tarot consumerism, or, surely I can buy my way to inner peace, right?

31 Oct, 2025

In the spirit of spooky things, I present the following reflection:

• I loooove a good magic bullet. That untapped potential in the beautiful journal I want to buy, which will surely change my whole life. Effortlessly.

• I am also attracted to pretty things, shiny things, rainbow things.

• I can sometimes get a bit hyper-focused on things I enjoy.

Knowing these three facts about myself, I had a feeling that my newfound interest in tarot circa early 2022 after rediscovering the Star Spinner Tarot by Trungles I'd bought for creative writing mid-2020 might be financially hazardous. So, I made a spreadsheet (I love a good spreadsheet). It didn't slow me down nearly as much as you might expect.

Drumroll, please....

Grand totals, as of this writing:

• 64 tarot/oracle decks acquired
• Total spend: $1,369.79 (some decks were gifts or trades and thus their cost is not included, two were replacements from the publisher due to an issue with the original deck)

Some of you just spit out your coffee. "What did this bitch just say? She spent WHAT?" Some of you smirked, or cringed, and thought "oh you sweet summer child, that is nothing."

Whichever way, valid. But for me, the real reveal is this: of those 64 decks and $1,369.79, I am still in possession of.... 21 of them.

And I hate that.

I don't like the churn. The binging buying and purging. The obsession with curating, "needing" a deck for X and for Y and also for Z, fixating on a new deck only for it to arrive and find myself disappointed. "This didn't do what I wanted it to, what's next?" "I've got this Grand Plan™ for this deck, I'll start X practice. Oh, uh, never mind I guess." The guilt, the waste, the frustration, the feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled.

I don't believe tarot decks are sacred spiritual tools unless they are sacred to you. The intention and practice of the user is what makes them sacred, if that's what the user wants them to be. That's not the reason for my frustration. What I'm talking about here is good 'ol consumerism.

Tarot to me is a tool of self-reflection and creating clarity. It is a language of symbols and archetypes that my natural human ability for storytelling and pattern recognition converts into poignant messages, needed call outs, and sought after comfort. And if I'm too busy looking for the new shiny deck, looking for a distraction, nursing a shopping addiction and chasing a dopamine high, I miss out on that.

Miriam Rachel, writer of the Creative Tarot Insights substack said it well:

Part of it is symbolic: decks feel like containers of mystery, each with their own “voice.” Collecting them can feel like collecting access to wisdom. But deeper down, many seekers are chasing certainty. A new deck promises clarity that the last one didn’t deliver. If readings feel muddy, maybe another deck will “speak louder.” If your spiritual path feels shaky, maybe the right deck will anchor it. This reflects a consumer logic that’s become embedded in spirituality: if something feels off, buy a solution. Meditation not working? New app. Manifestation not clicking? New journal. Tarot becomes another avenue for outsourcing growth instead of doing the harder work of sitting with discomfort.

I want decks like familiar old friends, that are lived in, that I have a relationship with, the way my journals transform from blank, pretty notebooks to totally unique, absolutely personal capsules that are filled with a bit of who I was at the time I was writing, collaging, painting, and pasting photos and ephemera from my life into them. My previous journal, a gift from my mother-in-law, had a grayscale photo of pine trees and mountains and said "adventure awaits" on the cover. My current journal is black, with three duck stickers on the front I bought in a store that housed a collection of boutique artist stands. Each journal is a snapshot of where I was at the time, and a useful tool for processing, musing, dreaming, reflecting.

I've struggled to develop similar relationships with my decks.

There's been times I've had a brief, intense fling with a new deck only to fall out of love with it just a quickly. I've bought decks because I saw them aesthetically paired together online, or because a YouTuber I admired spoke highly of them or something they did with them, or because they were part of the same series. I've gotten rid of decks and then repurchased them (eight times) and then gotten rid them again (five times). Only three of my repurchases are still in my possession.

None of this churn is helping me get where I want to go.

Specific things I believe are major influencing factors, in addition to generally consumerist culture at large:

• the many algorithms of social media drive us to the lowest common denominator. It's hard not to be fascinated by a "haul" video, however it's titled. A specific discussion of a topic will find a smaller audience than something designed to appeal to the masses, no matter the quality.
• creators and consumers of content are both shaped by and feed into the algorithms. For a great discussion of this see Kyle Chayka's book Filterworld.
• said algorithms are intentionally and effectively screwing with our emotions to keep us just hungry and unsatisfied enough to keep scrolling, because that is the state in which our attention is best monetized.
• the culture of social media tends to normalize the abnormal. Spending hundreds of dollars a month on decks is not normal.

And the truth is, I and many others could be writing this exact blog post about almost any hobby or interest. Art supplies, fountain pens, makeup, stuffed animals, perfumes, journals, mechanical keyboards, knives, watches, planners - look up any of those communities and you'll find similar discussions floating about. Search consumerism + X, and you'll find other struggling with the same thing.

So all this begs the question: what am I going to do about it?

Nice of you to ask, reader, you're really engaging in the discussion.

All my decks are currently corralled in two drawers in my nightstand. The middle drawer, aka Purgatory, and the lower drawer, aka the To Go Pile.

Here is my Current Grand Plan™ (I've had several, but this is my latest and greatest):

1. Copying a friend's idea, I have committed to keeping all my decks for at minimum one year after deciding to get rid of them to slow down the churn and reduce my chances of repurchasing them. Once I have decided to get rid of a deck, it will begin its year wait in the To Go Pile. If I want to buy a deck, I've got to be certain enough to commit to that.
2. All decks must be purchased from my oooh shiny fund
3. All the decks I intend to keep must be able to fit in my middle drawer. It is currently quite full, meaning something will need to move to the To Go Pile before I bring an any new decks.

I'm hopeful about this plan, and that it will help me reduce the feeling of Deck Overwhelm I have. Right now I am dealing with a backlog of decks. I hope to work through them and with the slowed pace I'm imposing on myself, thoughtfully release several of the decks I find I don't want to keep and discover which ones I really do want to have.

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