Why Tarot Feels So Accurate, And How to Actually Read a Card
back from the borderline
mollie adler
4.8 • 602 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Someone tagged me this week in a Christian conversion testimony video and accused me of leading people into demonic tarot witchcraft, which honestly made me laugh. So naturally, I made an episode.
I felt like it was important to explore why tarot feels so disturbingly accurate sometimes even when you don’t fully “believe” in it.
I’ll introduce you to Pamela Colman Smith, the artist behind the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and why her illustrated minor arcana changed tarot forever. We discuss tarot as theater, the body language inside various cards, and perhaps most importantly, why simply memorizing meanings is usually the worst possible way to learn.
By the end of this episode, you’ll learn how to actually read the tarot intuitively.
You can listen to the full episode at patreon.com/backfromtheborderline. You can also join the Patreon for free if you want the weekly Wednesday newsletter and previews of the paid episodes before deciding.
MOODS is live at moods.world, and you can use The Animatrix inside MOODS to work through your daily tarot pull in the same way I teach here. Patreon members also get discounted access to MOODS.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If this podcast stirs something up in your psyche, Moods is where you take it next. |
| 0:05.1 | Moods is the private pre-social ritual technology that my team and I built for your inner world. |
| 0:10.2 | It's not therapy or social media, but a place to work through what's coming up within you |
| 0:15.6 | and then get back into your real life. |
| 0:18.0 | Start your seven-day free trial today at Ms.world and use the code Founders, |
| 0:23.7 | F-O-U-N-D-R-S at checkout to lock in early pricing. That's moods.comodd-world code founders. |
| 0:36.2 | Welcome everyone to back from the borderline. |
| 0:39.4 | I'm your host, Molly. |
| 0:41.7 | Now, this week, someone randomly tagged me in a video on Instagram, and it was one of those |
| 0:49.3 | Christian conversion testimony videos. |
| 0:53.4 | You know, like, it was like the, it's the classic framework. |
| 0:56.7 | Somebody saying that they escaped witchcraft or New Age spirituality and found Jesus. |
| 1:03.3 | And some random person tagged me in it and basically said, back from the borderline has gone demonic, tarot, witchcraft, the whole thing. |
| 1:14.3 | And I'm paraphrasing here, but honestly, it made me laugh. |
| 1:18.8 | And it's not because I think spiritual questions are stupid. |
| 1:23.2 | Those of you who listen to this podcast more frequently, but hello to those of you who are new, |
| 1:29.0 | I take these questions very seriously. But because the conversation around tarot in particular |
| 1:35.4 | is so intellectually toddler style most of the time, people only seem to really be able to imagine two positions. |
| 1:46.0 | Either taro is supernaturally evil or it's fake bullshit for delusional people. |
| 1:52.4 | And I think both of these positions totally miss the point. |
| 1:57.5 | And I think the more interesting question here is what do symbolic or archetypal images actually do to the human mind and the human psyche? |
| 2:08.8 | Because whether humans realize it or not, people experience reality from a symbolic and metaphorical perspective before we're even able to organize it rationally. |
... |
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