In theory a Catholic tarotologist could be summoned by the Archbishop and charged with heresy.

We checked into an advertisement (The Advertiser, March 3) where a taratologist offered "Predictive psychic readings…"

The person's first name is Grace. She lives in the Adelaide suburb of Redwood Park. She's Catholic, a "tarotologist", and she also gives genuine massages. A tarotologist is a fortune-teller who uses tarot cards to tell fortunes.

Tarot cards are 78 in number. 56 of them are divided into 4 suits of 14, the 4 suits being cups, swords, pentacles and wands. The remaining 22 cards have a name and number each, and each has a different picture on it. Tarotologists like to disagree about the name and number of each of the 22 cards and the debate has gone on for centuries.

After being shuffled the cards are arranged in different patterns on the table – horseshoe pattern, seven point star, columns of 21, tree of life, etc.

The tarotologist – fortune teller– spins a story about the client based on the cards in the pattern. There is, however, no rational or scientific reason to connect cards with a person's life.

If charged by the Archbishop Grace would have to go before an Ecclesiastical Court possibly in Rome. If convicted and if she didn't recant she would be excommunicated. This sequence of events is however unlikely to occur because there are millions of Catholic wrongdoers and the Church lacks the priest-power to deal with them all.