Pennsylvania Has a Law Against Paid Prophecy

TL;DR: Pennsylvania law makes paid fortune telling a third-degree misdemeanor without saying prosecutors must prove fraud. In Rios v. Martin, a federal judge let facial First Amendment and vagueness claims proceed while dismissing the plaintiff’s as-applied claims without prejudice. The case has since moved past that ruling into discovery, with deadlines running through the end of 2026.

The statute reads like a clerk emptied a witch-trial evidence locker onto the page.

Cards. Palms. Heavenly bodies.

Love powders. Buried treasure. Bad luck placed on a person or animal.

I read the dull stuff slowest, and twice, because the first pass tells you what a document says and the second tells you what it proves.

First pass, this statute is a curiosity. Second pass, the word that is missing is fraud. It is not an element. A prosecutor does not have to show anybody was deceived, only that money changed hands over a forecast. An absence has a shape, and that one is the entire case.

Section 7104 of Pennsylvania’s criminal code gathers the lot and attaches a third-degree misdemeanor when somebody “pretends for gain or lucre” to predict future events or perform the listed acts.

Manny Moreno’s report for The Wild Hunt follows the challenge brought by the owner of The Serpent’s Key Shoppe and Sanctuary in Hanover. The live dispute turns on a clean legal split: fraud can be punished, while speech about tarot does not lose constitutional protection merely because money changes hands.

This is a report on a pending case, not legal advice.

Section 7104 criminalizes paid claims about the future

Section 7104 criminalizes a broad range of paid claims about future events, spells, luck, hidden property, romance, health, business success, and treasure.

The text does not expressly require fraudulent intent. It uses “pretends,” a word carrying several meanings when the law’s predecessor entered the books in the nineteenth century. That word now sits at the center of a federal constitutional case.

The statute also says advertising may be used as evidence. A sign in a shop window can therefore matter before a reading occurs. For a working tarot reader, the uncertainty reaches the offer, the transaction, and the public description of the service.

It’s the same discretion problem that shows up wherever a rule stays vague enough for its enforcer to fill in the blank later: a platform’s policy today, a police chief’s reading of “pretends” tomorrow.

The government has a legitimate power to prosecute fraud. A seller cannot take money through deliberate lies and invoke the First Amendment as a smoke bomb. The harder question is whether Section 7104 reaches entertainment, spiritual practice, or sincere expression without proof of deceit.

How did the Serpent’s Key dispute reach federal court?

The dispute began with a 2023 police visit and became a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed in August 2024.

According to the complaint summarized in the court’s August 28, 2025 memorandum, Hanover’s police chief visited the shop after a local feature described its tarot services. Plaintiff Rebecca Rios, known publicly as Beck Ravenswood, alleged that the chief threatened criminal penalties if paid readings continued. Hanover disputed the characterization and argued the law addressed fraud.

The lawsuit asks for declaratory and injunctive relief before a prosecution. The plaintiff alleges that the statute violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments, both on its face and as applied.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General intervened to defend the law. Hanover and the attorney general moved to dismiss, which required U.S. District Judge Jennifer P. Wilson to decide whether the pleaded claims could proceed.

That stage tests legal sufficiency. It does not decide who wins after a developed factual record.

The facial claims survived, the as-applied ones did not

The facial First Amendment claim and at least one theory of facial vagueness survived, while the as-applied claims against Hanover were dismissed without prejudice.

Judge Wilson found that the plaintiff had not pleaded a municipal policy sufficient for the as-applied claims under Monell. The dismissal without prejudice left room for amendment.

The court refused to read fraud into the statute at the pleading stage. Contemporary dictionaries showed that “pretend” could mean asserting or performing without necessarily intending to deceive. Prior Pennsylvania cases did not establish that fraud was always required, and three cited fraud prosecutions did not prove a uniform limiting practice.

That analysis kept the facial First Amendment count alive. The court also allowed the vagueness claim to proceed on an arbitrary-enforcement theory. If a law does not tell speakers what separates protected performance or belief from crime, enforcement discretion becomes part of the constitutional injury.

The order did not strike Section 7104 down. It denied dismissal of claims attacking it. That procedural distinction is the difference between a door opening and a verdict.

Why does the case reach beyond tarot?

The case tests whether a state can regulate a category of paid speech by subject matter while relying on fraud as the justification after the text sweeps farther.

Fortune-telling laws often grew from consumer-protection concerns and older hostility toward itinerant or minority spiritual practices. Modern fraud statutes can target false representations, intent, reliance, and loss without naming cards, astrology, or incantations as the forbidden subject.

A content-specific law has to answer for the content it selects. Weather forecasts and market predictions can fail spectacularly while remaining lawful. A tarot reader may describe the service as reflection, performance, spiritual practice, or prediction. Section 7104 places the criminal line inside that vocabulary and leaves enforcement officers to find it.

Pennsylvania lawmakers have also considered repeal. House Bill 1562 would strike Section 7104 outright, and it cleared the House Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote in June 2025. The bill stalled there, tabled that September, and hasn’t moved since.

The federal docket moved instead. Judge Wilson held a case management conference on July 22, 2026, and signed an amended scheduling order the next day: fact discovery runs through November 30, dispositive motions through December 31, and a status conference is set for late October.

I have watched a matter settle under seal with forty of us who read every page and never learned who won. So I am not going to tell you how this comes out. I am going to tell you what is on the docket and when, and you can watch the dates alongside me.

None of that decides the case. It just means a shop sign in Hanover stays attached to the same question the statute has carried for generations: when does the state punish deceit, and when is it punishing the words used to describe belief?

Frequently asked questions

Is paid tarot reading currently legal in Pennsylvania?

Section 7104 remains in the Pennsylvania criminal code as of July 2026. A 2025 repeal bill stalled in committee, and the federal challenge to the statute is now in discovery. Legal risk depends on the facts and current case status; consult a licensed Pennsylvania attorney for advice.

Did the federal court declare the fortune-telling law unconstitutional?

No. The August 2025 ruling addressed motions to dismiss, letting facial First Amendment and vagueness claims continue without entering final judgment on constitutionality. The case is now in discovery, with no ruling on the merits yet.

What is the federal case number?

The case is Rios v. Martin et al., No. 1:24-cv-01399, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.