In this month’s Psychedelic Studio, Jezmina Von Thiele (they/she)—Romani fortune teller and co-author of Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling—explores the connections between traditional Romani divination practices and altered states of consciousness. Drawing on their family lineage and professional practice, they discuss how tools such as tarot, palmistry, dream interpretation, and tasseomancy can function as pathways into intuitive or trance-like states that help readers access symbolic insight, emotional truth, and guidance.

Roma are a diasporic Indian ethnic group known more commonly by the misnomer/racial slur, “gypsies.” Due to centuries of persecution, Roma have developed a number of survival trades, including metal working, horse trading performing, and fortunetelling. Jezmina was raised in a fortunetelling family, which included folk medicine training, and was taught the survival trade that has been passed down for many generations.

Jezmina also reflects on their personal experience undergoing MDMA + ketamine therapy as a patient, and how those experiences deepened their understanding of altered states and spiritual experiences. By examining the crossover between psychedelic healing, trance, and Romani fortune-telling traditions, they highlight how practices now popular in modern wellness culture have long existed within Romani and other BIPOC communities—and how divination can serve as its own form of consciousness exploration. We hope you’ll join us!