I’ve talked before about how I consider some form of necromancy integral to my experience of Wicca. Wicca centers on mysteries of death and rebirth, and part of what that means magically is that I am often engaging with the spirits of the dead. This sounds spooky, but really it looks pretty simple, especially when […]
Read more "Asking Dead People for Advice"As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m in the process of moving. This has, among other things, meant packing up my whole life and making some critical decisions about my possessions. Some things are getting packed into suitcases and taken with me to my next (semi-temporary) home. Some get going into storage until I […]
Read more "Downsizing My Tarot Deck Collection"I’m in the process of moving. Now that my doctorate is finally complete, there’s a lot less tying me to the physical environs of New Jersey. My lease is up at the end of this month, and while I haven’t yet secured a job and a permanent place to live, it’s time for me to […]
Read more "Baba Yaga Lied to Me (And That’s Okay)"Many, many years ago, I wrote a post about significators. Reading back through that post, I frankly don’t love it—as is the case with most of the posts I’ve written on this blog. I’ve been blogging for somewhere around 9 years now, and that means there’s a glowing online record of all the things I […]
Read more "… Apparently, Once He Has a Ph.D"As we draw to the end of my year-long project with the TdM, I thought I would do another sample reading—about my career, because that’s my top concern of late. I had a job interview earlier this week, and it went really well. The company seems interesting, they seemed to like me, and on the […]
Read more "A Year of Tarot de Marseille: Another Career Reading"My year-long adventure with the Tarot de Marseille has been a bit rocky. There have been lots of stops and starts, as I’ve tried one thing, realized it wasn’t working for me, gone back to my starting point, tried something new, encountered another obstacle, and started over again. And again. I’m really trying to feel […]
Read more "A Year of Tarot de Marseille: Finally Hitting My Stride"As the nights grow longer and colder, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about descents to the underworld. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the hero’s journey, the prototypical underworld descent myth laid out by Joseph Campbell in his 1949 book The Hero With a Thousand Faces. This book is flawed, and I hesitate to bring […]
Read more "A Hero’s Journey Tarot Spread"I’m picking up this tag from Benebell Wen, who in turn got it from Kelly Bear. It’s originally a YouTube tag, but Benebell did it as a blog post and I’m going to follow in her steps (although my post won’t be nearly as aesthetically pleasing). The challenge: To list 5 Tarot decks you love, […]
Read more "#54321Tarot"I’m a fan of the Dungeons & Dragons (and occasionally other TTRPG) show Dimension 20, which airs on CollegeHumor’s streaming service Dropout. In this season, the players are a group of cognitive functions belonging to the mind of a scientist named Elias Hodge—his impulsiveness, his curiosity, his conscience, and so on. Over the course of […]
Read more "The Eights of the Tarot: What We Do When We’re Threatened"In my previous post on the Tarot de Marseille, I admitted that the system I was building wasn’t working for me and I wanted to start all over. Since then, I’ve been working my way through getting to know the deck again, using Camelia Elias’s book Read Like the Devil as a guide. And honestly? […]
Read more "A Year of Tarot de Marseille: Three Career Readings"
Jack Chanek 