The experience itself was... fine. Not transformative, not a scam either. They pulled a few tarot cards — I remember getting The Hermit, which felt almost too on the nose given my personality. They interpreted it as a call to deeper isolation, more withdrawal for spiritual growth. But sitting with it later, I wasn't sure that was right. The Hermit carries a lamp, right? He's alone, but he's looking at something. There's direction there, not just hiding.

What actually stuck with me wasn't the reading itself. It was watching how I responded to having someone positioned as an "authority" on my inner life. I'm a data analyst by training — I spend my days questioning assumptions, checking for bias. Yet the moment someone framed themselves as spiritually experienced, I noticed myself wanting to defer. That weird tension between my rational mind and my desire for guidance felt more interesting than anything the mentor actually said.

Carl Jung wrote about this — the risk of projecting authority onto a guru figure, basically recreating the parent-child dynamic in a spiritual context. He was pretty explicit about how dangerous that can be. And I could feel it happening in real time. The mentor wasn't even being manipulative, honestly. I was doing most of the work myself.

I think online mentorship has a weird structural problem too. You're getting these condensed, performative sessions without the slow, messy context of actually knowing someone. Daoist texts talk about wu wei, about how real understanding emerges without force. Hard to see how that transfers through a Zoom call and a payment link.

I'm not saying don't do it. I got something out of the experience — just not what I expected. Mostly a mirror for my own patterns.

Anyone else notice this dynamic? I'd be curious if others have had similar experiences with online teachers, especially around that authority projection thing.