Current law does not allow such tarot card services within Pennsylvania’s borders.
State Representative Greg Scott, a Democrat of Montgomery County, has announced plans to repeal Section 7104 in Pennsylvania’s criminal code that makes tarot reading and other forms of fortune-telling illegal.
Under current law, fortune tellers would risk prosecution for a third-degree misdemeanor for breaking the law.
Section 7104 prohibits individuals from charging money to predict the future “by cards, tokens, the inspection of the head or hands of any person, or by the age of anyone, or by consulting the movements of heavenly bodies, or in any other manner.”
Current law also prohibits people from selling love potions, spells, or charms. It dates back to the mid-1800s.
“It is time to update Pennsylvania’s laws,” Scott wrote in a memo this week.
Repealing the section of the law would allow fortune tellers to “be able to practice without fear of being targeted.”
In 2023, a woman in Lebanon County was charged with illegal fortune telling. A woman in Beaver County was sentenced to probation after allegedly scamming people out of more than $3,000 through her psychic and tarot reading business in 2018.
Scott’s announcement comes as interest in New Age spirituality has been building across the country.
According to recent research, nearly one-third of American adults consult tarot cards, astrology, or fortune tellers at least yearly.
In 2024, a lawsuit was filed by a Hanover apothecary shop owner who claimed a local police chief had threatened criminal penalties if the businessperson continued reading tarot cards. The pending court case is challenging Pennsylvania’s criminal stature as an unconstitutional restriction on free speech.
In that case, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday recently intervened to defend the state statute during the proceedings that are currently ongoing.
