I had never heard of Alex Reads Tarot until the TikTok scandal broke. A popular tarot reader with nearly a million followers, name-dropped in a Paramore song, suddenly deleted all her content and announced she was following Jesus . The internet erupted. She lost tens of thousands of followers, faced accusations of “religious psychosis,” and was accused of falling down a “far-right pipeline” . I didn’t think I was going to add my opinion — until an interesting experience I had chatting with someone on TikTok made me reconsider.
What I witnessed was not just a debate about one person’s spiritual journey. It was a case study in how spiritual communities react when someone deconstructs and lands in an unexpected place. The backlash revealed something uncomfortable: spiritual people can be just as rigid as the religious people they claim to reject.
The Backlash: When Tolerance Becomes Conditional
The response to Alex’s announcement was immediate and polarized. Some celebrated her testimony and welcomed her into the faith . Others were devastated and angry. Accusations flew: she must be experiencing “religious psychosis,” she had been manipulated, she had fallen down the “far-right pipeline” . One observer put it bluntly: “The same people who preach acceptance suddenly couldn’t accept her. That’s not tolerance. If your worldview celebrates every spiritual path except the on…” .
The irony was hard to miss. A community that prided itself on openness and acceptance could not tolerate a departure from its approved beliefs. Alex’s decision was not just a personal choice — it was a threat to the identity of the community itself. If she could leave, others could too. And that had to be pathologized.
The Hypocrisy of Spiritual Communities
The Alex Reads Tarot debate illustrates a pattern I have seen repeatedly in spiritual communities. They present themselves as open, accepting, and free from dogma. But in reality, they are often just as rigid as the organized religions they claim to reject. The language changes — “asleep” versus “awake,” “lightworker” versus “unawakened” — but the dynamic is the same. There is an in-group and an out-group. There are approved beliefs and forbidden ones. There is pressure to conform and punishment for dissent.
When someone deconstructs and lands in an unexpected place — especially a place that feels like a return to “traditional” or “patriarchal” systems — the community turns on them. The acceptance was conditional all along.
My Own Deconstruction Journey
I have been where Alex is, in my own way. I grew up with Christian beliefs that I never fully examined. It was not that I was a fundamentalist. I just inherited ideas without knowing their origins. Deconstructing those beliefs was not an overnight process. It took years of questioning, reflecting, and being honest about what I actually believed and why.
At one point, I stopped engaging with tarot. Not because I had a dramatic conversion, but because I was no longer drawn to it. I was not against it. I was just no longer using it. That period of silence was not a rejection — it was a pause. And I learned that deconstruction is messy. It does not follow a neat trajectory from one “correct” belief to another. It leads to unexpected destinations.
The Origins of Tarot: A Card Game, Not Ancient Mysticism
One of the things that makes this debate so relevant to deconstruction is the history of tarot itself. Many people assume tarot is an ancient pagan practice with roots in Egyptian mysticism. This is not historically accurate.
The first known tarot cards were created in the 15th century in northern Italy, in cities like Milan and Ferrara. They were called carte da trionfi — triumph cards — and they were used to play a trick-taking game similar to modern bridge. The earliest documentary evidence dates to 1442 . The cards were entertainment for the Italian nobility, not mystical tools. Three luxury decks from the mid-15th century have survived, painted for the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan. They are beautiful, hand-painted works of art — but they were made for card games, not fortune-telling.
Tarot was not used for divination until the late 18th century. The shift began in 1781, when a Swiss clergyman named Antoine Court de Gébelin published a speculative work claiming that tarot originated in ancient Egypt and contained the mysteries of Isis and Thoth. Subsequent Egyptologists found nothing in the Egyptian language to support this claim, but the idea had already taken hold.
In the 1780s, a French cartomancer named Jean-Baptiste Alliette — who wrote under the name Etteilla — created the first tarot deck specifically designed for divination. In the 19th century, French occultist Éliphas Lévi connected tarot to the Hebrew alphabet, Kabbalah, and numerology, introducing the terms “Major Arcana” and “Minor Arcana.” In 1888, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was formed, and two members — Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith — collaborated on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, first published in 1909, which shaped modern tarot interpretation.
The occult associations were invented in the 18th and 19th centuries by European occultists who projected their own interests onto a deck of cards that had no such origins. This does not mean tarot is useless or invalid. Many people find it helpful for self-reflection, meditation, and psychological insight.
But it is important to recognize that the mystical interpretations are not ancient. They are modern. They were constructed by people who wanted to find hidden wisdom in ordinary objects.
The Bible, Divination, and Tarot
Another layer to this debate is the claim made by some Christians that tarot is inherently demonic. But the Bible itself contains sanctioned divination practices. The most obvious is casting lots, which is mentioned multiple times in both the Old and New Testaments. Proverbs 16:33 says: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” In Acts 1:26, the apostles cast lots to choose Matthias to replace Judas. The land was divided by lot in Numbers 26:55, and Aaron cast lots over two goats in Leviticus 16:8.
Casting lots was not seen as a pagan practice. It was seen as a way to discern God’s will. The outcome was attributed to divine direction, not random chance. If casting lots is considered a legitimate way to seek divine guidance, then why is tarot different? The mechanics are similar: you cast or draw something, and you interpret the outcome as meaningful. The difference is not the method — it is the framework. Casting lots is seen as seeking God’s will, while tarot is seen as seeking occult knowledge. Casting lots is attributed to divine direction, while tarot is attributed to spiritual forces or intuition.
The Bible does not mention tarot because tarot did not exist. The earliest known tarot cards were created in the 15th century, and they were not used for divination until the late 18th century. The biblical writers could not have condemned a practice that would not exist for another thousand years.
The argument that tarot is demonic rests on an assumption: that the biblical condemnation of certain practices applies to all forms of divination, including ones that did not exist at the time. It also assumes that the method itself is the problem, rather than the intent behind it. The line between approved and condemned divination is not about the method — it is about the source of the answer. If God is the source, it is acceptable. If any other source is assumed, it is condemned. This is a theological distinction, not a practical one.
This does not mean tarot is right or wrong. It means the debate is not as clear-cut as either side presents it. If the Bible allows casting lots, the question is not “is divination forbidden?” — it is “what kind of divination is acceptable, and under what conditions?” That is a more complex conversation than the TikTok debate allows.
Alex’s Journey: A Gradual Process, Not an Overnight Conversion
Alex herself described her shift as a year-long process, not a sudden event . She said: “Over the past nearly a year, my faith has become the most important thing in my life… This hasn’t been an overnight change. This has been a gradual journey that has slowly changed the way that I see my life and my faith” . She wrestled with the decision. She prayed. She reflected. She tried to reconcile her tarot practice with her growing faith, and eventually concluded she could not .
She described the internal tension honestly: “What started feeling as something that I couldn’t quite explain began to grow into something that I couldn’t quite ignore anymore” . She admitted that walking away was difficult, saying it had connected her with “incredible people all across the world” . She also acknowledged: “I don’t know exactly what comes next for me” .
This is what genuine deconstruction looks like. It is not a snap decision. It is not a betrayal. It is an honest reckoning with where your path has led you — even when the destination makes others uncomfortable.
The Role of Identity
What I realized through this debate is that for many people, beliefs are not just beliefs — they are identity. When someone changes their beliefs, it feels like a personal attack to those who share the old framework. Their identity is tied to the worldview, and any departure threatens the legitimacy of that worldview.
This shows up in Human Design and astrology, too. People with defined centers — especially defined G, Ajna, and Spleen — are more likely to lock onto beliefs as fixed identity. It is not easy for them to change. It is not easy for them to question. And it is not easy for them to tolerate others who do. We should have more openness to understanding this, rather than persecuting people for their journeys.
Why Compassion Matters
Hayley Williams, who had name-dropped Alex in her song “Love Me Different,” offered a response that modeled the compassion we should all be extending. She changed her lyrics from “Alex Reads Tarot reads the shit out of me” to “used to read the shit out of me” and then “oh my God, R.I.P.” during live performances . On Substack, she wrote: “Alex is surely not the only one of us who’s felt the need to ‘kill’ off a version of ourselves that mainly benefited others” . She was surprised by the hostility directed toward Alex online and described Alex’s transformation as a kind of “necessary pruning” . Her response was nuanced, compassionate, and non-judgmental.
We Are All Just Trying to Make Sense of It
At the end of the day, we are all just people in this world trying to make sense of it. No one truly has all the answers. Some things we will not understand until we are on the other side — if even then. The desire for certainty is deeply human. It is comforting to feel like we have figured it out, to have a framework that explains everything, to know who is “right” and who is “wrong.” But openness and mystery are threatening to people who need certainty. They challenge the security of the framework. They invite doubt. And doubt is uncomfortable.
This is why the reaction to Alex’s decision was so intense. It was not about her. It was about the threat she posed to a worldview that needed to be certain. If she could leave, maybe the framework was not as solid as they thought. And that fear drove the backlash.
What We Can Learn
The Alex Reads Tarot debate shows us that spiritual communities are not exempt from the rigid thinking they claim to reject. When someone deconstructs and lands in an unexpected place, the tolerance they promised often evaporates. That is not about Alex. It is about the ego’s attachment to being right.
We should give people grace to explore their beliefs instead of persecuting them in public. We should recognize that deconstruction is not a straight line. We should hold compassion rather than judgment, because judgment will likely push people to double down. The problem is not the belief system — it is the ego’s attachment to being right.
Final Thoughts: Tarot as a Tool, Not a Master
The Alex Reads Tarot debate is not really about Alex. It is about us — about what we do when someone in our community chooses a path we did not expect, and about the hidden rigidity that lurks beneath the surface of even the most “open-minded” spaces. The backlash she faced revealed something uncomfortable: spiritual communities can be just as dogmatic as the religious institutions they claim to have left behind. The language changes, but the dynamics remain the same. There is an in-group and an out-group. There are approved beliefs and forbidden ones. And when someone crosses that invisible line, the tolerance that was promised evaporates.
I have thought a lot about where I stand in all of this. Like Alex, I have walked my own deconstruction journey — questioning inherited beliefs, pausing practices that no longer served me, and learning to sit with uncertainty rather than demand easy answers. Unlike Alex, I did not land in Christianity. But I also did not land in a neat, tidy rejection of everything I once explored. The truth is, deconstruction is messy. It does not follow a straight line. It leads to unexpected places, and those places are allowed to be complicated.
So let me be clear about where I have landed: I do use oracle cards for spirit communication. Not tarot — these are decks I made at home, crafted to feel personal, grounded, and intentional. They work for me. But I also understand that everyone engages with these tools in their own way, and the same card can mean something entirely different to someone else. That is part of what makes this practice so personal — there is no single right way to use them.
I had never heard of Alex Reads Tarot until the TikTok scandal broke. I did not have a stake in her career or her identity. But watching the fallout unfold — the accusations, the grief, the gleeful condemnation from both sides — made me reconsider my own silence. I realized that if I believe in the value of spiritual exploration, I have to defend it even when it leads somewhere I would not personally go. That is what tolerance actually means: not celebrating every path, but allowing others to walk theirs without being pathologized, mocked, or excommunicated.
At the end of the day, we are all just people in this world trying to make sense of it. No one has all the answers. Some things we will not understand until we are on the other side — if even then. The desire for certainty is deeply human. But openness and mystery are threatening to people who need certainty. They challenge the security of the framework. They invite doubt. And doubt is uncomfortable.
What I hope we take from this moment is not a verdict on whether Alex was right or wrong, but a recognition that spiritual communities must do better. We must hold space for deconstruction without demanding a particular destination. We must extend grace to people whose journeys make us uncomfortable. And we must be honest about our own attachments to being “right” — because those attachments are often what drive the judgment we claim to reject.
As for me, I will keep using my oracle cards. I will keep questioning. I will keep making space for mystery without needing to control it. And I will try, imperfectly, to hold compassion for those whose paths look different from my own — because in the end, none of us has this fully figured out. We are all just walking each other home, one uncertain step at a time.
