“We got to realize that ninety-nine and a half just won’t do
No, got to have a hundred, oh yeah”
– from the rhythm & blues song by Wilson Pickett

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Today – for the third or fourth time in nine years – I’ve reached 100 consecutive days of posting on this blog, which is nowhere near my record streak of ~430 days but still an achievement. I’m tempted to warn new followers: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

I’ll soon pass 2,900 published essays, mostly on divination, so there is ample material for a deep dive but taking a big gulp of cerebral inspiration and holding it won’t be enough for an extended descent into the minutiae so you might want to bring extra “mental oxygen.” The way I normally work is to play off the ideas I encounter in my daily reading about a range of esoteric and metaphysical subjects, and during my routine visits to online occult sites. The printed literature is the most stimulating since much of the social-media fare can only be described as “superficial” when it isn’t downright insipid. The other main product of my labor is the tarot-spread development that I fall back on when the more profound analytical and mystical well runs dry.

At one time there were prominent online forums to satisfy my yen for intelligent conversation about all types of divination so there was no need to create my own “brand.” But those text venues have now been largely upstaged by video platforms like YouTube that I dismiss as mostly uninspired “talking-head” affairs. I would rather read someone’s carefully-considered thoughts than hear them speak nonchalantly to a camera since they are often pandering to the impressionable minds I’ve run into in my efforts to find a congenial worldwide community of experienced philosophers and practitioners of the subtle arts. I have nothing against beginners, but I won’t step into the role of active mentor when I have “bigger fish to fry.”

Most of what I see going on in the realm of internet engagement is lackluster discussion of “What do these cards mean?” or “Why doesn’t my crush text me?” Recently, this shallow dialogue has formed at least ninety percent of the interaction on a day-to-day basis. A more disturbing avenue of inquiry has to do with “dark magic” and the summoning of demons to do the magician’s bidding. There is no place in that sort of thing for idle curiosity, but it seems to be driving far too many of the adherents. Back in the ’80s I delved into ceremonial magic myself, but I never had a need to evoke infernal forces and stayed with invocation of positive influences, banishing of negative ones, and exploring different approaches to the talismanic craft. It looks like what I was doing is now called “manifesting” the magical will and its intentions.

Anyway, I will continue on the path I’ve set for myself, although when I search on my previous posts I find that I’ve revisited some of the content more frequently than I would prefer. This is probably inevitable after nine years of almost daily writing, but there is usually a novel twist to the presentation that keeps these redundancies fresh. I’ve been trying to hold the line on it, but reusing an inspired turn-of-phrase can be hard to resist.

I’m committed to upholding the traditional methods of interpretation and I’ve embraced the tireless promotion of fortune-telling (let’s call it what it is, shall we?) as an interactive, face-to-face performance art. (To be precise, it’s what the majority of paying clients expect to receive.) In my professional opinion, the most popular types of public divination have now become too much of a “free-for-all” of intuitive guesswork and impersonal, one-way electronic communication whenever there is a fast buck to be made. This seems more like callous profiteering than compassionate counseling, and it’s not where I want to go with my own practice.