Why an American tarot reader chose Liverpool to create a ‘witchy emporium’

As an established artist and writer in her native USA, Cat de Leon always intended to carry on that career when she relocated to England eight years ago.

But drawn to Liverpool by her love of music, she ended up taking a different path.

Already internationally known for tarot reading and teaching, she decided instead to open what she describes as ‘a witchy emporium’ on the doorstep of Mathew Street.

From her shop As Above So Below Emporium in Cavern Walks, Cat offers readings, classes, spell workshops and a range of hand-made apothecary products which can make up spell kits.

She explains: “When I arrived here I’d never been to Liverpool before, but this area for music and film from my childhood, my teens and early 20s was really important,”

“I was about four and living in New York City when The Beatles first came out and I remember there was all this excitement, even for tiny children. When A Hard Day’s Night premiered my father took me to Times Square to see it, that’s one of my earliest memories.

“My childhood soundtrack would be The Beatles, and as I came into my teens it was all glam rock, then Echo and The Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes, so I had a musical connection to the city.

“I thought I’d just come up, hang out and see what it was like. As soon as I got here, like the song says, I knew ‘and here I will stay’.”

Although Cat’s previous career as an artist had seen her work shown across the US and Europe, an affinity with tarot stretched further back.

She actually got her first tarot cards when she was just 12 years old from an uncle who’d been given them as a promotional gift.

She recalls: “I took mine out of the deck, I shuffled them and I just knew how to do it.”

“I was a kid and I didn’t really understand what any of it meant, then David Bowie was writing all of these songs with a lot of metaphysical undertones and I was fascinated so I’d go to the library with lyric sheets and look it up. 

“That’s how I started to learn. Through my teens and into my 20s I started to study more and it wasn’t difficult because I lived in the next town over from Salem so I was always there, shopping, buying books and talking to people.

“Reading tarot is like playing the guitar or painting, it’s a gift, you have the innate talent and you learn the skill. A lot of people think they can just go out, buy a pack, read a book and then they can do it, but it takes years of study and I’m still seeing deeper meaning in each of the cards.”

Cat had always done readings throughout her life, but it wasn’t until post-Covid in Liverpool that she really began to focus on it.

She primarily does tarot and what she calls ‘core’ readings. “They basically look at the core situation you should be focusing on, what happened in the past to create or influence this situation. There’s a guide to walk through the situation to get to the best outcome possible, the future and the karmic lesson you’re learning.

“Another important aspect to everything I do – even the things I make like candles, soaps and essential oils and the spell workshops I do – is self-empowerment. 

“That’s why I think a lot of women especially are gravitating towards it and using it to make change. They say, ‘I want to fix this or do that, and I have the power and ability in my own hands to do this’.”

Cat says a lot of people come into her shop who are curious, but conflicted because of their religious beliefs.

“I don’t preach an alternative faith, that’s down to people if they want to know,” she stresses. “This is a place to find out more or how to make your faith work within this concept because it absolutely can.”

Having built a client base around the city since she opened the shop in 2023, Cat does walk-in readings there lasting 15 or 30 minutes and takes online bookings for hour-long readings.

As for spells, she admits she has been asked to be a spiritual matchmaker, especially around Valentine’s Day.

“If you come to me needing self-love or you want the power of attraction you would use something in the Aphrodite line and you could do a complete spell, using the soap, the incense, and oil.

“But you can’t bend anyone’s will to get them to ask you to marry them. If someone asks that I tell them ‘no, if it was within his will he’d be knocking on your door!”

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