It’s the time of year when our thoughts turn to witches, hauntings, and all manner of supernatural goings-on. But if accepting money to tell fortunes is part of your spooky season plans, tread carefully: It’s illegal in Pennsylvania.
According to a state law from 1861, “Any person who shall pretend, for gain or lucre, by cards, tokens, the inspection of the head or hands of any person, or by anyone’s age, or by consulting the movements of the heavenly bodies ... shall be guilty of a misdemeanor…the first offence shall be punished by not more than two years imprisonment, nor less than fifteen days.” The law was slightly updated in 1939 and 1972, legislative records obtained by Spotlight PA show. But its central concern hasn’t changed. Fortune telling for money remains a criminal activity in this state.
Beck Lawrence, owner of The Serpent’s Key Shoppe & Sanctuary, an apothecary in Hanover, wants the 19th century edict struck down. Following the local police chief informing them that telling fortunes could lead to jail time last year, this August Lawrence filed a federal suit against the borough alleging the statute violates their First Amendment rights. The case highlights the peculiar scenarios that can emerge when a statute is left on the books and the ways religious tolerance has changed over time.
The law was enacted at a time when astrology and fortune telling were considered disreputable and corrupting. “Astrology, with its attending results, from assignations to abortions and death … is a very great evil,” wrote a reader to the Public Ledger, a former Philadelphia newspaper, a year before the law went into effect.
Such moralists were especially critical of Philly, which was then home to the First Association of Spiritualists. Spiritualism was one of “the greatest religious movements of the 19th century,” according to Smithsonian Magazine, and was predominantly practiced by women.
The religion was very controversial, historian Rissa Miller told Spotlight PA via email. “Many people considered the tenets of Spiritualism to be a hoax,” Miller explained. “Huge social and legal escapades around the country illustrate this strife,” she continued, citing the Fox Sisters of New York.
Records show lawmakers in both the state House and Senate unsuccessfully tried to apply the law exclusively to Philadelphia. “The bill is … calculated to effectively crush out the swindling impostors who have imposed upon and filched money … Philadelphia has been cursed for years with these adventurers,” wrote the Carlisle Weekly Herald in a supportive editorial.
Lawrence’s saga began a little over a year ago, while they were making final preparations to open the store, located on Hanover's main drag.
“I had an article published about my shop through the Main Street Hanover nonprofit,” they told Spotlight PA. “... And apparently the police chief of Hanover read it and decided that he didn't like it.”
Chief Chad Martin, who is named in the lawsuit, paid a visit to Lawrence’s shop before it officially opened. The encounter did not go well, according to Lawrence. “He said that if there were any credible reports of [paid tarot readings], he would be back to arrest me for up to a year in jail. So there was definitely a verbal threat of, … ‘I’m just giving you a warning today, but in the future, that’s not OK.’”
Martin did not respond to a request for comment sent to the Hanover Borough Police Department. But last year, in a signed message posted to the police department’s Facebook page, he wrote, “Upon observing an advertisement for a business … that offered tarot card readings, I engaged in a conversation with two individuals concerning the advertisement.”
He said he did not threaten to arrest Lawrence, but added that “if a complaint was made against someone for engaging in acts qualifying as ‘fortune telling’ in the Borough of Hanover;” the department would need to investigate.
Lawrence was taken aback by the interaction. They were aware of the law, and had been advised by owners of similar establishments to put up a sign saying tarot reading was “for entertainment purposes only.” And in conversations with peers, the general consensus seemed to be that this law was just one of those weird and ignored ancient statutes, like the Pennsylvania law that prohibits using goldfish as bait.
Following the chief's visit, Lawrence felt targeted. “Just from a moral standpoint, I've been bullied a lot, and I don't take kindly to that,” they said. “Not only is this outdated, but it threatens not just my livelihood, but my spirituality as well.” Lawrence said the implication that they’re a faker is insulting. “It says it’s illegal to pretend to be a tarot reader,” they said of the law. “I’m not pretending, I am one.”
That suggestion of fraud has historical ties to the Romani people, Miller said, who were making a name for themselves in the 19th century U.S. as fortune tellers. “If you picture the cliche of a fortune teller, a dark-haired woman with a headscarf, long skirts, dangly earrings, and crystal ball in a shadowy mysterious caravan or tent, that's kind of the legend of the Roma fortune teller,” she explained.
But discrimination against the Roma followed them from Europe. Even today, said Miller, Roma people regularly experience prejudice and are smeared as grifters. So in Miller’s opinion, the long-ago law targets two groups: women and Roma. And today, she argued, it is “effectively taking away the income of mediums in Pennsylvania.”
In Lawrence’s initial consultation with a lawyer, their goal was simply to get the local police to stand down, and to admit the old law is unjust. But the authorities insisted on upholding it, the shop owner said. “They took six weeks to get back to us,” Lawrence recalled, “and then stated that because the law is on the books, they’re required to enforce it. So the only way to protect my business was to sue to overturn the law.”
The case is ongoing, according to court records.
In the meantime, the media attention that’s swirled around Serpent’s Key has brought a groundswell of support. “I’ve had people reach out to me from here to California, from different countries, saying ‘I’m so sorry this is happening to you, that’s so crazy, keep up the good fight,’” said Lawrence. “This has been an exercise in community-building, for the most part.”
They’ve even made some unlikely allies. “There’s a woman who owned a Christian bookshop here who closed her storefront to spend more time with her kids, and she donated a bunch of displays and things to me. And I’m now friends with a local pastor, and we’re starting an AA group,” Lawrence says. “It’s been a really uplifting, beautiful opportunity to strengthen community ties.”
Such interfaith cooperation, said Miller, upholds the spirit of Pennsylvania. “It's time to put that chapter of history to rest and go back to PA's original roots, when Quakers welcomed those of all faiths.”