In the last two years, the number of shops in Portugal offering tarot and other “mystic” services and readings has doubled – and the Catholic Church is worried.
For almost 20 years, the only fair dedicated to the “occult” was held at Vilar de Perdizes, in the municipality of Montalegre.
These days, there are at least eight such fairs up and down the country.
As the Archbishop of Braga told reporters in the run up to this year’s Episcopal congress at Fátima, it is a sign that people are taking advantage of the despair brought on by the crisis.
“We know of the proliferation of these centres of alternative religion,” D. Jorge Ortiga said. “Many of the people behind them are opening their spaces out of opportunism, taking advantage of the fragility in which others find themselves due to the crisis.”
He said the Church was “apprehensive” over the fact that nationally there are now 200 such shops and centres, and it is planning to publish a “note with pastoral directives on the subject”.
Meantime, tarot card readers and “mystics” have been quick to affirm business is far from brisk in their crystal-bedecked shops and kiosks.
“People are coming far less for consultations than they did three years ago,” tarot reader Paulo Alves contended.
Even so, he said “an average of 10 people” came into his “mystic medieval tent” in Braga per day – each of them paying €30.
