A New Aspect of the Tarot Boom: Diversity in the Deck

Black, Indigenous and Latino American people are leading the rise in tarot's popularity, a new study shows.

Since before the pandemic began, the boom in sales of tarot decks has served to complete a piece of the spiritual puzzle surrounding Generation Z: They may be famously areligious, but they are still getting their spiritual fix through old-school practices such as tarot.

A recent study has now added a new piece: Tarot’s popularity is being led by young people of color.

According to recent research from Springtide Research Institute, young people identifying with various indigenous groups, including First Nations, native Hawaiians and Alaskans, report the highest rate of tarot use, at 64%. That is followed closely by Black youth (62.9%) and then LatinX youth (55.3%). Read More

Photo Credit: Emilie Muñiz

While Generation Z eschews organized religion and may be functional atheists, that is, at a functional level, they live as if there is no God, they do practice divination, fortune telling. This is an interesting trend because it has its counterpart in mainland China and in Japan.In mainland China the Communist Party is officially atheist but many party members engages in divination practices and practices intended to ward off misfortune from themselves and to secure good fortune for themselves. In Japan the two religions with the most adherents are Bhuddism and Shinto. The adherents of these two religions, however, are largely functional atheists. The adherence is cultural. They may observe the festivals, retain a Buddhist priest to conduct a funeral, and purchase good luck charms from a Shinto shrine. Like the Chinese, the Japanese engage in divination practices and practices intended to ward off bad luck  and to secure good luck. In Generation Z we may be seeing the development of a segment of the population whose beliefs are similar to that of the Chinese and Japanese--functionally atheist but having a belief in the supernatural. This is only a few steps away from what existed in the ancient Mediterranean worl during the early years of Christianity--the existence of the cults of several major gods, including the Roman Emperor, whose public rites the population attended, various minor goods such as household gods and personal gods to which families and individuals were devoted, and varous divination practices, and practices for warding off misfortune and securing good fortune