Pennsylvania still makes it a crime to tell fortunes for money. The prohibition lives in Title 18, §7104 of the state's consolidated crimes code, a statute first enacted in 1861 and carried forward through revisions in 1939 and 1972. Its core never changed: accept payment for a reading, and you have committed a graded misdemeanor in the Commonwealth.
The law drew national attention, as Spotlight PA reported, after the police chief in Hanover, York County, warned the owner of The Serpent's Key Shoppe & Sanctuary that paid tarot readings were illegal. Rather than close the practice, the owner took the borough and the chief to federal court, arguing the ban violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. As of the latest reporting, no decision had been issued — but the case has become a focal point for a question that has shadowed American spiritual practice for more than a century.
That question is older, and more racially charged, than the Pennsylvania statute alone suggests. Laws against fortune telling, vagrancy, and "pretending" to tell fortunes were applied across the country to spiritualists of many backgrounds — and, as historians at Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions and others have documented, they carried particular weight for Black practitioners of Hoodoo, conjure, and rootwork. These traditions, born among enslaved Africans and carried forward through the Jim Crow era, blended West and Central African spirituality with the Christianity imposed in bondage. The National Park Service describes conjure plainly as "an African American religious tradition." Yet practitioners — the root doctors and "two-headed" workers who served as healers and counselors when no other institution would — long faced prosecution under fraud, unlicensed-medicine, and fortune-telling statutes that treated their sacred work as crime.
That history is why a Pennsylvania courtroom matters to a rootworker in Georgia or a card reader in California. The modern legal tide has been turning: federal courts in Argello v. City of Lincoln (1998) and Maryland's high court (2010) have held that charging for readings is protected speech. A ruling in the Serpent's Key case could extend that reasoning — or test its limits. Meanwhile, State Rep. Greg Scott (D-Montgomery) has circulated a co-sponsorship memo for a bill to repeal §7104 outright, so that practitioners, in his words, can work "without fear of being targeted."
For practitioners watching from elsewhere, the practical takeaway is steady: the readings themselves are rarely what draws prosecution — deception is. Honest, transparent practice, paired with the growing weight of First Amendment precedent, is the firmest ground. But the Pennsylvania case is worth following closely, because the principle it tests — whether the spiritual work of reading, divining, and counseling is protected expression — reaches every practitioner who has ever inherited a tradition and been asked to set a price on it.
Sources: Spotlight PA (Oct 2024); ABC27/WHTM (2025); Times Observer (May 2025); U.S. National Park Service; Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions; Argello v. City of Lincoln, 143 F.3d 1152 (8th Cir. 1998); 18 Pa. C.S. §7104.
In 2024, Millsboro, Delaware finally wiped an old ordinance against witchcraft and fortune telling off its books. It's a reminder worth holding onto: a lot of these laws don't live at the statehouse — they live right in your own town hall, and they can change.
Source: A&E (Oct 2025).
Let's be real about the risk. In July 2025, a reader in New York was arrested under the state's fortune-telling law over a matter involving about $90,000 charged to lift a so-called "curse." The lesson isn't fear — it's that fraud is what draws the law's sharpest edge. Honest work is your strongest protection.
Source: A&E (Oct 2025).
Here's a quirk worth knowing. Several states — New York among them — carve out an exception for readings billed purely as a show or amusement. That's why you'll see "for entertainment purposes only" on so many signs in the trade. Just know it's a shield, not a guarantee.
Source: NY Penal Law §165.35.
These are the bills that could touch your table — pulled live from every statehouse and Congress, filtered for anything that affects readings, divination, and spiritual work. Tap any one to see what it really says, who's behind it, where it stands, and what it means for you in plain words.
Every state treats our work a little differently — some leave you be, some still carry old laws on the books. Here's where things stand, state by state. Tap yours for the documented detail. And remember: the rules in your own city or county can matter just as much, so treat this as your starting point, not the final word.
The days our people hold sacred — the freedom we won, the ancestors we pour for, the heritage we carry. What's happening now, what's coming, and what we just honored, kept here so the calendar of our culture is always close at hand.
The wisdom in the everyday — passed down quietly, never lost. Fifty-four cards honoring traditional Black customs and the lessons our people carry. A way to keep the calendar of our culture close all year.
Explore the deck ↗Beyond the law lives the work itself — its history, its roots, its meaning. The more you know where it comes from, the more confidently you can stand in it and speak on it.
Most U.S. fortune-telling statutes were written in the 19th and early 20th centuries to curb fraud — specifically the "break-the-curse" con, where a reader claims a client is cursed and demands large sums to lift it. Knowing that history clarifies why courts so often frame these cases around deception rather than belief.
When Pennsylvania's ban took effect, Philadelphia was home to the First Association of Spiritualists. Divination has long sat at the meeting point of faith, performance, and commerce — a tension that still shapes how the law sees the work today.
A recurring theme in modern challenges: courts have increasingly treated readings as expression. One federal appeals court reasoned that fortune telling "is not commercial simply because someone pays for it" — a framing that has helped strike down several bans.
Source: First Amendment Encyclopedia, MTSU.
Practitioners who keep clear records — written client agreements, transparent pricing, and honest scope-of-service language — are far better positioned if a question ever arises. Treating the work as a legitimate business is its own form of protection.
Hoodoo, conjure, rootwork — this was never costume, never trend. It's a living spiritual tradition our ancestors carried across the water and kept alive through slavery, through Jim Crow, through every attempt to stamp it out. Knowing that history isn't optional. It's how you practice with integrity.
Hoodoo — also called conjure or rootwork — is ours. It was created by enslaved African Americans who carried the spiritual knowledge of Central and West Africa across the Atlantic in the holds of slave ships, and refused to let it drown. The National Park Service says it plainly: forced into Christianity, our ancestors wove their old ways into the new religion, and out of that survival, Hoodoo was born.
The work runs deep — herbal healing, honoring the ancestors, the counterclockwise Ring Shout, water blessings, sacred music, divination, and the making of charms for protection. The rootworkers — sometimes called "two-headed doctors" — were the healers, the counselors, the justice-keepers for Black folks in a country that offered us no other door.
Here's the part that matters most: this tradition was forged in survival and resistance, and it deserves to be treated that way. Zora Neale Hurston went home to the South to write it down; Harry Middleton Hyatt filled five volumes preserving what might have been lost. Coming to this work with reverence for that lineage — knowing whose shoulders you stand on — is what separates honoring a tradition from stealing one.
Sources: National Park Service, "Hoodoo in St. Louis: An African American Religious Tradition"; documented works of Z.N. Hurston & H.M. Hyatt.
This is not a trend deck — it's legacy in your hands. Seventy cards drawn from the sacred traditions our ancestors preserved through resilience, prayer, and lineage. Made for readers who know divination is responsibility, not performance.
Bring the deck home ↗Knowledge is protection. Here's plain-spoken guidance — drawn from real law and how courts have actually ruled — that practitioners lean on to work with confidence. It isn't legal advice, but it's a solid place to start knowing your ground.
Across the country, the readings themselves are rarely prosecuted — what gets charged is deception, especially the "your money is cursed, pay me to cleanse it" scheme. Honest service that never promises to lift a curse for escalating fees keeps you on the right side of the line that actually gets enforced.
Modern courts increasingly treat divination as protected expression. The Eighth Circuit (Argello v. Lincoln, 1998) and Maryland's high court (2010) both held that charging for readings is protected speech — precedent that has toppled local bans.
Sources: Argello v. Lincoln; Md. Court of Appeals (2010).
Form an LLC or sole proprietorship with your Secretary of State, get a sales-tax permit if you sell decks, candles, or curios, and keep transparent pricing. Operating as a legitimate, documented business is itself a layer of protection.
Even where the state is silent, your city or county may license or restrict the practice. The rules that trip people up are usually municipal — check your local code before you hang a shingle.
What's happening out there — in the craft, the community, and the culture. Pulled fresh every visit, so there's always something new to know.
Every map has people who drew its lines. These are the cases — the fights taken to court, won and lost — that shaped how this country treats our work. Each one drawn from public reporting and court records, so you can see exactly how we got here.
The cases that drew the lines we live inside — what happened, who fought, and what it means for us. Filter by outcome or search below.
Sources: Spotlight PA; Times Observer; First Amendment Encyclopedia (MTSU); Mass.gov case list; Md. Court of Appeals (2010); Argello v. Lincoln, 143 F.3d 1152 (8th Cir. 1998); ABC27.
The cards that started it all — a full 78-card tarot that puts us at the center of the story, drawn for readers who want to see themselves in the work. The right that all these cases were fighting for, in your own hands.
See the deck ↗Nothing we learn together gets lost. Every brief stays right here. This is Issue No. 1 — and week by week, this archive grows into a record of where we've been and what we know.
One brief a week — what changed, what's coming, and what it means for you and yours. Free, documented, and made for us, by us.