Good News I begin this post with some good news. Twenty-five years ago, while I was deeply studying the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, I was looking for aspects of the tradition that few people were researching. I came across a complex divination system used by that Order known as Enochian Chess. Enochian Chess is a completely unique system. Although it uses a standard-sized chessboard, each square was seen as a "truncated pyramid," looking like a pyramid with a square bottom and its top cut off. That resulted in each square having five spaces for information on it. Truncated Pyramid as Seen from Above But that's not all. Enochian Chess has four players instead of

It's my observation that many people are looking into their pasts. These pasts may be genetically based ("My great-great grandparents came from…") or spiritually based ("I feel such a pull to the ________ tradition…"). This can be a great thing or it can be a horrible thing. This was brought up in a wonderful post by Taylor Ellwood entitled "Cultural exchange vs cultural appropriation." Although I agree with Mr. Ellwood's conclusions, we have some disagreements over the details that get there. He states that "[c]ultural appropriation is the wholesale stealing of a given culture's practices." I respectfully disagree. For example, if someone who was not of a particular culture

I have been studying the Tarot and giving readings with it for many decades, thousands of readings. I used to give readings at psychic fairs for as many as forty people a day. That can be really exhausting. The Tarot was one of my earliest occult studies. I've read hundreds of books on the Tarot. I wrote the introduction for one book on the subject (The Rabbi's Tarot), use the Tarot as part of the work in my own books, including Modern Magick, and wrote an entire book on the subject, Tarot & Magic. My novel, The Resurrection Murders, includes the use of the Tarot, too. I was awarded the title of Tarot Grandmaster by the American Tarot Association. I'm sharing these bona fides

—Coming This Saturday, October 12— 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. Eastern——12:00 noon–2:00 a.m. Pacific An Exciting, Worldwide Webinar Topic: How to Make and Use Talismans and Amulets There were some severe technical glitches when I gave this webinar a few weeks ago. As a result, many people who wanted to attend could not sign up and were left out. I am glad to say the problems have now been resolved, but this still prevented many people who had wanted to attend the webinar unable to do so. After talking with the great people at Thelesis Aura we decided two things: first, we decided to give this workshop again so everyone who want to can attend. Second, we’re giving it at a