Spiritual Paris Beyond Cultural Shock

Feeling untethered from the relocation from New York City to Paris last year, I wanted to find a circle of like-minded people to bond and grow with. Within the first six months of living in Paris, I came across so many people, largely French, who disapproved of me being a tarot reader.
Over time, I developed a bitterness towards laïcité, the French version of separation of church and state. I began to call French secularism freedom from religion, rather than freedom of religion. For all the deets, read my first article.
Thankfully, other expats had similar thoughts, so they created an invite-only group meant to bring spiritual seekers together. In this group, we host women's circles, yoga and meditation classes and even celebrate a few Wiccan holidays together.
Now, after nearly two years of navigating the spiritual landscape in Paris, I decided to ask a few friends and acquaintances how their journey is going.
Within this group, I met Annette Dalloo, owner of Infinite Soul Love.

She worked in industrial design for 26 years before transitioning to a more spiritual path. Today, Annette helps her clients to discover their life purpose by intuitively identifying and healing negative behavioral patterns that are hindering their growth. She also holds the Soul Discovery Workshop that teaches people how to use their own psychic gifts as well as a podcast in which she publishes live sessions, with client permission.
According to Annette, people were ”pretty open to things like psychics and tarot readings” in Michigan and Chicago. When asked about her experience as a spiritual worker in Paris, she said that the French are not as readily open towards talking about their spiritual beliefs, but when she brings up the topic, “they don’t seem to have a problem with it.”
Unlike me, she has not received much pushback regarding her profession. However, she has learned to adapt to the environment. Within a safe and open group of people, she does not hesitate to talk about her work. She says that “about 80% of the responses are thrilled, while the others [give her] a blank stare.” For unsafe people, she tells them she is a designer to keep the peace.
For Annette, the need to be careful about who she discloses her work to is universal, but for Paris in particular, she counts it as a simple difference in culture.
From her understanding, the French view religious and spiritual beliefs as private. Because of this, she posits that people are not as open and eager to share as Americans would be.
This would not be the first time I would hear this.
At a party, I met a Parisian woman who introduced herself as a part-time musician and office worker. When our mutual friend, an American, told her that I was a tarot reader, the woman brightened up as she discussed her astrology business.
The woman, who wants to be referred to as M, says that she never considered being more open about her real profession. She's very active on X and Instagram under a pseudonym, but with family, friends and colleagues, she keeps her online activity quiet, preferring to be seen as a struggling artist, rather than "one of those people" who believes in zodiac signs.
"Yes, beliefs are private, but I guess there is a bit of embarrassment there," M responded.
After this conversation, I asked a Parisian friend, Naïm, what he thought. He works in education where expression of any religious affiliation is prohibited by law since 2004. He confirmed that even though he identifies as atheist, he privately speaks with his friends and brother about their horoscope predictions, the meaning of having a soul and religion. This was shocking to me considering his brother writes a popular online column that mocks zodiac signs!
For Naïm, spiritual discussions are reserved for people he's close to, while everyday conversations are "Cartesian" only, which is a reference to the scientific method developed by René Descartes.

So, is it possible that I had been judging Parisians unfairly? That spiritual Paris does exist, but people tend to keep their views to themselves?
The 2021 edition of Religion au travail: croire au dialogue, Baromètre du Fait Religieux en Entreprise seems to think so. This annual survey measures how religious and spiritual expression are perceived in French workplaces. According to the survey, the predominant expression of belief is invisible, meaning that people choose to "decide to keep their faith private in order to prevent stigmatization and discrimination."
However, when religious and spiritual expressions do occur at the workplace, in about 70% of cases, they are not perceived negatively.
Even though my experiences with the French and spirituality have been negative, I may have jumped the gun in coming to a conclusion.
Going back to Annette, she mentions that while she's noticed that people tend to be less open to offering their opinions on spirituality in Paris, there are plenty of areas in the United States that are “incredibly closed-minded,” so we should be careful not to paint either country with a broad brush.