Divination can be a personal practice for reflection, meaning, or spiritual exploration. But like any practice that tugs at people’s hopes and fears, it can be misused.

This article discusses divination-based bullying and spiritual abuse as harmful behaviors, it refers to using tarot, other divination practices, or spiritual claims to intrude on, intimidate, manipulate, or cause fear. The concern is not simply that a person performs a reading. It is how the reading is used, whether it is unwanted, and whether it becomes part of a pattern of targeting.

When a Reading Crosses a Boundary

A person may feel violated when someone repeatedly performs readings about them without their knowledge or consent, claims to know private details about their life, or brings those readings to them to provoke fear or influence their choices.

The behavior can become more concerning when someone uses a reading to:

• Suggest they are watching, tracking, or spiritually monitoring another person.
• Claim certainty about another person’s thoughts, relationships, health, or future.
• Pressure someone to respond, meet, pay, or make a particular decision.
• Make threatening predictions or say that harm is coming unless the person complies.
• Use spiritual language to isolate someone from friends, family, or other support.
• Continue contacting or targeting someone after being asked to stop.

 

Some people may also pair intrusive readings with various rituals they describe as intended to influence, punish, or terrorize someone. A person’s claim alone that they are doing this can be intimidating, even when the claimed spiritual effects cannot be verified. The unwanted conduct and the fear it creates deserves attention on their own.

 

In many traditional religions and spiritual communities there is a term, “Spiritual Psychosis”. The term is interpreted as someone’s spiritual or religious experiences becoming entangled with psychosis—such as losing touch with what others can verify or developing intense beliefs that others cannot verify that causes distress. When a person's experiences become too heavy and thoughts too intense it can trigger a spiritual psychosis. It can cause delusion and/or illusion, blurred boundaries, paranoia, erratic thoughts, and acting on those erratic thoughts. Spiritual psychosis can be the result of various experiences while attributing all things to a spiritual experience only without considering reality, no longer considering the natural way of things, leaving no room for coincidence or nuance. This form of spiritual psychosis is often evident.

There's another form of spiritual psychosis, a more sinister form. This form can be applied to someone that is intrusive who intends to harm, seeks to destroy, humiliate, control, manipulate, or conquer. Spiritual psychosis is not always evident to the eye. It can be cloaked with a pretty smile, a firm handshake, a great reading, or absolutely no contact at all.

Staying focused on divination—divination abuse can be a result of spiritual psychosis, likely done in secret, as a method to target and/or attack. A person obsessively reading or requesting readings or rituals on an unaware, or even aware, target with maligned intentions looking to distort the interpretations to confirm their predetermined desires is also a form of spiritual psychosis. Spiritual psychosis and divination abuse are not synonymous but both can be the result of the other.

It can best be summed up as—there’s a healthy spiritual lifestyle with elevated experiences… and spiritual psychosis is the extreme opposite of that. 

The term "Spiritual psychosis" is an informal term, not a clinical diagnosis. This article is not to suggest that spiritual beliefs alone indicate psychosis. For concerns about someone’s mental health, please consult a qualified professional.

 

Intention, Impact, and What Can Be Observed

It can be difficult to know what someone’s intentions are based on a reading alone. More concrete signs of a boundary violation includes repeated unsolicited messages, threats, public claims about someone’s private life, pressure to act, or continued contact after a clear request to stop.

A reading performed privately may not be visible to the person it concerns, and different people hold different beliefs about consent and spiritual practice. A person does not have to prove that spiritual harm has occurred before they are allowed to set a boundary. Feeling unsettled by unwanted attention and targeting is enough reason to ask someone to stop engaging with them.

 

What Respectful Practice Can Look Like

People have different spiritual beliefs, and there is no single view about whether readings about someone who is absent are appropriate. Still, ethical practice includes care with sensitive topics, honesty about uncertainty, and respect for other people’s privacy and autonomy.

A reader should not present a tarot interpretation as unquestionable knowledge of another person’s private thoughts or choices. A reading should not be used to control someone, scare them into compliance, or claim authority over their life.

 

If You Feel Targeted

If someone’s actions are making you feel watched, threatened, or pressured, consider setting a direct boundary if it feels safe. Tell someone you trust. If there are direct threats or repeated harassment, consider reporting the behavior to the platform or appropriate local support.

Try to separate what you know firsthand from what someone has claimed through a reading. That can make it easier to decide what practical steps will help you feel safer and regain control of your boundaries.

Your Boundaries Matter

Divination should not be used as an excuse to intrude on someone, intimidate them, or manipulate their choices. Whether someone describes their actions as a reading, or a ritual, you are allowed to say no, end contact, and seek support. To reiterate, A person does not have to prove that spiritual harm is occuring or has occurred before they are allowed to set a boundary

At DIVINE TIMES by Shopp Java, we believe divination tools are best approached with care, curiosity, and personal discernment. Your spiritual practice should leave room for your judgment, your privacy, and your right to set boundaries.