want
• Bex's ramen shop reading and the man who wanted a philosophical discussion about death instead of cards
• Getting chased out of the psych ward at Indiana State Sanatorium in broad daylight 
• Where tarot messages come from: higher self, source, and claircognizance that sounds too much like your own voice
• Developing mediumship: the spirit guide reading she'd never done before, and how it worked anyway
• The cryptid candle range: Mothman (protection), Bigfoot (strength), Loch Ness (vitality), Siren (glamour), Jackalope (magic and whimsy)
• The abundance spell that manifested fifty coffee cups
• Small hands, large oracle cards, and why there is no wrong way to shuffle
• Grace, internet policing, and why we all need to touch grass
• Community over competition: how local Minneapolis women business owners are supporting each other through everything

Find Hannah:

• Pop-up markets: Twin Cities area, watch her socials for dates
• Mystic Market: happening approximately one week before Samhain

Mentioned in this episode:

• Indiana State Sanatorium (paranormal investigation)
• Ritual Salad and Ritual Marketplace, Superior, Wisconsin
• Babe of Lilith (Rob) — reader recommended by Hannah
• Hermit's Lantern MN (Kate) — reader recommended by Hannah
• House of Zophiel (tarot retreat co-organisers, mentioned by Adrien in a previous episode)
• The Morrigan
• Operation Metro Surge (Minneapolis)
• The Alchemist Oracle deck

Like the episode? Leave a review !

Never miss an episode: tap on the Follow or the '+' icon

Follow me on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/bex_tarot_london/

Connect with Adrien

https://jupiter-rising.co.uk/venus-retrograde-workshop

https://www.adrienmastrosimone.com/dancingthetarot

https://www.instagram.com/adrien_mastrosimone

About this episode:
Adrien Mastrosimone has been reading tarot for over 30 years, buying his first Marseille deck from Grimaud as a young teen. 

Dancing the Tarot is Adrien's proprietary workshop method, a powerful fusion of tarot reading, systemic family constellation, somatic healing, and physical embodiment. In this episode, he walks us through exactly how it works, what surprised him about it, and why he describes the space he creates not as a safe space, but as a brave space.

What we cover:

• What Dancing the Tarot actually is, and what happens in a session
• Why some cards are easy to embody (The Empress, The Emperor) and some take the room somewhere else entirely (The Moon, The Hanged Man)
• The Temperance card exercise: fill a glass with water, pour it into another glass for five minutes, and discover what the card actually means in your body
• Which card Adrien is working on embodying himself this year, and why
• His partner: a doctor of experimental physics, published in Nature, who attends tarot café with his own little deck
• The tarot café Adrien runs in Vienna, and why mathematicians and biologists keep showing up
• His upcoming retreats: a three-day Alice in Wonderland tarot retreat in Unstone, England, and a planned tarot retreat in Greece in 2027
• His talk at Pandemonium: the esoteric coding of gender in the Marseille tarot
• A new webinar series on retrograde planets with an astrologer collaborator (starting with Venus retrograde)
• The divide in the esoteric community, and a clear-eyed, hopeful take on where it comes from
• AI and tarot: where it helps, where it doesn't, and the one thing he tells everyone never to do
• Growing up as the weird kid in a Sicilian Catholic family in France — and buying his first tarot deck with saved-up change

Find Adrien:

• Website: search Adrien Mastrosimone
• Instagram: @adrien.mastrosimone

Mentioned in this episode:

• Dancing the Tarot workshops
• Systemic family constellation
• The Marseille Tarot (Grimaud edition)
• Smith-Waite / Rider-Waite-Smith tarot
• House of Zophiel (retreat co-organizers)
• Pandemonium conference, UK (September)
• Venus retrograde webinar (October, with astrologer collaborator)
• Tarot Culture Conference
• The lyre — instrument of Apollo, created by Hermes
• Triboelectric charging (Nature publication)
• Kabbalah / Tree of Life

Keywords: Dancing the Tarot, Adrien Mastrosimone, embodiment tarot, somatic healing tarot, systemic family constellation, tarot workshop, transpersonal coaching, Marseille tarot, tarot embodiment, tarot retreat Greece, tarot retreat UK, Alice in Wonderland tarot, Pandemonium tarot conference, Venus retrograde webinar, Confessions of a Tarot Reader, tarot and the body

Like the episode? Leave a review !

Never miss an episode: tap on the Follow or the '+' icon

Follow me on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/bex_tarot_london/

Connect with Stephanie

• Website: https://playdatewiththeuniverse.com/
• Instagram (deck): @playdatewiththeuniverse
• Instagram (artist): @stephjgilbert
• TikTok: @steph_gilbert

About this episode:
Bex discovered and backed a tarot deck on Kickstarter, called Playdate with the Universe. Once she got her hands on the deck she knew she needed to know more about the origin story and talk to the creator of this exquisite deck Stephanie Gilbert.

And what a talk they had!

Stephanie Gilbert had a bingo card for 2025. One of the squares was to create a tarot deck. Then, on January 7th, the Eaton fire swept through Altadena and she and her husband lost their home, their community, and almost everything they owned. Six months later, something stirred. She picked up scissors, started collaging tarot cards, and posted them on TikTok. The Fool went viral. Stephanie found herself committed to one of the most ambitious creative projects of her life.

The result is the Play Date With the Universe, a 78-card hand-collaged tarot deck, sourced from vintage magazines and books spanning the 1920s to the 1990s.

What we cover:

• The bingo card and the fire that changed it all
• Why she started collaging in 2024. burnout, isolation, depression, and a book called Play by Dr. Stuart Brown
• How The Fool card went viral on TikTok and locked her in to completing the full 78 cards
• Creating in public: the vulnerability, the flow state, and what happens when tarot purists have opinions about your Tower card
• The INNER-GY: Stephanie's original framework in the guidebook — what each card feels like to your inner child
• A song for every card: how she built a full nostalgic playlist into the deck
• The monarch butterfly that travels from The Fool to The World — and why she cried when she made The World card
• Why the Hierophant is just a single key (and why that's perfect)
• Social media fatigue, playing online, and why she thinks the tide has shifted
• A podcast-exclusive announcement of her next project

Mentioned in this episode:

• Play by Dr. Stuart Brown
• The Wild Unknown tarot deck by Kim Krans
• Kickstarter (where the deck launched)
• Carl Jung's Bollingen Tower (the inspiration behind Stephanie's Tower card)
• Alan Watts philosophy videos on YouTube
• The Eaton fire, Altadena, January 2025

Like the episode? Leave a review !

Never miss an episode: tap on the Follow or the '+' icon

Follow me on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/bex_tarot_london/

About this episode:
Ms Tarochi is one of the most recognisable names in tarot on TikTok.  In this episode, she joins Bex for a wide-ranging conversation about what it actually takes to build a tarot business from scratch, and how tarot became a lifeline during one of the most challenging periods of her life.  Why she created her own proprietary TAROT teaching method and why she wants to make tarot approachable for everyone.

Connect with Tarochi Tarot:

• Website: https://www.tarochitarot.com/
• TikTok: @tarochitarot
• Listener discount: 20% off with BEX20. Note: this is only on masterclasses and bundles not the Tarot in 1 Hour mini course.
• Affiliate programme for SIANS: available for spiritual and wellness creators, contact via website for full details.

In this Episode we cover:

• The SIANS Method. The first proprietary tarot teaching method, designed to get you reading in under an hour without memorisation or intuition alone
• Life as a musician, journalist, and all the steps that led her to where she is today
• The coercive relationship that lockdown tarot helped her leave
• Her stroke, heart operation, and surgeries, and how she launched a channel amidst the chaos
• Why she trademarked her method (and why you should think carefully before putting "tarot" in your business name)
• AI and tarot: what she thinks, what her audience thinks, and what neither of them can quite answer yet
• Being a TikTok Tarot reader, where the ecosystem is headed
• YouTube vs TikTok for creators
• The crone era: hormones, wisdom, and finally seeing things clearly
• Why she stopped doing personal readings
• Politics as a source of inspiration

Like the episode? Leave a review !

Never miss an episode: tap on the Follow or the '+' icon

Follow me on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/bex_tarot_london/

Connect with Chris

https://www.instagram.com/elementalcartomancy/

https://www.youtube.com/c/elementalcartomancy

Episode Summary:
In this episode of Confessions of a Tarot Reader, host Bex sits down with Chris from Elemental Cartomancy.  Chris is a tarot reader with 30 years of experience who got his first deck (a Rider-Waite) at age eight. Together they nerd out on reading "scary" cards like Death, The Tower, and the 10 of Swords without alarming clients, managing energy during back-to-back market readings, why general readings sometimes produce the most powerful results, and where they land on the AI-generated tarot deck debate. Chris also shares his signature reading style, including using Soul Cards as a Rorschach-style opener and reading for the LGBTQ+ community with the Queer Tarot deck.

Topics Covered:

• Chris's origin story: buying his first tarot deck at age eight
• Reading "difficult" cards (Death, The Tower, 10 of Swords) with compassion
• The Strength card and confidence blocks readers face themselves
• Reading at markets: the Celtic Cross, freestyle flow, and 15-minute readings
• Energy management and burnout after back-to-back client readings
• General readings vs. specific questions.  Does one produce better results?
• AI and tarot deck creation: an honest, nuanced conversation
• Where tarot "messages" come from spirit guides, psychology, or both
• Reading reversals, "jumper" cards, and timing with astrological decanates
• Chris's signature style: Soul Cards, deck selection rituals, and the Queer Tarot deck
• Getting into professional reading and finding your first market

Guest: Chris, Elemental Cartomancy
Host: Bex, Confessions of a Tarot Reader

Like the episode? Leave a review !

Never miss an episode: tap on the Follow or the '+' icon

Follow me on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/bex_tarot_london/

Connect with Brandi

https://www.charmedintuitive.com/about

https://www.instagram.com/charmed.mi/

In this episode

Brandi Gunn O'Leary — lash artist, tarot reader, and creator of Charmed Makeup, Lashes & Tarot — joins Bex for one of the most chaotic, warm, funny, and genuinely insightful episodes yet. They discover a shared family name within the first minute and spend the rest of the episode co-founding a brand, designing merch, and building what they're now calling the Cousins Coven.

But in between all of that: a real conversation about reading at events (the pre-reading nausea that never goes away, the portal that opens once you start, and why five-minute readings are simply not physically possible), Brandi's journey from lash studio to tarot table, how her incense business started with alcoholism, recovery, and a TikTok, and why she's currently pausing on the term "glamour magic" — and what that pause is actually about.

Plus: AI, art theft, the Great Lakes, Willy Wonka, charm readings, recorded vs. live readings, and a sand timer that neither of them ever remembers to flip.

Topics covered: Charmed Makeup Lashes and Tarot · beauty magic · glamour magic · spell incense · spell oils · tarot at events · reading health questions · AI and tarot · dark moon rituals · egg cleanse · crossroads magic · charm readings · Cousins Coven · Confessions of a Tarot Reader

Like the episode? Leave a review !

Never miss an episode: tap on the Follow or the '+' icon

Follow me on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/bex_tarot_london/

Connect with Dave:  https://davezilla.com/

Illustrator, author, and magic worker Dave Zilla joins Confessions of a Tarot Reader to talk about The Feral Path Tarot, a deck built as an homage to real-life esoteric creators like Rachel True and Mat Auryn, each mapped to their own archetype.

In this episode:

• The origin story of The Feral Path Tarot and choosing archetypes with real creators
•  Lucumí, and the Orisha tradition — Dave's spiritual lineage
• AI, ghosts, and why Claude instances keep talking about the soul
• Designing tarot for accessibility: braille decks, neurodivergent-friendly symbols
• Diversity and representation in modern tarot decks
• Where creativity really comes from — muses, brainstorming, and never having creative block

Like the episode? Leave a review !

Never miss an episode: tap on the Follow or the '+' icon

Follow me on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/bex_tarot_london/