From curiosity to dependence
Drawing the cards “out of curiosity” once or glancing at a morning horoscope is not a problem in itself. Trouble begins when tarot or the stars become a filter through which every decision must pass. In the stories of people who use such practices intensively, the same pattern keeps recurring: instead of asking themselves “what do I want?”, they reach for the cards to find out “what should I do?”. This shift is subtle but psychologically significant – step by step, we transfer responsibility for our life onto something external.
The danger does not lie in “opening portals” or “attracting bad energy”, but in relaxing our inner muscle of agency. If every relationship, job choice, or decision to move house is preceded by a question to the deck, at some point we stop believing that we can make decisions on our own and carry their consequences.
Fatalism: when the future turns into a sentence
A horoscope announces a “difficult year” or the “break‑up of a relationship”; the Tower card flashes into the spread like a sudden lightning bolt. A sensitive mind can turn this metaphor into a sentence. Psychologists describe this phenomenon as fatalism – the feeling that life is predetermined and that we can at best try to adapt to it.
This way of thinking has several consequences:
- we more easily fall into anticipatory anxiety (“something bad is about to happen, because that’s what the cards said”),
- we find it harder to notice our own influence on a situation (“there’s no point trying if something else is written for me anyway”),
- we become more prone to catastrophizing and worst‑case scenarios.
The paradox is that “predicting the future” can help co‑create it. A person convinced that a relationship will fall apart anyway begins to behave as if it were already over: they withdraw, invest less, and interpret conflicts more quickly as a sign that “the prophecy is coming true”.
The self‑fulfilling prophecy effect
Psychology is well acquainted with the mechanism by which our beliefs influence our behaviour in such a way that they begin to “confirm” what we believe. In the context of horoscopes and tarot, it is easy to fall into the trap of selective memory: what “came true” stays in mind; what was inaccurate vanishes from memory or gets retrofitted to the situation.
If someone hears that they are “unlucky with money”, they may unconsciously:
- make riskier decisions (“it won’t work out anyway”),
- give up opportunities, thinking “that’s not for me”,
- explain every setback with a “bad arrangement of the stars”.
Tarot or a horoscope then cease to be a symbolic language and start to act like a subtle limiting program: the belief that “it has to be this way” narrows the field of possible choices.
Anxiety, dependence, and abuse
There is another, more down‑to‑earth dimension of risk: susceptibility to manipulation. A person in crisis – after a breakup, job loss, or illness – is particularly vulnerable to the promise that someone “knows their future”. In such moments, critical thinking is often weakened; the willingness to trust someone who speaks with a firm voice and sketches a simple scenario grows.
This mechanism is easy to exploit for unethical practices:
- making the client dependent on a series of “necessary” sessions,
- using threats of a curse, karma, or “bad fate” that has to be lifted for a specific fee,
- building emotional and financial dependence by fuelling fear.
No “powers” are needed for this – a basic grasp of human psychology is enough. The real danger lies not in the cards themselves but in the way they are used and in how far someone hands over to them the right to decide about their life.
Running away from oneself under the guise of spirituality
From a Jungian point of view, divinatory practices – tarot, I Ching, astrology – can be doors to the unconscious. Carl Gustav Jung saw them as a way to grasp the “quality of the moment”, a symbolic commentary on what is happening inside.
The problem begins when, instead of entering into dialogue with this commentary, we try to use it as a convenient substitute for responsibility.
Instead of asking: “What does this card say about my state right now?” we ask: “Will he come back? Will I get that job? When will the crisis end?”
In this way, a spiritual tool for introspection turns into a shield behind which we hide our fear of uncertainty. Instead of growing, we circle endlessly around the same questions, hoping that one day “the right answer” will appear and settle everything for us.
Where does symbol end and problem begin?
Tarot and horoscopes are not good or bad in themselves – they are a language. Like any language, they can serve a deepened dialogue with oneself or a flight into illusion. The dividing line does not run through the deck or the newspaper column but through the way we use them.
It is worth asking oneself a few honest questions:
- Do I use cards/horoscopes to better understand my present state, or to avoid making a decision?
- Am I able to say “no” to what the spread “says” if I feel that it goes against me?
- Do I remember that the future is not a closed script but a space I co‑create?
Only then does symbol return to its proper place: not as a sentence but as a suggestion; not as “fate” but as an invitation to conversation.
Rather than predict – accompany
The greatest danger of tarot and horoscopes does not lie in the possibility that they “work”, but in the possibility that they take away our belief in our own capacity to live without ready‑made scripts. A psychologically healthy relationship with the future does not seek guarantees; it learns to tolerate uncertainty, to make decisions despite incomplete knowledge, and to take responsibility for one’s choices.
Cards can support this process – on the condition that, instead of “when?” and “will it work out?”, we dare to ask: “What does this card say about me right now?” Then tarot and the stars cease to be an oracle and become what they have always been at their most beautiful: a mirror in which we see not the future but ourselves – on the way.