AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m beginning to suspect from the recent lack of engagement that I’ve exhausted even my most ardent followers at the same time as I’m entering a new phase of expanded exposure. The increased popularity, although still minuscule, is gratifying but I value those who have been with me for the last nine years and hope I don’t run them off with my relentless urge to record my metaphysical ideas and experiences. Their intellectual fatigue and attention deficit can be expected to follow in lockstep with my own and I must remain aware of that risk even as I strive to escape inertia and identify fresh essay topics.

I’ve once again encountered a bit of a lull in both analytical and mystical inspiration, the kind that I usually fill with insights from my current reading or my most reliable fallback, new spread development. But those are also at a relative standstill and I haven’t felt compelled to kick-start them since I’m battling a travel-related respiratory illness contracted on the long airplane flight from Italy last week (my sentiment against going turned out to be justified at least in that regard). So it’s time for a reassessment of purpose.

I’ve decided that I’m well-and-truly finished with the online tarot community and will stay on my own course with unique content and continue to focus on blogging useful excerpts from the best literature I can find on the subject of divination along with my commentary on their significance for my own work and, ideally, for that of others. Other than the various Tarot History and Tarot de Marseille sites with their educational slant, the divination platforms are such a wasteland for the scholarly practitioner. I seem to have started at the high-water-mark in 2011 with Aeclectic Tarot, and since that forum folded in 2017 the populist tide has been steadily going out, leaving me and my peers stranded on the beach. Most of them departed for other shores a long time ago. I’ve already dumped Facebook/Meta and reddit is about to follow; the rest (TikTok, Instagram, etc.) I never bothered with anyway.

Call me a snob if you prefer, but I’m in this for the stimulation, not the recognition or the money. I used to say that I want to be respected rather than liked and that hasn’t changed much, I’ve just become less anal about it. Unlike the mercurial social-media environment (the old psychedelic-era pejorative “drifty” comes to mind to describe the population of starry-eyed “woo-sters”), the cerebral target sits still long enough for me to get a bead on its virtues. I consider rendering its inherent value for the benefit of serious students without the time or inclination to do so to be a public service and perhaps an inducement for them to come up with both on their own account in the future.

I just quietly surpassed the 2,900 blog-post milestone without my usual fanfare, which is a telling indicator of rising ennui. (Those who have been watching closely will surely have seen a creeping uptick in repeat content – “old wine in new bottles” – although I try to remain mindful of that.) Historical tarot books and other esoteric texts from the last century and earlier remain a dependable source of aesthetic and academic incentive, although the same can’t be said of many modern publications that are often just lightweight repackaging of the original source material and in my opinion a waste of time. There is some really bad stuff out there, courtesy of the self-publishing boom. When it comes to that, I can write my own books (and I have, five of them; see the “My Publications” sidebar link).

I won’t say that I keep going entirely due to force of habit since that would be the kiss-of-death for innovation, but when I experience a creative vacuum with no influx of mental stimulation, the challenge is considerably greater and requires a force of will to overcome. The best I can do is limp along through the fallow period and aspire to keep things interesting enough to hold onto my loyal readers until I rebound. I will be toning down the opinion pieces in favor of more practical and technical guidance (all “hot air” and no substance makes Jack the dullest of pundits). In the meantime, there is still a large archive to explore for those who don’t mind digging.