AUTHOR’S NOTE: In March of 2024 I set myself the task of posting 365 consecutive daily essays on divination-related topics without repeating myself too often. Yesterday marked Day #365, and I believe I’ve succeeded for the most part. With that behind me, I decided to move to a different format: a weekly compendium of material written during the previous seven days. It may include one essay or seven depending on how ambitious I feel. Right now I have several Lenormand-related articles in the queue that I will roll up into the first installment. In the interim while I assemble it, I have a couple of tarot-based articles I’ll publish over the next few days.

I’m also going to do a little house-cleaning. I’ve noticed for a long time that a couple of my oldest essays are receiving an inordinate number of views and downloads. Although I offer all of my material free to the community, my expectation is that it won’t be used for commercial gain, and I’ve become suspicious that it is exactly what’s happening. Since I will no longer be concerned too much with racking up visitors and views under my new approach (they’ve fallen off dramatically in the last few weeks anyway, from over 250 views a day to barely 100), I’m going to purge any essays that look like they’re being abused.

As I’ve said before, my purpose in paying for this domain is to have an outlet for my thinking on metaphysical subjects. I haven’t monetized it with ads (although WordPress did just that until I switched back to a paid subscription), so I don’t expect it to be an income-generator. Apart from writing about the things that interest me, I’ve had a secondary goal of offering an historical perspective on what I see as the social-media circus into which the online “pop-tarot bonanza” has degenerated.

Tarot author and entrepreneur Marcus Katz once observed that “the oracular moment is sacrosanct,” meaning that the instant of revelation should be a spiritually-uplifting experience for both the querent and the reader, not merely a tossed-off exercise in crass prognostication for the idly curious. I’ve always felt that way, but this statement brought a new gravity to my outlook. While it’s true that, since I returned to practice in 2011, I’ve focused on mystically-inclined “fortune-telling” as opposed to psychological self-examination (as the saying goes, “Been there, done that”), there has never been a flippant superficiality to my readings. I’m not looking only for “what” will happen, but also “why” and “how” (perhaps with a side of “who” and “when”) to present a comprehensive overview of the querent’s circumstances. It’s a matter of giving full value for payment tendered, and not something that should be treated with mercenary indifference.

My plan for this blog is to continue roaming the online community, looking for opportunities to address in a public way any issues and questions raised by beginners who, in my opinion, need all the help they can get in navigating the quagmire that is popular tarot culture, with its “blind leading the blind” indulgence in misleading and often ill-informed guidance (the hazard of “too much YouTube and not enough reading”). I’ll also continue to offer commentary on the books I’m studying, develop new spreads, conduct deck reviews and dig more deeply into the Lenormand universe. I expect to be around for a while longer, just not “in your face” to the same degree. With 2,375 posts in the archives, there should be plenty to ponder for those interested.