For today's post I have three items of interest… Item 1 The Contest is Running! —Win a Free Tarot Deck— The winner of the best prediction of the year contest will get a free Tarot deck of their choice. Are you good at making predictions? Here's your chance to show everyone how good you are! See my post at this LINK and make your prediction in a comment to that post! Make your best prediction and win a Tarot deck! Item 2 The Truth About "Bricks and Mortar" Bookstores In a recent article on The Bookseller, the CEO of a small chain of independent U.K.'s bookstores, Foyles, called for an increasing discount from publishers and book distributors. Otherwise, says Sam Husain,

Last weekend (January 26–27, 2013), I attended the 9th Annual Conference on Current Pagan Studies. This was not your typical Pagan festival or convention. The conference took place in a large room at the Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. Although anyone could attend, the presenters from all over the country were primarily university professors and students. Some of them are popularly known. Some of them have academic books and a few had more popular books. With only brief breaks, we listened to the papers being presented by their authors for two full days. There were a few major themes that ran through the conference ranging from who is a Pagan (there has been a

There is a new article on Wired Magazine's website that draws my attention to the difference between real science, scientific writing, and pseudo-science masquerading as science. The article is written by Nathanael Johnson, author of a new book entitled All Natural. I haven't read it yet, but please don't hold that against me—it's not going to be released for another week. The cover of the book identifies the author as a "skeptic." Those of you who regularly read my blog know that I am very skeptical of self-identified skeptics. It turns out that many are not skeptics at all. Rather, they have in their minds a long-obsolete notion of what science includes and will do just about

Before the internet, the main method of communication between Pagans and other magickal folk was through newsletters and magazines. One of the best was Circle Network News.  Many of us eagerly awaited for it to regularly appear and read all of the articles—repeatedly. In 1999 it changed its title to Circle Magazine, but ceased publication in 2010. Now, I'm happy to report that the magazine is back. And there's great news if your subscription was interrupted by their hiatus. Here is their official announcement:   For more than 30 years, CIRCLE Magazine (originally CIRCLE Network News) has brought you information about Pagan and Nature-based spiritual practice, ideas,