There is a very interesting legal case developing in Pennsylvania.. Despite some teams of fortune tellers, perhaps the most interesting part is that nobody can predict how it will end.
The case involves The Serpent’s Key Shoppe and Sanctuary, a business in Hanover, Pennsylvania. For the past several years, the shop has been in the news because its owner, Beck Ravenswood, says local police warned that offering tarot-card readings for money could result in legal ramifications.
That is because Pennsylvania still has a law against fortune-telling for profit.
And it is not some obscure municipal ordinance accidentally left behind in a dusty Hanover filing cabinet. The prohibition dates to 1861, although it was updated in 1939 and incorporated into Pennsylvania’s modern Crimes Code in 1972. Today, Section 7104 of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code makes fortune-telling for “gain or lucre” a third-degree misdemeanor.
For the legal eagles in the group, here is the law itself:
§ 7104. Fortune telling.
(a) Offense defined.–A person is guilty of a misdemeanor of the third degree if he pretends for gain or lucre, to tell fortunes or predict future events, 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 the heavenly bodies, or in any other manner, or for gain or lucre, pretends to effect any purpose by spells, charms, necromancy, or incantation, or advises the taking or administering of what are commonly called love powders or potions, or prepares the same to be taken or administered, or publishes by card, circular, sign, newspaper or other means that he can predict future events, or for gain or lucre, pretends to enable anyone to get or to recover stolen property, or to tell where lost property is, or to stop bad luck, or to give good luck, or to put bad luck on a person or animal, or to stop or injure the business or health of a person or shorten his life, or to give success in business, enterprise, speculation, and games of chance, or to win the affection of a person, or to make one person marry another, or to induce a person to make or alter a will, or to tell where money or other property is hidden, or to tell where to dig for treasure, or to make a person to dispose of property in favor of another.
(b) Advertising as evidence.–Any publication contrary to this section may be given in evidence to sustain the indictment.
© Competency of witnesses.–Any person whose fortune may have been told shall be a competent witness against the person charged with violating this section.
It prohibits pretending to predict future events using cards, tokens, astrology or “the inspection of the head or hands of any person.” It also wanders into spells, charms, necromancy, love powders, hidden treasure, stolen property, good luck, bad luck and attempts to make one person fall in love with or marry another. In other words, Pennsylvania lawmakers in 1861 tried to cover nearly every possible supernatural loophole. Well played 181 legislature, well played..
Ravenswood has now filed a federal lawsuit challenging the law on constitutional grounds. The case presents questions involving freedom of speech and religious liberty, along with the government’s authority to prohibit a service it considers inherently deceptive. There is even an unusual philosophical question buried inside the language of the law. It does not simply say that telling fortunes for money is illegal. It says that a person commits an offense when they pretend to tell fortunes. Ravenswood’s position is essentially that tarot reading is a sincere spiritual practice and not pretending, and that the state should not be able to declare that religious or spiritual communication is automatically fraudulent.
So this could become a religious-freedom case, a free-speech case or perhaps even a case that forces a court to wrestle with whether Pennsylvania can legally declare that nobody is capable of reading fortunes. Fun stuff!!
In July 2026, a federal judge denied the state’s latest attempt to dismiss the lawsuit. That does not mean the court has decided that Pennsylvania’s law is unconstitutional. It means the case is permitted to continue through discovery and further proceedings.
There are also serious historical arguments surrounding the law. Scholars and historians have connected American prohibitions against fortune-telling to much older European laws targeting supposedly disorderly people, witches, vagrants and members of the Romani community. The traditional stereotype of the traveling “Gypsy fortune-teller”—a term now considered offensive—was repeatedly used to portray Romani people as suspicious, dishonest or inherently criminal.
Others argue that the law remains perfectly reasonable and that people are taken advantage of by people for profit..
From that perspective, fortune-telling is not real, and anyone claiming to change a customer’s future is just exploiting emotionally vulnerable people. Supporters of enforcement may argue that the law is not about persecuting religion but preventing fraud before someone loses thousands of dollars.
That is the legal and philosophical conundrum now facing Pennsylvania.
But while the modern case develops, it is worth taking a trip through the archives. A law dating this far back was not merely sitting untouched for all these years. Pennsylvania police departments, prosecutors and judges have used it repeatedly. There were arrests, prosecutions, undercover investigations and police sting operations throughout the commonwealth.
So let us step back in time and revisit some of those moments when cards, tokens or “the inspection of the head or hands of any person for gain or lucre” made the news.
Lulu Henry and the Battle of Philadelphia Street
One particularly interesting case occurred in York County in 1948.
A woman named Lulu Henry, a 70-year-old widow, was prosecuted for fortune-telling. Contemporary newspaper coverage praised the police department for its effort to break up the practice along Philadelphia Street.
Authorities claimed that fortune-telling had become rampant and that prosecutors had received complaints about it.
There is something strangely dramatic about imagining the police mobilizing to protect York County from the future predictions of a 70-year-old widow. Nevertheless, at the time it was presented as an important public-protection effort.
The “Gypsy Queen” of Scranton
In 1953, the Scranton Tribune reported the arrest of a woman it described as a “Gypsy queen.”
Her name was Ruby Miller. She was 50 years old and, according to the newspaper, had wandered into Scranton several months before her arrest. The Tribune claimed that she presided over a family of approximately a dozen nomads and described her as wearing traditional “Gypsy garb,” including a turban-like bandana.
The language reflected the ethnic stereotypes used in coverage of Romani people. Police said Miller was caught “red-handed” telling the fortune of Ralph Barlow of New Jersey at 215 Linden Street at approximately 1 p.m. Barlow reportedly paid 50 cents for a peek into his future.
There is no word on whether the fortune she gave him eventually came true. One can only wonder what happened to Ralph Barlow and whether Ruby Miller saw it coming.
Marie Marks in New Castle
In 1968, a 24-year-old woman named Marie Marks was arrested on Washington Street in New Castle, Pennsylvania.
Marks pleaded not guilty, demanded a hearing and posted bond. Police reportedly acknowledged that she was not actively telling fortunes at the moment they arrested her but alleged that she had done so previously.
Apparently, one did not have to be caught with the cards in motion.
Rose Miller in Lancaster County
In 1971, Rose Miller of East Hempfield Township was charged in connection with fortune-telling.
Miller, who was 38 years old, was accused of cheating by false pretenses, a charge that demonstrates how authorities frequently treated fortune-telling not simply as a prohibited form of entertainment but as a method of fraud.
She pled guilty in 1972 and paid hundreds of dollars in a fine and agreed that she would leave the area…
A $15,000 Promise to Repair a Marriage
Here in Schuylkill County, a Pottsville woman became involved in a much more serious case in 1986.
Rose Benson, 24, was arrested by Allentown police after authorities alleged that she had fleeced a distressed Bethlehem man out of more than $15,000 by promising to repair his marriage.
Benson faced charges involving fortune-telling and criminal conspiracy.
In 1988 she got 5 years probation and it also was reported that she went by the names of Miss Angelina, Rose Butch, Rose Johnson, Theres Rose Benson, Royena Martin, and Cathy Ridge..
This type of allegation remains one of the strongest arguments offered by supporters of laws regulating psychic services. There is an enormous difference between someone paying a few dollars for an entertaining tarot-card reading and a distressed person surrendering thousands of dollars to someone promising to reverse bad luck, remove a curse or save a relationship.
Whether Pennsylvania needs a specific law against fortune-telling to prosecute that conduct—or whether ordinary fraud and theft laws are sufficient—is part of the debate.
The Psychic Trial of 1998
This was a big one!
Just when you might think prosecutions for fortune-telling belonged to a distant age, things became surprisingly heated in Lebanon County in 1998. A woman named Marie May operated a business at 576 East Cumberland Street in South Lebanon Township. She offered card readings, powwows and psychic services.
May was apparently not secretive about what she did. Police acknowledged that the business had been well known in the community for several years.
Nevertheless, a citizen complained.
The complaint was forwarded to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, and an undercover detective was sent into the business to investigate. May was eventually charged, and newspapers began reporting on the possibility of an actual fortune-telling trial.
By 1998, the original law was already 137 years old. The prosecution made national news and became a major topic of conversation in Lebanon County and throughout Pennsylvania.
Just picture the cultural moment. Miss Cleo was appearing on television, urging Americans to call psychic hotlines using expensive 1-900 numbers, while Pennsylvania investigators were going undercover in South Lebanon Township to determine whether Marie May was illegally reading cards.
The case continued until December 1999, when it was resolved before trial.
By Christmas, May was back in business.
Under the agreement, she could continue providing psychic readings as long as she did not claim that she possessed the ability to change people’s lives, remove bad luck or otherwise alter their circumstances.
Essentially, she could read the cards, but she could not promise supernatural results to people..
Fortune-Telling at Lebanon Valley College
The arrival of the year 2000 did not bring the predicted wave of Y2K emergencies to Pennsylvania .. It did, however, bring another fortune-telling investigation. In Annville, a York County woman named April Sullivan was warned by police after offering readings during Lebanon Valley College’s Spring Arts Festival.
A visitor complained that Sullivan was selling fortunes for $10 from a booth on campus. Township police investigated, but because officers did not personally witness her telling anyone’s fortune, she was not charged.
Instead, police gave her a copy of the Pennsylvania law informing her that predicting the future for profit was forbidden.
Back to the Future in 2026
And now here we are in 2026.
Fortune-telling is still happening, tarot cards are more culturally popular than they have been in decades, and a law originating in 1861 remains enforceable in Pennsylvania.
Wherever you fall on the issue, there is something surprising about it.
Those who consider fortune-telling an irrational belief from another age may be shocked that people still pay for it. Those who consider tarot a legitimate spiritual, religious or expressive practice may be equally shocked that Pennsylvania still threatens criminal penalties for it.
Someone may believe that tarot readings are harmless entertainment while still supporting aggressive prosecution when a practitioner manipulates a frightened or grieving person into surrendering thousands of dollars.
But that raises the central question: Should the state criminalize the entire practice, or should it punish only provable fraud?
Pennsylvania lawmakers have introduced legislation that would repeal Section 7104, but for now the statute remains on the books. Meanwhile, the Serpent’s Key lawsuit will continue through the federal court system, where judges may eventually have to decide whether Pennsylvania can prohibit paid tarot readings without violating constitutional protections for speech and religion.
No matter where you fall on the fortune-telling scale, this will be a fascinating case to watch. So examine your palm, consult the movements of the heavenly bodies and shuffle your tarot cards.
For entertainment purposes only, of course..
Then see whether you can predict how the court will rule.
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