Could an angel card reading help you navigate that major life milestone?
Queenie Campbell turns to divination to help her friends find hope, connection and purpose as they transition from student status to the start of the rest of their lives…
It is 9pm on a Tuesday night. My final year university housemates are in the living room which is adorned with posters and a selection of blankets. All girls either have a dressing gown or a hot water bottle, we have lit a tall candle which has been stuck into an empty wine bottle, it sits wonkily and the wax happily drips off. We are sitting around Radleigh Valentines’ Angel Tarot Cards with our thoughts and questions for the universe we so desperately want the answers to.
As we read our angel cards we read ourselves. We seek to find connection with what we cannot see. It is through this divination we connect with each other and our spiritual selves.
Divination dates back thousands of years, it is as ancient as civilisation itself. The new exhibition ‘Oracles, Omens and Answers’ at the Weston Bodleian Library in Oxford, explores the ways in which people have sought answers throughout time, from Shang Dynasty China to contemporary angel card readings. Divination has been a tool of hope for centuries, it can provide guidance and clarity for those who are open to it and seek it. This exhibition provoked the question of why we use divination to desperately seek this connection.
What are Angel Cards?
Radleigh Valentine Angel Tarot Card reading with Antonela Mircheva, Oxford Brookes University Student
Angel Tarot cards are a form of divination which connect people with higher guidance, its purpose is to answer questions, provide guidance or clarity through positive messages and images. Expert Psychic and Reiki Therapist Tina Crowley explains what the Angel cards connect us with, “It connects you with your soul messages, your soul desire, it’s your spark, it’s your true meaning, it's who you are, it's your essence [...] Your guides are reading you the bit you’re not listening to, the bit that you're blocking yourself from [...] It’s connecting back to the basic human you.”
My housemates curious about Angel Tarot agree and feel this connection is a personal moment, although experienced altogether. Mia Fuller, 21, sees the card reading as a “personal experience. We are getting in touch with our spiritual selves and I like hearing what your messages say, but really it’s a personal experience.” Antonela Mircheva, 21, agrees wholeheartedly, “It’s more of a personal experience […] you’re asking a question about yourself rather than the people that are with you. It's nice you’re sharing that experience, but they don’t know what the question is, it's more connecting with yourself.”
Radleigh Valentine Angel Tarot Cards
Tarot and Oracle cards’ growing popularity
Angel and tarot cards continue to grow in popularity. Springtide Research Institutes survey showed 51% of people aged 13-25 engage in tarot cards and fortune telling. As of 2024 #Tarot has over 8 billion views on TikTok. Tina Crowley who has been public for 11 years, explains how busy her service has become, “I’m booked out more than I can do, I can't keep up! It’s a really, really busy, beautiful service that I can give people.”
Tina feels that this popularity among younger people turning to angel card readings and divination is because of pressure from social media, “I think there’s so much pressure on young people to be super successful. What they are seeing constantly on social media is fake, most twenty- year-olds don’t have it together.” Tina explains spiritual guidance can bring “reassurance” and “inspirational messages” to people who cannot seek this anywhere else. For those within my close circle, we are seeking it frequently. Finishing university is a crossroads which is scary and intimidating but exciting too. Mia says divination is “definitely” providing guidance for this point in her life, “It's quite a hard time where a lot of people don’t really know what they’re going to do next. A lot of people use university as three years of not having to decide, so it’s a very hard time.” Mia says the cards can provide a direction “without explicitly saying anything specific.”
Myself and my housemates enjoy our evening Angel Tarot card readings which provide a connection to guidance we do not necessarily understand. Expert Tina says that participating in angel card readings creates a stronger connection between yourself and your guardian angels: “It’s the door to your spirituality, it’s the door to opening up curiosity, it’s brilliant.” Group angel card readings create a psychic and emotional connection between participants involved, as Tina explains, “It gives everyone something to talk about, its excitement, it's interesting, it's a shared activity, its shared emotions. It is certainly just an amazing bond and something to share with your friends.”
Through the card readings my close knit house is exploring many different types of connections, the connection we have between each other as well as connecting to the unknown, our spiritual selves and other realms which we do not quite comprehend.
This community of people who have become connected is wonderful, Tina explains that “there’s so much more that goes on beyond a psychic reading, over 50% of my customers come back and then we actually become emotionally psychically connected, it’s incredible.”
Mia Fuller, Jess Welford and Antonela Mircheva
The wonky candle has diminished in size, my housemates and I have asked the angels, the universe, whatever is out there, the questions we sought answers to. The feeling among us is peaceful and calm. We still aren't sure what our post- university future holds, but we feel the comfort and reassurance which the laminated cards have provided and that for now is enough.
I blow out the candle and reboil the kettle for another hot water bottle.
Tina Crowley Psychic and Reiki Master Contact Details:
https://www.tinacrowley.com
07979 757570